In the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham one day last week, sheriff's deputies booked, mugged and fingerprinted an unusual prisoner: Alabama's Attorney General Silas Garrett, 41. Garrett's arrest, on an indictment for vote fraud in the June 1 Democratic primary, was another installment in one of the worst political scandals in Alabama history.
Murder in Phenix City. A few days after Reformer Albert L. Patterson won the Democratic nomination (which means election) for attorney general on June 1, a Jefferson County grand jury began investigating the possibility that someone had altered vote tallies in an attempt to defeat Patterson. Nominee Patterson,...