DOC BIGHAM
from the August 4, 1919 BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
Home for Imbeciles Needed in Alabama
W. D. PARTLOW ,head of the Alabama insane hospitals and secretary of the Alabama Society for Mental Hygiene, contributes to the Tuscaloosa News an interesting and instructive article on society’s most unfortunate and most neglected members the feeble-minded. Dr Partlow discusses the case of “Doc" Bigham ,murderer escaped convict and “moonshiner”, recently executed at Tuscaloosa . Bigham’s career was one of lawlessness and bloodshed or most of his life he was a hunted animal at war with society and the officers of the law. Yet is it any wonder that this illiterate woodsman committed crimes which eventually caused him to be hanged when we consider that according to the alienist he had the mentality of a 11-year-old child? Bigham was not so much an enemy of society as society was an enemy to him — through indifference and neglect. In a better environment, he might have led a better life.
The imbecile and the moron is not only a menace to public safety himself but he marries and has children with the result that the strain is perpetuated. Dr Partlow calls attention to two brothers temporarily admitted to the Bryce Hospital in 1919 from Tuscaloosa County both feeble minded. The older had a mentality of a 4-year-oId child. They have three sisters, two of whom are married and have children yet all are imbeciles. People of this sort can never be made good citizens but they can be protected and cared for and given the opportunities their limited intelligence can grasp. More important still, they can be prevented from marrying and rearing children to become an additional burden to the state and possible criminals. Such people should not be confined in alms houses, jails and insane asylums. It is a barbarous practice that only makes their condition worse. Yet Alabama has neyer had a home for the feeble minded .
The proposed Alabama Home for Mental Inferiors is a crying need and if the state legislature will do its duty it will be established.
KILL SELLERS JAILED CHARGED WITH PERJURY There was somewhat of a sensation about the court house late Tues- day afternoon when KU Sellers, wht hail testified for Doe Bighani during afternoon and whose testimony was later impeached by other witnesses, including Bigham, was placed under arrest on a charge of perjury lie was locked in the county jail. Kil Sellers Is a typical man of the mauntaineer moonshiner type- and ; he gave testimony in the characteristic style of this individual. He de-fighters denied everything that would incriminate himself or anybody else, and swore in such a manner as could I leave little doubt in the mind of any person who heard him that he was nart;ci-! f.ilsifvin. The man denied any knowledge of the presence of a still. cap-! being located at the scene where Sheriff Watts was killed; he denied;" that he had ever visited the scene that he had ever seen the gun which Doc Bigham used in shooting the sheriff or that the gun was the prop-and J erty of his sister.
In fact, re denied practically everything in connection haswith the case-deemed Other witnesses connected Kil Sel lers with the ownership of the still; that he had permitted Bigham to take Hisjthe gun from the Sellers house and great-' that he had been at the still the morning of the day on which the kill-J dream-! mg occurred. Following the adjournment of th court Solicitor Ormond caused a war rant to be issued charging Seller saysjwjtn perjury. 0.
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