Judge Lynch S Cause Cel Bre Fr Ank — Or ( B ) the Mob Was Or Der Ly New Leans Maﬁa

Home , Brooke Hart, John Hartfield, Raymond Gunn, Wesley Everest

JUDGELYNCH

HIS FIRS T HU N D RED Y EARS

BY FRANK SHAY

NEWY ORK WASHBU RN IN C. IVES , By th e Same Auth or

IRON MEN AN D WOODEN SHIPS MY PIOUS FRIENDS AN D DRUNKEN COMPANIONS

’ HERE S AUDACITY# INCREDIB LE PI#ARRO PIRATE WENCH

etc . etc. , JUDGELYNCH

HIS FIRS T HU N D RED Y EARS

BY FRAN K SHAY

N EWY ORK WASHBU RN IN C. IVES , CO IG H 1 8 B Y K H PYR T, 93 , FRAN S AY

All rights r eserved

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S O F A M E R I C A - B Y T H E VA I L B A L L O U P RE S S , I N C . , B I N G H A MT O N , N . Y . Carrter m

Preface “ TO HELL WITH THE LAW

Chapter One THERE WAS A JUDGE NAMED LYNCH

Chapter Two THE EARLY LIFE AN D TIMES OF JUDG E LYNCH Chapter Three ’ JUDG E LYNCH S CODE

Chapter Four ’ JU DG E LY NCH S JURORS

Chapter Five THE JURISDICTION OF JUDG E LYN CH

Chapter Six ’ SOME OF JUDG E LYNCH S CASES ’ ’ e — Leo (A) Judge Lynch s Cause Cel bre Fr ank — Or ( B ) The Mob Was Or der ly New leans Maﬁa

w . ( C ) The Bur ning of Henry Lo ry CO N TE N T S (D) The Law Never Had a Chance Claude Neal ( E ) Th e Five Thousandth— Raymond G unn ( F ) Twice Lynche d in Texas— Ge or ge Hughes (G) Thr ee Governors Go Into Action 1 9 3 3

Who D eﬁe d (H) Those the Bo sses ( 1 ) I 9 3 7

Chapter Seven THE REVERSALS OF JUDG E LYNCH

L nch -Executions in U ni d S s 1 882— 1 y the te tate , 93 7

Bibliography P r efa ce

TO HELL WITH THE LAW

LYN CHING has many legal deﬁnitions : It means one thing in Kentucky and North Carolina and another in

Virginia or Minnesota . For the purpose of this work it is defined as the execution without process of the law, by a mob , of any individual suspected or con victed of a crime or accused of an offense against the prevailing social customs . The State of Minnesota clearly defines it as the killing of a human being by the t act or procurement of a mob . In Ken ucky and North Carolina the lynch -victim must have been in the hands of the law or there was no lynching . Virginia defines it simply as murder and ordains that every person composing the mob , upon conviction, shall be pun ishe d by death . There is more than the Simple dictionary definition of lynching . Behind every lynching, beyond the de is the struction of the unfortunate victim, debasement

x democr a of citizenship , the cruciﬁ ion of justice and f l t t of oﬂicia s, tic government, the pros i ution public P R E FACE

- and the depraved behavior of the mob members . The f es ef ects of a lynching on the mind of an observer,

eciall l . u p y a chi d , cannot be estimated The co se quences of sadistic practices put human relations on a “ : considerably lower plane . Dr . A . A . Brill states Any one taking part in or witnessing a lynching cannot t e ” main a civilized person . It is seldom that a mob gives voice to its creed as one u did the outside Covington , Tennessee , in Aug st, 1 9 3 7 : when urged by the sher iffto let the law take its “ #” course , it cried , To hell with the law It is not only the cry of the lyncher but of ever y other type of

criminal .

1 88 2 Since , when lynchings were ﬁrst recorded,

1 I z vic through 9 3 7 , the toll of the mob has been tims . More than four ﬁfths of these were Negroes , of whom less than one Sixth were accused of rape . Lynchings have declined from a high of 2 3 5 in 1 89 2

1 was to a low of eight for 9 3 7 . The decrease not con Stant: in 1 9 3 2 the number fell to ten only to rise to

- twenty eight in the following year . It is an inevitable fact that during the coming years certain Americans

will meet their deaths at the hands of mobs . Lynchers are criminals in the same sense that mur der er s and kidnapers are criminals : lynching is a CI‘lIIl l

nal activity, and to be put down it must be considered as such . Obviously law enactment is not enough ; rigid 8 P R E FAC E enforcement is necessary and it must be backed up by a public sentiment against the crime . Even the most serious protagonists for a Federal law against lynching do not believe that it will stop the practice . They point out that proposed Federal legislation leaves the appr e he nsion and punishment of lynchers to the state , that it only makes recalcitrant states abandon their do - noth ﬁ ing policy, and that it forces peace of cers to resist the mob beforehand and to prosecute it afterwards . It seeks to guarantee the humblest citizen the due pro cess of the law and the equal protection assured him by the national Constitution . It provides that cowardly and unfaithful public officials may be ﬁned and impr is u o ed , and that the people of the county who permitted the murder be made liable for monetary damages .

Such a law will not eradicate the crime of lynching, but it will convince peace oﬂi cer s that they must not release their prisoners to a mob and that the lynch minded must suppress their sadistic desires : it will serve as an effective curb on a crime that many Ameri n ca s condone .

It is almost impossible to verify statistics relating to lynchings . For this work the author has gone to several sources : from 1 88 2 to I 888 the accepted totals are those compiled by Cutler from the ﬁles of the Chicago 9 P REFACE

r ibune 1 88 1 T , and from 9 to 9 3 7 the records are those of the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People . Some independent research has not materially changed these ﬁgures . For prevented lynch ings, the estimates of Monroe N . Work , of the Depart e ment of Records and R search at Tuskegee , have been accepted . In many communities there are forces strong enough to suppress news of lynch -executions ; in others the bodies of the victims are destroyed or secretly buried , and the members of the small mobs sworn to silence .

For my research I have used the published material of many individuals and organizations . That I have been materially aided by the work of James Elbert

Cutler, Walter White , Arthur F . Raper, and James Harmon Chadbourn is apparent and herewith ac knowledged . Organizations such as the National As sociation for the Advancement of Colored People , the

Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching, the A ni merican Civil Liberties U on, the Industrial Work

ers of the World , the International Labor Defense , ’ and the Workers Defense League have be en helpful

in letters and documents loaned . To the Federal Writ ers ’ Project thanks are due for a leave of absence to

complete this work .

1 0 P REFACE To Alfred Hartog I am indebted for considerable aid and valuable time devoted to research , to Miss

Ri chetta G . Randolph and Julian B . Thomas for the T loan of valuable material and helpful suggestions . O my wife , Edith Shay, my thanks for counsel and help in the arrangement of material and for the compila tion of the bibliography and index .

I I

J UD GE LYNCH

Chapter . Oue

THERE WAS A JUDGE NAMED LYNCH

IT was not until forty years after his death that the name of a Virginia soldier in the War for Independ ence was given to the practice of summary punishment as - is he had introduced a war time measure . It a long way from the mild , repressive measures of Colonel s was Charle Lynch, who known to some as Judge b ear m Lynch , to the legendary ﬁgure g his name whose known victims now number many Of whom went to their deaths by methods almost incon c i l e vab e . Judge Lynch , the real, was an honorable t pa riot , a #uaker whose religious scruples forbade the taking of human life even in war; Judge Lynch, the legend, whose code contains only the sentence of n death, is a savage American whose practices bri g shame to all other Americans . r e A century of lynching, with more than im t t corded vict s in a lit le more han half that time, has placed America in an unenviable position before the

1 anuar 1 1 8 . J y , 93 I 5 JU D G E LY N CH entir e world . It has done incalculable harm not only to as our reputation a civilized country but to ourselves, t our manner of thinking , and the welfare of fu ure gen

er ations .

No nation, ancient or modern , has been entirely free “ ” — from mobs and mobocracy . But mob law is not

- - necessarily lynch law, whereas lynch law is always executed by mobs . The mob is always the result of a temporary or permanent breakdown or failure of a social system; It Is Invariably accompanied by violent f O . death , be it the death of an individual or a class That there are justiﬁable mobs is beside the point ; cer tain diseases are cured by inoculating the patient with a virus that, if administered to one in good health , would in itself produce death . Aberrations of justice are not distinctively Ameri can . Summary justice has been meted to individuals throughout history . There are isolated instances in i modern Europe , but these bear the stamp of genu nely spontaneous action on the part of the people who , ff outraged by his criminality , fell upon the o ender and put him to death . The imperfect evidence at hand would indicate that it was invariably the guilty person is who was lynched and not, as so often the case in this country, one who was merely suspected or accused of t criminali y . Other commentators and historians have sought to

1 6

JU D G E LY N CH and club them to death , to tie them to the tails of young off horses , which were ridden at a gallop ; or the lynch ers would fasten the victim to a log while the women punctured his skin with sharp instruments until death ensued .

- What is now known as lynch law, the court of nu Judge Lynch , and Judge Lynch himself were known to the earliest colonists : Summary justice was meted to misbehavers of almost ever y type and to those guilty of offenses not covered in the common law . It was was an accepted practice , not because there no was formal law, but because formal law undergoing a

- severe change . Today the stool pigeon is the accepted accomplice of all police regulation ; in those early days an informer was invariably in the service of the crown and therefore anathema to all patriots who , when he was him unmasked , undertook to ﬂog him and to hold up to popular exposure and contempt . But the man who laid on the lash , who applied the tar and feathers, or who ordained that the victim be carried on a rail was known as Squire Birch . Many New England communities had Ofﬁcials “ - off known as warners , whose duty comprised the as investigation of all newcomers to character, religion, goods, and other local requirements . If in their wisdom they felt the newcomer was not one who would add

1 8 THERE W A S A JU D GE N AM E D LY N CH

s ni lu ter and wealth to the commu ty, or if his family

- were liable to become public charges , the warners off five - went into action , giving a day warning to clear out . Beyond that their powers of office did not carry n t them . If the ostracized did o leave within the pre scribed time , the people figuratively took the matter into their own hands and brought the head of the fam S ily before quire Birch , who ordained the method of chastisement . After the administration of justice , the offender was taken to the town ’ s limits and ordered “ ”

t u . never to re rn , under penalty of worser treatment Summary punishment was also exercised against di ns t s In a who overstepped trea y bounds, again t h i - c ron c drunkards and wife beaters , and , in certain - u communities, against non ch rchgoers and, in others ,

tobacco smokers . Later, when matters became tense

between the colonists and their British oppressors, violent treatment was used against loyalists— informers who accepted the crown awards for pointing out

patriots or revealing the persons and lairs of smugglers .

The origin of the legendary Judge Lynch has been

- obscured by the legend makers . Ploughing through

histories and memoirs , the last words of oldest inhabit

ants and ﬁrst settlers, folklore , and the works of con I 9 JU D GE LY N C H temporary writers brings out the fact that there was a Judge Lynch and that an act of the Virginia legisla ’ ture was known as Lynch s Law . u Charles Lynch , who was to give his name to a j ris s prudence he never practi ed nor would have tolerated , ’ 1 6 t was born in 7 3 , at Ches nut Hill , his father s estate t in Bedford County , upon which a part of the ci y of

Lynchburg now stands . Lynchburg was not named for fa Charles Lynch but for his elder brother, James . The ther, an Irish redemptioner, had been sold to a planter, and the young immigrant, when his redemption period was completed , married Sarah , the daughter of the ’ house , a professed #uaker . After the planter s death , the mother joined the Society of Friends ; James , the oldest son , became possessor of the estate ; and the two younger sons , John and Charles , took parcels of the family land that lay near the border . Charles followed his mother into the Cedar Creek #uaker meeting, and the records of the congregation show that on Decem

1 1 ber 4, 7 54, the young man and Anne Terrill ﬁrst published their intentions of marriage . Later the young couple established their home on the Staunton River, 2 in what is now Campbell County . For some years Charles was an active member of the

“ 2 Th e eal u e nc omas al er a e Atlantic R J dg Ly h, by Th W k P g , Monthl D e c er 1 1 e 0 . y , mb , 9 20 THERE W AS A JU D G E N A M E D LY N CH

t Socie y of Friends and , for a time , clerk of the monthly

. 1 6 meetings Later the exigencies of the times, 7 7 ,

un caused him to accept public ofﬁce , and he became is - sat factory to the peace loving #uakers , who dis owned him for taking solemn oaths, contrary to the order and discipline of the Friends . It was in that year that Charles Lynch was elected to the House of Bur gesses , where he held his seat until the colony became 1 6 independent . In 7 7 he was a member of the conven tion that sent the instructions to the delegates from

Virginia to the Continental Congress, which exercised a decisive influence on the movement for independ ence . At the beginning of the War for Independence his #uaker principles still influenced his actions to the ex tent o fkeeping him out of active military service . Mr . “ b e Page says : He did not enlist in the army, partly of cause his #uaker principles, but chiefly because his presence was imperatively necessary at home . He had to rouse the spirit of his constituents to support the ac tion he had advocated in the convention . He had to raise and equip troops for the army . He had, as it were , all to mobilize the forces of his country, and attend to the duties of a commissary department . In addition , he had to make some provision in the event of an attack from hostile Indians . 2 1 J U D G E LY N CH

In 1 7 7 8 he had sufli ciently stifled his #uaker se ru ples to accept a commission as Colonel of Militia and to organize a regiment . It was as o fli cer commanding this home-guard or ganization that his name was given to a species of sum mary justice . The theater of war had shifted to the

South , and both armies were in desperate need of horses . The prices paid were so high that gangs of rustlers made horse stealing a lucrative practice . The local courts were only examining courts and the single sat court for ﬁnal trial of felonies at Williamsburg, 3 more than two hundred miles away . To take the pris oners thither, and the witnesses necessary to convict w ﬂi er as m . o c s them , next to i possible Frequently the in charge of prisoners would be attacked by outlaws and forced to release their men , or be captured by

British troops and themselves made prisoners . As practically all of the horses were stolen from

American farmers to be sold to the British forces, the thieves were , for the greater part, Tories . Colonel Lynch placed the matter before his friends and neigh i bors , and it was decided to take things into the r own hands , to punish lawlessness of all kinds , and , so far as t possible , to restore order and securi y to their com “ ” t muni y . It was not the Vehmgericht in any sense , - as omte d but a war time measure . Colonel Lynch w app

8 u l r L - C t e : ynch Law. 2 2 THERE W A S A JU D G E N A M E D LY N CH

presiding justice , and three neighbors , Captain Robert

r . l Adams , J , Colonel James Callaway, and Wil iam ’ Preston , associate justices . Colonel Lynch s home was to be their courthouse . It was the custom of this court to have the accused hiS brought face to face with accuser, permit him to

Sum hear testimony against himself, and allow him to mon witnesses in his own defense . If acquitted, he was his allowed to go , with apologies, inalienable right to sue for false arrest intact . If he was con victe d , he was sentenced to receive the Law of Moses , if which is forty lashes less one , on the bared back; “ ” he did not then shout Liberty forever# he was

strung up by the thumbs until he did so . The most convinced Tory shouted for liberty without further

ado . The chorus of a once popular patriotic song cur rent in Virginia after the war runs as follows

“ ur r for on n H ah Col el Ly ch , Captain Bob and Callaway# never r ne o o o e They tu d a T ry l s , ‘ ’ Until h e cr ied out Liber ty. Later the Tories were greatly encouraged by the

news of the British invasion of Virginia, and they proposed to seize and hold for Lord Cornwallis the stores collected by Lynch for General Greene ’s army 2 3 JUDGE LY N CH

h his in North Carolina . Colonel Lynch , wit regiment , was on the point of setting out to oppose a British army under Benedict Arnold when news of the con spir acy was brought to him . Manifestly it would not “ o do to whip the conspirators , make them sh ut Lib ” er t # y forever and turn them loose , nor could he order them put in irons and taken along with the regiment . The Colonel sought the advice of his fel

- low justices , and it was decided to sentence them to terms of imprisonment of from one to ﬁve years , and

the leader, Robert Cowan, was additionally ﬁned due to war-time inﬂation less than

That was the real Judge Lynch . f After the war, the Tories who had suf ered at the r hands of Colonel Lynch and his associates , th eatened to prosecute them . To avoid lawsuits and to settle a - ff t war time a air for the fu ure , Colonel Lynch laid the whole matter before the Virginia legislature . After h a long debate , for t ere were many unreconstructed followm was Tories yet in the legislature , the g act

1 8 2 passed in October, 7 AN ACT TO INDEMNIFY CERTAIN PER SONS IN SUPPRESSING A CONSPIRACY AGAINST THIS STATE : H - I . W E REAS diver s evil disposed p er sons in th e year one ou n even n r e and ei or th sa d s hu d d ghty, f med a conspir acy and did actually attempt to levy war against 24

JUDG E LY N C H synthetic fabrics unable to bear up under any sort of ’ activi scrutiny . The story of the patriotic Colonel s t ties bears the stamp of authentici y , which the folk tales of the old men and women who “knew him ” when do not . ’ It is a far cry from Lynch s patriotic activities , which gave a new verb to the American language and another personality to our list of legendary characters ,

- - to present day lynch executions , with their barbarous forms of torture and cruel death and carnivals of sadism . It is a still further cry from the efforts of the original Lynch to maintain order and security in the face of armed invasion to the Judge Lynch of today, who , in a peaceful nation , is a constant menace to the order of our society and the security of more than ﬁfteen millions of our citizens .

2 6 Chapter Two

THE EARLY LIFE AN D TIMES OF JUDGE LYNCH

THE career of the legendary Judge Lynch is an

American saga . Early in life he took over the ofﬁce so competently ﬁlled by Squire Birch , and performed the duties of the lower court with a promptness and energy that won for him the admiration of his more m - i patient and energetic fellow citizens . No untried ’ cases clogged the Judge s docket, there were no post onem ents s p or other delays , his decision were quick and their execution never delayed . There were few appeals from his decisions , and practically no rever f was his sals . So e fective handling of the cases brought before him that when the opportunity presented it self he was elevated to the bench of the Court of

Uncommon Pleas , the court from which there is no appeal . During the early years of the nineteenth century the practice of lynching followed along the traditional lines of ﬂogging and tarring and feathering . In cer tain cases the sentence was death by ﬂogging or hang 2 7 JUDGE LY N CH

b . n ing, occasionally yburning In the succeedi g years , the Judge narrowed his decisions to death and sought variety only in a refinement and intensification of the methods of executing the sentence . Before long in his new berth he became known far and wide as “ ” the hanging judge , and his jurisdiction spread across the American continent, confined only by the two oceans and the two borders . Within these confines his i he rides c rcuit, and neither distance nor weather halts his grisly progress .

The earlier work of Judge Lynch was confined to those calls made upon him by the better people of it f the commun y to try o fenders of public morals, ff o enders against prevailing social customs, and , on occasion , persons who had committed acts of out w rageous criminality . His code as flexible to a degree ; invariably the accused was permitted a defense and at times convinced the court of his innocence or was able to Show extenuating influences or justification . There was a period between the sur render of the British at Yorktown and the breakdown of the Crown judicial system and the subsequent development of an American code , based on the various courts . The transition was not accomplished overnight : in the more developed sections it was achieved with a de 2 8 T H E E ARLY LIF E O F JU D GE LY N CH gree of dispatch that made the change almost imper ceptible ; in the sparsely settled and the newly settled sections it required many years . Courts in some of t t O hese places were of limited authori y, thers did not know how far under a democracy their authority carried and were often arbitrary beyond their powers .

In the unsettled communities close to the frontiers, the people were too busy defending themselves from the Indians to worry much about law, and often founded sizable communities that had to depend for their court on some distant county seat .

‘ towns r os er e d As the p p and became populated, the lack of a law court, civil and criminal , became evident, and sometimes they awaited long the appointment of a judge or the visits of the circuit justices . In the mean time the people took the law into their own hands and tried the guilty themselves . Lacking jails and the time to transport the accused to distant courthouses u t - for f r her trial , they resorted to the extra legal meth o ds of Judge Lynch . Punishment for criminality of all types became corporal ; a man was beaten or he was hanged . This type of justice followed the frontier from east to west and continued in existence until the frontier was closed, approximately in the eighteen

as 1 1 1 1 6 nineties ; yet, as late 9 5 and 9 we ﬁnd records of hangings on charges of desper adism in western states . 29 JU D G E LY N CH It is safe to estimate that by the begi nning of the nineteenth century , law enforcement and observa tion were prevalent in all but frontier localities . This period has been termed an era of good feeling, pros er it p y, and the expansion of industry and markets ; we see in it the gradual demand and awarding of more r estr ic and more democratic processes . No property tions to suffrage and the caucus system of selecting candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency

were ﬁnding adherents throughout the country .

Democracy was in full swing, and Andrew Jackson

was its high priest and holy prophet . ’ Democracy s lay-preachers were going up and down the land assuring the people that every man was

a king . Everyman was believing it and , looking about

him with his royal eye , found much that displeased

him . He assumed that it was his kingly prerogative to ’ change the things he didn t like , but his authority, he

sadly learned , was conﬁned to his own person and to

small local groups who thought as he did . He had never thoroughly learned the theory of democracy is and , therefore , was never able to pract e it . Where his he could not get way by diplomacy, he brought in force and violence ; he had won everything that

way, and it seemed the correct way . The things that displeased everyman were soon ]

and economic . He disliked the aliens who were ﬂ oc k 3 0 T H E EARLY LIFE O F JU D G E LY N CH

a ing in, p rticularly the Irish and their church , Whom he tried to rout , In the North he joined his southern brothers in disliking the Negro ; but he disliked him

was especially because he was a slave , and slave labor f i having an unfavorable e fect on the ent re country . From the North he loosed upon the South a ﬂood of i- - ant slavery advocates, most of them self appointed

- and self finance d . The South at first paid little attention to these o propagandists , for their eff rts were confined almost ir t ent ely to the whites , mas ers of slaves , and to the

1 8 2 ministry . It was not until 9 that David Walker, a free Negro living in Boston , published his pamphlet, ’ Walker A l S s ppea . The author had been born in outh

son . Carolina , the of a free Negress and a slave He had acquired enough education to read and write , and had — come to Boston , where he Opened a second hand cloth ing store . The appeal comprised four articles and a preamble “ ” addressed to the Colored Citizens of the World, in but, particular and very expressly, to those of the United States of America . The pamphlet was circulated through the mails at the expense of the t t author . Copies found heir way into the hands of ci y officials in Atlanta and Richmond and were referred i to the Governors of Georgia and Virgin a, who in

turn submitted them to their respective legislatures . 3 1 JU D GE LY N CH fi Of cial protests were sent to Mayor Otis of Boston, demanding immediate suppression of the subversive booklet . Otis replied that the pamphlet had been written by a free black man , whose true name it bore ; that it had not been circulated in Boston ; that he did not personally or officially subscribe to its sentiments nor could he prohibit its circulation through the mails . i He would, and did , publish a general warning to sh p captains and others not to expose themselves to the consequences of carrying the incendiary booklet or other similar writings into the southern st ates .

The Georgia legislature , not satisﬁed with the ’ n Mayor of Boston s a swer, framed and passed a measure providing for forty days ’ quarantine of all in vessels having free Negroes on board , prohibiting ter cour se with such vessels by free Negroes or Slaves , and making the teaching of free Negroes to read

f . and write a penal of ense In Virginia , at a secret ses was sion of the House of Deputies , a bill passed mak t ing it amisdemeanor to teach or permi free Negroes ,

slaves , or mulattoes to be taught to read or write ; it o in or d eath also prescribed ﬁne , imprisonment, ﬂ gg g,

for any white person , free Negro , slave , or mulatto

who should write , print , or circulate among Slaves ,

free Negroes , or mulattoes any paper, book , or pam

phlet tending to incite insurrection or rebellion . The

bill did not pass the Senate . 3 2

JU D G E LY N CH

was . before it discovered Negroes , to the number of eleven hundred , had gathered in the night at a brook some six miles from the city . Under the general leadership of Gabriel they were divided into several

: divisions, each with an objective one was to seize the penitentiary, containing several thousand stand Of arms ; a second was to take the powder house ; while the main body was to press on and take the u l Capitol b i ding, which was to be used as a rallying point and a stronghold . From there on the rebels

a : were to commence the work of sl ughter not a white ,

r . save the French inhabitants , was to be spa ed All conditions at ﬁrst conspired to make the ins ur

rection a success . Richmond was not even in a good

defensive position ; it would be easy to capture , and ,

if the objectives were taken, easier to hold . Secrecy ’ stood in Gabriel s favor until the last hour, when,

already on the march , the rebels were forced by a suffi swollen stream to stop . The pause gave cient time for two slaves to divulge the plot to the white masters s and the revolt was put down . Patrols were e tab lishe d in Richmond and surrounding towns ; on plan tations strict surveillance of Negro quarters was main r s ained . Arre ts, brief hearings , and executions quickly o f llowed , from ﬁve to ﬁfteen slaves being hanged at

a . time Gabriel eluded arrest, and three hundred dol 34 T H E E ARLY LI FE O F JU D GE LY N C H

was f ns lars of ered for his apprehe ion . He was later ’ tu cap red in Norfolk, after having lain in a vessel s was hold for eleven days , and hanged on October 7 ,

80 1 0 . Each executed slave meant a property loss to his

owner that was not entirely repaid by the state . As Virginia lands grew less productive and the planters

faced a future with limited incomes , breeding slaves for the market gradually assumed the proportions of

a leading industry, a matter of some four million dol

lars annually in the late eighteen ﬁfties . Publicity of the slave revolts would have practically destroyed the

market value of Negroes bred in Virginia , and , though there are frequent references to incipient revolts in

1 8 1 6 letters , all public information was suppressed . In

the slaves of Fredericksburg planned a revolt, but

the leaders were betrayed and later hanged .

1 8 2 2 In June , , Charleston , South Carolina , heard

rumors of a slave uprising . Denmark Vesey, a free

Negro , aided by a Peter Poyas, had enlisted Negroes of from forty to ﬁfty miles about the city in a con

spir acy to slaughter the whites and free the blacks . Poyas alone had enlisted no less than Six hundred

slaves , and it was one of these , a household servant, ’ who revealed the plot to his master . After a month s t investigation , only ﬁf y of the thousand supposed to 3 5 JUDG E LY N CH have been concerned were apprehended . Denmark

- Vesey, Peter Poyas , and thirty three others were put s to death without revealing their secret .

In 1 8 0 3 the South wanted the Negro , free and l slave , under control , and the ﬂood of abo itionist as was literature , addressed it , for the greater part , to the Negro , was regarded as a menace . Few slaves N could read , but many free egroes and some slaves whose masters , through kindness , had given them the m es rudiments of education , could and did carry the o f - sage the anti slavery advocates . The entire South f i was frightened ; the slaves lived a dif erent l fe , spoke f i almost a di ferent language from the r masters ; and , as long as the subversive literature was being cir cu was lated , there no security for the whites . The only hope of the southern states was to choke it offat the source .

Each revolt was unsuccessful , yet each one served to put the Negro farther back in his Struggle for education and independence . The laws enacted by ’ South Carolina as a result of Denmark Vesey s con s ir ac p y were unusually severe . All persons of color were debarred from education in its Simplest forms ; all free Negroes coming into the state were to be im prisoned . Numbers of colored men , some of them citizens from the free States , were seized from vessels in South Carolina ports , imprisoned , and ﬁnally sold 3 6 T H E E ARLY LIFE O F JU D G E LY N CH

st into slavery to pay the co s of trial and imprisonment . i The free states , egged on by the abolit onists , pro

t . tes ed , and Massachusetts sent the Hon Samuel Hoar, ff an eminent attorney, to Charleston to e ect and pro cure the release of several colored men , citizens of m n the Bay State , i prisoned u der this ordinance . Mr .

Hoar, accompanied by his daughter, proceeded upon his mission , but was compelled to retire in haste from

t r . Charles on under th eats of personal violence No one , black or white man , from a northern state was per ’ mitted to enter South Carolina s jurisdiction if he proposed to question the validity of her acts . Southern ground was being prepared for the ad of vent Judge Lynch .

The insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia,

1 8 1 in August, 3 , was unlike any of the previous slave uprisings in that it was not the result of a carefully ’ was elaborated plan . It the result of one man s inspira ’ tion , of a single night s conference in the woods by seven black men who proceeded to the work of slaughter almost as soon it was determined upon and the ﬁrst steps arranged . Nat Turner, the leader, was , “ ik his l e predecessors , Gabriel and Vesey, a good nigger

2 1 six On Sunday, August , slaves met in the woods 3 7 JU D GE LY N CH on the plantation of Joseph Travis , ostensibly for a was barbecue . The Travis plantation located in the neighborhood known as Cross Keys , about ﬁfteen miles from Jerusalem Court House and about the same distance from Petersburg . When the roasted Six pig was ready, the who had prepared it were joined by a seventh , a dark mulatto in the prime of W A life , powerfully built, ith strongly marked frican features and a face indicative of intelligence and res l i o ut on . . This was Nat Turner his After the pig was eaten , Turner harangued fellows in earnest, moving rhetoric depicting the wretchedness of the Negroes ’ lot and proving by

Scripture that he had been called to free his brothers . All conceded the tr uth of his assumption and declared themselves ready to follow him . The conference con i t nued for several hours . “ was It agreed , said Turner later in his confession, ni that we should commence at home that ght and , until we had armed and equipped ourselves and gained ffi su cient force , neither age nor sex was to be spared , ” which was invariably adhered to . The general design was to conquer Southampton County first and then t e the rest of the state . In case of defeat they could D ism afSwam t treat to the p , which was about twen y five i In m les distant, whose fastnesses they felt they could find security . 3 8 T H E E ARLY LI F E O F JUDGE LY N CH m The Negroes left their retreat after idnight , and before dawn were well started on their short career of death and destruction . The house of a widow was

first visited , and the family of five whites murdered . A neighbor hearing their screams hurried to the scene i eturn to find all five dead ; on his to his own home, he was informed by his Negro houseboy that his own wife and child had been murdered . The family of ’ Turner s master were the next victims, and the leader, u his with new recr its by dawn , continued work of slaughter . In one thing the Negroes were more humane than Indians or white men fighting against Indians : there was no gratuitous outrage beyond the death blow itself, no insult , no mutilation . But in every house they entered the blow fell on men, women, and children ; no one with a white skin escaped . From every house they took arms and ammunition , and from a few, money . On every farm and plantation they secured recruits . The mob increased from house to house ,

- first to fifteen , then to forty, finally to sixty odd .

Some were armed with muskets , others with axes and ’ even scythes ; some commandeered their dead masters ﬁft -ﬁve — horses . Before the day closed , y whites men, — women , and children had been killed .

The other whites , driven from their homes , aban done d everything in the desire to get away from 3 9 JU D GE LY N CH danger and to shut from their eyes the sight of the vengeful Negroes . Annoyed by the Slow progress of his men and realizing that delay would bring armed whites from other districts, Turner decided to strike out for Jerusalem Cour t House to intercept fugitives and cut offcommunication with Norfolk and Fortress

Monroe . His men, Still three miles from the Court

House , decided to Stop and enlist the many Slaves of

v . a Mr . Parker . The halt pro ed disastrous Eighteen white men , mounted and armed , rode up and con l fronted the whole body of b acks . In the pitched bat off tle that followed , the Negroes drove the whites , pursuing them and killing and wounding several . A fresh band of whites coming up at that moment stayed

the pursuit, gave fresh battle , and compelled the

blacks to break and run . Those on foot scattered, leaving their leader and about twenty others to ﬁght

. saw it out Turner that his cause was lost, that more

and more white men were arriving, and gave the

order to scatter and seek shelter . A few were told

where they were to meet him . The mob dispersed as i though into air , many members returning to the r homes as though nothing of import had occurred Roving bands of armed white men sought out the Negroes ; many of the rebellious slaves were shot on f sight , and some innocent Negroes suf ered . Some 40

JU D G E LY N CH were tortured to death , burned, maimed and subjected ” 2 to nameless atrocities .

Slave owners , those who had not been destroyed by Turner and his mob , began ﬁling claims for com pensatio n for slaves killed to the number of over one — e hundred this , in face of the fact that the wid st ’ estima te of Turner s forces gave the number at Sixty odd . Nor was the slaughter of blacks stayed until slave owners threatened to shoot down any “patrol ” found on their premises . Not a few of these self constituted guardians of the peace later boasted that “ ” they had killed their share of the niggers . -ﬁve Fifty slaves were arrested for trial , of whom t seventeen were convicted and hanged , twelve rans and ported to the deep south , twenty acquitted , Others held for further examination . Turner evaded capture for six weeks ; his retreat was a hole in the ground

under a pile of fence rails . When he was taken he was in c persecuted various ways , whipped, and senten ed n to be hanged . His co fession implicated no others, and assumed all the blame , asked the mercy of his t God . His body, after death , was urned over to sur

geons for dissection . For the beneﬁt of other Slaves

who might seek freedom through insurrection, the news was broadcast that his skin had been tanned

for leather and his body rendered to grease .

2 r : t r e ir Victo His o y ofAm r ican Consp acies . 4 2 T H E EARLY LIFE O F JU D GE LY N CH

’ Despite Turner s confession, there was no doubt in the minds of the Southerners as to who was r e ’ s ponsible for Nat Turner s insurrection . As though n by universal accord , the accusi g ﬁngers of the entire So uth were pointed in the direction of William Lloyd

Garrison , Arthur Tappan , and George Thompson . Copies of their papers were burned and their agents were mobbed and beaten whenever discovered . The ction only served to fasten the chains of ig m orance more ﬁrmly upon the Negro ; too , it deprived n him of the co ﬁdence of his masters , it restricted his tl l t lit e iberties , and substi uted violence and cruelty .

After that day, for a colored man to be caught con w i ning a spelling book as to bare h s back to the lash . There was a more grievous indictment of the whites than of their rebelling slaves . Where Turner n had killed cleanly, the whites in retaliatio tortured, mutilated , and burned , conducting themselves like f barbarians . In of enses committed by Negroes and

Abolitionists , the orderly processes of the law no ﬂi longer su ce d ; the law was too slow .

The education of Judge Lynch was progressing . The governors of the slave States did nothing to i ’ amel orate conditions . Despite Turner s confession, the Governor of Virginia told the legislature that there was much reason to believe that the insur r ec tion In Southampton and the plots discovered else 43 JU D GE LY N CH

deSI ne d where had been g , planned and matured by unr estrained fanatics in some of the neighb oring S tates, who ﬁnd facilities in distributing their views and plans amongst our populaton, either through the ffi u posto ce , or by agents sent for that p rpose through ” out our territory . Other governors of southern States wrote to the executives of the free states from which the Ince n diary publications had been issued , asking that they or be suppressed, that they at least not be sent into the slave States . Refusal to make use of every possible means to achieve these demands would be evidence of a spirit “hostile to that friendship and good under ” standing which should characterize Sister States . Almost to a man the governors of the offending states pointed out that the writers and publishers were free n u citizens , that their respective state constitutio s p held the right of free speech and a free press , and that i n . they, regrettably, could do noth g The people of the South realized, too , that under the law they could do little to prevent the invasion and circulation of V abolitionist literature , and they turned to iolence and asked the young Judge Lynch to hear some of their cases . ’ The Liber ator According to Garrison s of October, 1 8 1 n 3 , a dispatch dated Wilmington, North Caroli a,

2 8 : the September , said Three ringleaders of late 44 T H E E AR L Y LIFE O F JU D G E LY N CH diabolical conspiracy were executed at Onslow Court 2 r d House on Friday evening last, 3 instant, by the ” ’ people . The news was followed by the editor s bit ter comment that “executed by the people doubtless means executed by a mob on suspicion of guilt, with ” out investigation or trial .

as In what were known the free states of the North , the abolitionist s were no happier than in the slave

1 8 states . In 3 3 a meeting in Clinton Hall , New York t was l Ci y, cal ed to demand the immediate emancipa tion of the slaves and the formation of an Anti-Slavery t Socie y . The call had gone out to those sympathetic was to the cause , but before it opened, the hall was taken over by those opposed to the movement . The owners ordered it closed , and the meeting adjourned to Tammany Hall , where resolutions were adopted declaring it improper and inexpedient to agitate the question of slavery and assuring the South of a ﬁxed and unalterable determination to resist every attempt to interfere with the relation of master and slave . It was during the immediate excitement of this episode that William Lloyd Garrison retur ned from

- England , determined to open his great anti Slavery t in campaign in New York Ci y . He abandoned his tention at once and hurried on to Boston, but word 45 JUDG E LY N CH of the Tammany Hall meeting had preceded him , and his arrival was met with an attempt to mob him . A handbill was distributed urging all true Americans to attend the greeting armed with plenty of tar and feathers . That year Garrison succeeded in forming the — American Anti Slavery Society, with the avowed purpose of organizing subsidiary societies in every city, town , and village in the land , to send forth agents , circulate tracts and pamphlets , enlist the pulpit and press in the cause of the slave , give preference to the products of free labor over those of slaves , and bring the nation to a speedy repentance . In the southern States the agents were met by mobs and and beaten, tarred and feathered , taken to the city or county line and warned that further offense would be treated more violently . In the North the reaction was against the Negroes , and a mania for Negro - mobbing broke out : there were riots at C0

lumbia and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Trenton and

Bloomﬁeld , New Jersey, and Rochester, New York . s i In Philadelphia , several person were k lled and others wounded , and thirty houses were destroyed . Investi gation Showed that the riots were due to the fact that many employers preferred the cheaper black labor and so made it difficult for white working men to sup

port their families . Among other causes were the 46 T H E EARLY LIFE O F JU D GE LY N CH demonstrations by Negroes whenever a fugitive w slave as tried in the courts .

While in England , Garrison had invited George i Thompson , a dist nguished orator in the cause of o abolition in Great Britain , t lecture in America . 1 8 Thompson arrived in New York in September, 34 . He wasgreeted by a warning in the Cour ier and Eu uir er q not to lecture in that city , and was ejected from his suite in the Atlantic Hotel at the demand of an angry Southerner . He then began a lectur e tour of New England and fared no better . In Augusta,

Maine , the windows of his lodging were stoned and he was requested to leave town under penalty of a was mobbing ; at Concord his meeting broken up , and in Lowell he was prevented from speaking by a mob that later adopted a resolution assuring the South that its rights would not be interfered with by the

North . ni For all these adverse reactions , the Abolitio sts

1 8 went on with their work . In 3 5 the American Anti Slavery Society sent an appeal to the local societies r asking for for more agents , more literatu e , and wider distribution . Most of the money was sub at -five scribed once , and twenty thousand copies of ’ The Slave s Fr iend and fifty thousand each of Human Ri hts Anti-Slaver Re cor d The Emanci ator g , y , and p was were sent into southern states . None addressed 47 JU D G E LY N CH directly to free Negroes or to slaves, though the zealous agents were not instructed to limit their dis tr ib utio n to the whites . Almost simultaneously with this flood of aboli tio nist literature into the southern states, two Negroes in Lexington , Mississippi , were overheard talking of al a planned insurrection among the slaves . Rumors rea dy afloat indicated that the infamous Murrell gang was planning a revolt of the blacks . The two Negroes i1n r ob able were examined at public meeting, and so p were their stories that they were remanded to jail to await further developments . A mob immediately formed and, fearing the Negroes would be set free , seized and hanged them .

This was excellent training for young Judge Lynch .

was : n Too , it excellent mob action the i vestigation now had to proceed without its two most important

witnesses . The mob action continued with the ap pointment of a vigilance committee vested with full

power to arrest, try, condemn , and execute . Two m white men , na ed Cotton and Saunders, itinerant

steam doctors by profession , were arrested , placed on

trial , and ordered hanged . One , before the noose was

tightened , made a confession in which he boasted that he had agents on every plantation and warned

the committee to beware of the Fourth of July, nam

ing several black and white confederates . Those named 48

JU D G E LY N CH

“ w t as . indignant citizens held For years pas , the gamblers have made our city their place of rendezvous . They support a large number of tippling-hous es no citizen is ever secur e from their villainy . Our streets are ever resounding with the echo es of their 3 set sub drunken mirth . A of resolutions was mitte d and adopted by unanimous acclaim :

“ Resolved : That notice be given to all professional gam bler s the i i n of Vi ur ar e r v , that c t ze s cksb g esol ed to ex clude them fr om this place and this vicinity; and that ’ twenty-four hours notice ' b e given them to leave the place . “ Resolved: That all per sons per mitting far o - dealing in i u b e no i il r o e the r ho ses , also t ﬁed they w l be p s cuted er e o th f r . “ Resolved: That 1 0 0 co pies of the for e going r esolutions be pr inte d and stuck up at the corner s of the Streets ” and i i i that th s publ cat on be deemed notice .

Some ﬁfty of the gamblers took heed and ﬂed , but i they were the small fry, eas ly frightened ; the top

men, the worst characters , remained , and on the night

of the ﬁfth , another was taken out and treated like his r e fellow of the day before . More left , but ﬁve

mained , and , deciding to give the mob a dose of its

own medicine , barricaded themselves in the tavern of the John North , ready for anything . On the sixth ,

3 Co a es : The la ar t Out w Y e s. 5 O T H E E ARLY LI FE O F JU D G E L Y N CH mob reassembled and , followed by a crowd of towns men , marched to the barricaded gin mill and de m ande d the unconditional surrender of the gamblers .

This was refused . f The tavern was surrounded , and an e fort made to force an entrance . As the door was burst open , the ﬁ gamblers replied with gun re , and Dr . Hugh S . Bod ley went forward to par ley . A Shot from an upper

was . window killed him , and the ﬁght on Incensed, the mob rushed into the building and overcame the gamblers by force of numbers . Five were captured , including the owner of the tavern, and they were i dragged out, pummeled , and strung up in conven ent doorways along the street . Orders were issued that “ t w t - as their bodies were to hang for en y four hours, a ” warning against those that had escaped . Later the bodies were cut down and buried in a ditch .

1 8 The year 3 5 , his ﬁrst on the bench , was a heavy

one for Judge Lynch . His jurisdiction was broaden ing and he was being requested to hear cases of all

a ll . types , over the South Many of the lesser cases

were turned over to Squire Birch . The Judge con a ﬁned his interests to cases having r cial , politico

economic backgrounds , and those involving religious

controversy . But, he insisted, they must be capital

ca ses or referred to the lower court of Squire Biroh . ’ N iles Weekl Re ister its y g , in issue of September 5 , 5 1 JU D G E LY N CH

1 8 3 5 , commented upon the activities both of Lynch

and Birch .

During the last and present week we have cut out and i si r n 00 a i e r in to v i u la d a de mo e tha 5 rt cl s, elat g the ar o s excitements now acting upon th e people of the United S e u i and r iv e #So ie e e ve r un tat s, p bl c p at c ty s ms e rywhe e ‘ ’ in e and n o f o and er h as n h g d , the demo blo d slaught bee let loose upon us#W e have the Slave question in many i f r n r in in th e r o in of i n d f e e t fo ms, clud g p ceed gs k d apers and m ans teal er S— and other s belonging to th e fr ee N e groes : the pr oscr iption and per secution of gamblers: with mobs gr owing out of local matter s— and a gr e at col i n of ofvio en e r iv or r n n tu e lect o acts l c of a p ate pe so al a r , n in in and r r iev h an u e d g death ; eg et to bel e , also, t at awf l ‘ political outcr y is about to be r aised to r ally the poor ’ against the r ich #W e have executions and mur der s and io o i i th e nion r ts to the utm st l m ts of u . The character o ur o n r m en e u nl n e and o of c u t y se ms s dde y cha g d , th u sands inter pr et the law in their own way— sometimes in o ne e and n in n t er ui e r en nl cas , the a o h , g d d appa tly o y i i ” by the r own w ll .

In that year and in the years immediately follow set ing, Judge Lynch the pattern for his entire career . Those brought before him were no longer beaten as s off a punitive mea ure and sent ; if they were beaten , it was to the death— if they escaped death in that 5 2 T H E E A RLY LIFE O F JU D GE LY N CH manner, it was to meet it by hanging, drowning, or

r . bu ning Only with the aid of inventions , not yet was perfected , the Judge to be able to vary his orders in carrying out the death sentence . ’ Even before the N iles Register lament had ap ear e d e p , Judge Lynch had be n summoned across the Th Li r t border into the State of Alabama . e be a or of

1 8 July 4, 3 5 , reprinted an item from a Mobile paper . Two Negroes were on trial for most barbarously mur “ i t dering two children, and obviously gu l y . As the Court pronounced the only sentence known to the e law the smother d ﬂame broke forth . The laws of the country had never conceived that crimes could be perpetrated with such peculiar circumstances of t barbari y, and had therefore provided no adequate ni pu shment . Their lives were justly forfeited to the laws of the country, but the peculiar circumstances demanded that the ordinary punishment should be de parted from they were seized , taken to the place where they perpetrated the act, and burned to ” death . It might have been 1 9 3 5 ; the story would almost

1 2 1 read the same . On November , 9 3 5 , in Colorado ,

Texas , a mob estimated at seven hundred persons took two Negroes , accused of the murder of a white girl, from the officers of the law and hanged them at the scene of their crime . 5 3 JU D GE LY N CH Before Judge Lynch had been a year on the bench of the higher court , he had Struck his full stride . The ’ ‘ earliest of his many causes ce le br es ﬁrst came before n 6 1 8 . him for hearing in the Spri g of 3 , in St Louis,

Missouri , and , though an attempt was made to reverse — his decision , it was upheld by none other than Judge

Lawless . “ Greater love hath nOman the tremendous irnplications of the words were not meant for colored men, free or slave , black or mulatto . Subsequent to

1 8 6 a the actions of 3 , no Negro may lift his h nd in ’ defense of another Negro , not if the ﬁrst Negro s opponent is a white man . Too many colored men have stretched hemp for aiding their friends to escape from the law and from the lawless to make exception to this ruling of Judge Lynch .

1 8 6 In April , 3 , a colored man was arrested for some ff s s m u forgotten o en e on a Missi sippi river boat . A McIntosh latto , a freeman named , it was alleged , aided the prisoner to escape and was in turn arrested ff r fi by the o icers . He tu ned upon the of cers , drew a ff in knife , and stabbed a deputy sheri , killing him stantl In and n . Me y, seriously wounded a co stable t tosh made his escape , but was later cap ured and locked up in a St . Louis jail . Later a mob assembled and threatened to tear down the jail if the prisoner was o not delivered to it, secured the Negr and con 54 T H E E A R L Y L I F E O F JUDGE LY N CH him ducted to the outskirts of St . Louis . His body was bound with ropes and fastened to a tree with chains, a few feet from the ground . A ﬁre was then started beneath him and he was roasted to death .

Even in those rough and tough days , this atrocity was too much for the citizens of St . Louis , and the matter was placed before the Grand Jury of St . Louis

County for action . Judge Lawless made the following astounding charge

ve r eﬂ e on i t er and r ei I ha ect d much th s mat , afte w gh ing all the consider ations that pr esent themselves as bear in on it e e it u to e O inion to g up , I f l my d ty stat my p be, e er the r n ur n that wh th G a d J y shall act at all , depe ds o n th e u ion i r i in r ue ion e up sol t of th s p el m a y q st , nam ly, whether th e destruction of McIntosh was the act of the ‘ ’ ‘ ’ few o e r th act of the many . “ If o n a calm view o fth e cir cumstances attending this r e u r n ion ou b e of th e o inion d adf l t a sact , y shall p that it e e e ni e and o r e to was perp trat d by a d ﬁ t , , c mpa d the o u io n i nu r of in ivi l o f St . o p p lat L u s , a small mbe d dua s, r r th e s and evi n in u n sepa ate f om ma s , de tly tak g po them e ves as on r i in ui e r o th e u i e th e t e s l , c t ad st g sh d f m m lt tud , o n i i it th e o ini n is ou sp s b l y of act, my p o that y ought to

in i e i ou sin e e e ion. d ct th m all , w th t a gl xc pt “ on o r n th e e r ion of r r r If the the ha d, d st uct the mu de e o n was v i of th e n — Of of Hamm d the act as I ha e sa d, ma y itu in th e r in r en o e or - not the mult de, o d a y s se of th s w ds nu er e and e t in e e or the act of m abl asc r a abl mal fact s, but n r e nd i on and i of co g gated thousa s , se zed up mpelled by 5 5 JUDG E LY N CH

er io e i and o r i r n that myst us, m taphys cal alm st elect c ph e sy, i in n ion and e h as ur r ie on th e in r i e wh ch , all at s ag s , h d fu at d u i e to e e of e and ru i n— en sa m lt tud d ds d ath dest ct o th I y, act no t at all in th e matter — th e case trans cends your — jur isdiction it is beyond the r each of human law .

Which seems as nice a bit of judicial fence -strad ’ dling as one could hope to ﬁnd in a lifetime s search . What Judge Lawless— his tribe has increased— meant

was that if two or three do the lynching, it is inde fensible un , but that if it is perpetrated by a number, at countable a glance or undeterminable in the night,

it is all right . To avoid prosecution in the future , mobs “ ” A a . S must be bigger and better, at le st many travel

conditions improved , the Judge believed , he would be able to command mobs numbering more than ten

thousand .

The case was not yet ﬁnished . For denouncing the burning of McIntosh and violently attacking the deci sl on s The of Judge Lawles in his weekly paper, bser ver O . , The Reverend Elijah F Lovejoy had his ff th e . printing o ice destroyed by mob The press , how -ﬁve u ever, was saved and shipped twenty miles p the Mi ssi ssi I pp to Alton , Illinois , where Lovej oy planned set to it up and resume publication . But the mob took it from the wharf and dumped it into the river the

night it arrived . Alton people , led by the Presby ter ians , held a mass meeting , denounced the action 5 6

JU D G E LY N CH

r e supporters tried to prevent this , the clergyman ceive d ﬁve shots in his body and died a few minutes e later . The men guarding the press , seeing their lead r down , beat a hasty retreat, and the mob entered the warehouse unr esisted and threw the offending press u was from the windows . The work of destr ction

ﬁnished with sledge hammers by the mob in the street . There was yet another voice raised against Judge — Lynch . A young lawyer of twenty eight arose before ’ i the Young Men s Lyceum of Springﬁeld , Illino s , on

2 1 8 the night of January 7 , 3 7 , to deliver an address “ ” on The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions . i ’ Abraham Lincoln, speak ng before Lovejoy s death ,

: said , in part “Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the everyday news of the times . They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana . It would be tedious as well as useless to recount the horrors of all of them . Those happenings in the State of Mississippi and at St . Louis are perhaps the most t dangerous in example and revolting to humani y . In the Mississippi case they ﬁrst commenced by hanging the regular gamblers . Next, Negroes suspected of conspiring to raise an insurrection were caught up and hanged in all parts of the State ; then , white men u s pposed to be in league with the Negroes; and , s ﬁnally, strangers from neighboring tates, going 5 8 T H E EARLY LIFE O F JU D GE LY N CH

i s th ther on busines , were in many instances subjected to the same fate . Thus went on the process of hang ing, from gamblers to Negroes, from Negroes to white citizens , and from these to strangers , till dead men were literally dangling from the boughs of trees n by every roadside . Tur then to that horror i str king scene at St . Louis . A single victim was sacri ﬁc f ed there . A mulatto man by the name O McInto sh was seized in the street, dragged to the i suburbs of the city, cha ned to a tree , and actually burned to death ; and all within a smgle hour from the time he had been a freeman attending to his own business and at peace with the world . “ f Such are the e fects of mob law, and such are the scenes becoming more and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love of law and order, and the stories of which have now grown too familiar to at ” tract anything more than an idle remark . In Alton the Grand Jury brought in indictments agains t several men involved in the slaying of the l Reverend E ijah Lovejoy, but the cases were not s pres ed . When the case of one of the assailants came up in the municipal court, the jury considered him guilty of all the charges but returned a verdict of not guilty on a question of jurisdiction . Judge Lynch for a time stuck pretty close to the s cotton states . He found them fertile ﬁeld for his 5 9 JU D GE LY N CH i pecul ar type of justice and , in those early days , he was but little concerned with the complexion of his ’ victim s skin . In Louisiana a white man killed another u u white man, and the m rderer was tried in a s mmary

1 8 manner and executed by hanging . In 3 9 two alleged white murderers who had escaped from jail were r e taken and remanded to jail to await the collection of testimony ; the mob was impatient and , without await ing the trial , condemned the pair out of hand and hanged them . ’ N iles Re ister 2 Cutler reprints from g of August 4, 1 844 : “ Four men , Rea , Mitchell , White and Jones were t tried and condemned before his honor, Chief Jus ice 6 h 1 t . Lynch , on the inst at South Sulphur , Texas , for killing two men and one boy of the Delaware tribe of friendly Indians . They were executed under said sentence the next day, in the presence of a large ” number of persons .

1 8 In 45 the Judge was back in Missouri where , in u September, he hanged without f rther trial two white men on the charge of murder . Early the following year he introduced his system of jurisprudence into

Florida, and he had to stretch matters to make a go of it . “ A man by the name of Yeoman , accused of being a noted slave stealer, having been discharged by Judge

60 T H E E A R L Y LI F E O F JU D GE LY N CH

Warren of Baker County , Georgia, on a writ of habeas cor us his f t p on arrival at Jef erson Coun y, i Florida , n nety citizens assembled and took a formal

6 2 vote , which stood 7 for and 3 against hanging him . ” 4 He was hanged accordingly , In 1 85 5 Judge Lynch added Tennessee to his list with a mass -hanging of Negroes ; a year later he in off vaded Virginia , but the Old Dominion victim got with a slicking . In all the Slave states, Abolitionists , when caught, were slicked without further ado , and it was only upon occasion that they were put to death . Slaves accused of almost any kind of criminality were r as l t ansported , and a rule on y free Negroes were put w . as to death When a slave destroyed by the mob , the state or the community invariably reimbursed the i owner for h s loss . 1 860 By , lynchings had disgraced every one of the slave states and many of the free States ; the fr uit of ’ As Judge Lynch s decisions hung from many trees . though bored with simple hangings , and even burn a ings , the Judge regularly incre sed the barbarity and savagery of the punishments . They began with whip o u - b um ping, went to mutilation and half hanging to

. as n ing Today, in the case Claude Neal , it is not i frequent for the victim to be Slowly hoisted by the neck and then lowered just before death comes to his

4 ’ N iles We ekl Re ister anuar 1 1 8 6 uo e b Cu ler . y g , J y 7 , 4 , q t d y t 6 I JU D GE LY N CH relief and for the torture to be repeated until the lynchers weary of their sadism and mercifully— if — the term be permitted in such an instance kill . The practice of increasing the severity of the punishment

1 continued through the years until , in 9 3 7 , a Missis sippi mob brought in an entirely new development

of torture .

The Lib er ator 1 1 880 of September 4 , , printed an

extract from a letter written from Houston , Texas .

It voices a general Southern complaint . “Tell your abolition friends to go on and soon they will have the pleasure of seeing the Negro reduced to such a state of hopeless bondage that they m ay well

pity them . I solemnly declare that today the Negro is # not as free as he was two or ﬁve years ago ; and why Simply because his master has been goaded on to des

er atio n p by incendiary acts and speeches . Now he fears the Negro and binds him down as you would

a savage animal . One year ago all was peace and quiet ness here . The Negro was allowed to go out, to have dances and frolics ; today one dare not show his head ’ after nine o clock in the evening . Seven companies

of patrols are organized and guard the city each night,

- sixteen horse patrol scour the country around . Forty sa as eight vigilance men y live , banish or die , the

proof may go to show . Men are hung every day s by the decision of the planters , lawyers , judge and 6 2 T HE EARLY LI FE O F J U D G E LY N CH

. t but ministers It is no hot impe uous act, cool , stern ” justice . The Liber ator Three years before , reported that a traveler in Texas had seen twelve bodies hanging from one tree and ﬁve from another . Editorially, Garrison had said in 1 85 6 “A record of the cases of ‘Lynch Law ’ in the Southern States reveals the Startling fact that within twenty years , over three hundred white persons have been murdered upon the accusation— in most cases unsupported by legal proof— ofcarrying among Slave holders arguments addressed expressly to their own as intellects and consciences , to the morality and ex i ” ped ency of slavery . It would be difficult to estimate the number of t Negroes lynched in the same wenty years , and it is po ssible that any estimate based on the few known cases would Show that number was considerably less As h as than that for the whites . been pointed out, the was t Negro property, each adult male of under for y ﬁve being worth approximately more if he “ ” ’ knew a trade , less if he was a bad nigger . Garrison s statement cannot be questioned , for most of the white men lynched had been sent to the tasks, to the work that earned for them the death they received at

- the hands of the mob , by the American Anti Slavery t Society and i s branches . Few of the white men were 6 3 J U D G E LY N CH offered the indignities to which the Negroes were sub j ecte d ; they were politely hanged and their bodies left for the coroner to bury . Savagery and brutality were reserved for the blacks ; even after death their m o iﬁ i n bodies were further subjected to rt cat o . Even h in t ose days , before the Civil War , the lynching of colored people meant more than reprisals for crimes committed , than measures taken to keep the Negro hi his . in place , to protect w te womanhood

Judge Lynch went to California long before gold was discovered . His ﬁrst recorded case was in San

- Diego , a city now ill famed for its tendency to mob action in matters concerned with labor . Like so many h subsequent Golden State lync ings , it was a jail snatch .

“ 2 6 1 8 Ali as On the night of March , 3 3 , Antonio p , a L was private in the presidial company of oreto , in the f n th e guardhouse for an unrecorded o fense . Duri g evening a corporal and his squad , all mounted and armed , rode up to the jail and demanded that the t sergeant deliver Antonio to hem . The sergeant r e fused, and the soldiers forced the guardhouse and took ’ the prisoner for California s ﬁrst lynching .

Four years later, in Los Angeles , another snatch occurred . Domingo Feliz, a poor but honest cuckold, 64

JU D GE LY N CH

S loving . The tampede to the gold ﬁelds included men of the highest types and those whose departure from their accustomed haunts brought sighs of content from fi local peace of cers . Once in the mines , the search for minds and the metal occupied the efforts of all , each man using the talents at his command to get rich as

quickly as possible . Americans competed with Rus

- sians, Frenchmen , Spanish Americans , and others whose language they did not understand , with crimi nals from Australia and South America, whose ways they but par tially understood . The Americans protested that these foreigners were being permitted to dig American wealth from Ameri

can Soil and take it , without hindrance , to their own “ ” countries . The cry that the greasers must go was heard throughout the mines , and a law was passed, the Foreign Miners License Tax, requiring all South Americans to pay twenty dollars monthly for permis sion to dig for gold . It drove them from the mines into the towns , and their places were taken by Chinese and

Paciﬁc Islanders as employees . Later the China Boys and the Kanakas were driven from the mines to the settlements and , added to the natural accretion of a

criminal element, made Sacramento and San Francisco

nests of crime and criminals . The absence of strong governments in the Cities made criminal activities a proﬁtable venture . Gangs 66 T H E E ARLY LIFE O F JU D GE LY N CH preyed upon merchants and restaurateurs , and when a his miner came down from the hills, poke well ﬁlled with gold , he too became the prey of the vultures . Men of respe ctability were so absorbed in the accumu lation of wealth they could not spare the time for civic so activities . When conditions got bad that they them in selves were danger, they turned and found that the criminal element had completely taken over the local

1 8 1 ef governments . In 5 they turned to vigilance and fecte d a superﬁcial and temporary reformation . That the committees made errors , that at times the wrong i n . man was executed , cannot be de ed Even the most ﬁrmly established courts err and learn of their mis

takes too late for correction . Vi i Like the kangaroo courts of Judge Lynch , the g lautes superseded the offices held by the regularly con stituted police and peace officers as well as the judi ciar y . They apprehended the accused , tried him and s sentenced him, and , if neces ary, executed the duties m t of the hang an . Considering their success in s amp m t ffi ing out cri inali y, it is di cult to condemn them ; they did not take to the execution of summary jus

tice until formal justice had broken down .

Vigilance pursued its way through the West . All the coast states and most of the mountain states sought

in it peace and protection of life and property . When

the people had stamped out criminality, they returned 67 JUDGE LY N CH

— to their gold grubbing , ignoring the old adage . The

criminals lost no time in returning to their old haunts , and again in 1 885 vigilance was called upon to rid

the communities of their presence . This time it was e f stronger, it was more complete and f ective , and ,

when its ﬁrst tasks were complete , it went on to the l ff po ls and elected o icials who could be trusted , a judi ciar y that could not be easily tampered with . The new

form , radical and permanent, was adopted throughout n the West and , in too many places , became commo lynching . Men suspected of crime , others accused of

criminal activities , some of them already in the hands

- of the law, were taken by pseudo vigilance committees

and put to death . Hangings became spectacles ; the condemned were forced to build the scaffolds from which they were later hanged . Men and women came great distances to witness the executions of ﬁve , ten , and even twenty The N ew Y or k robbers and murderers (Idaho) .

imes 1 1 86 ac T , on March 9 , 4, commenting upon the tivities of the Vigilance Committees throughout the “ mineral territories , said they are holding Lynch r u i courts in ext aordinary n mber, and carry ng out the decrees of that ferocious judge with unprecedented ” energy . The same editorial mentions that bills had been passed in Congress enabling Nevada and two other territories to form constitutions preparatory to 68 T H E EARLY LIFE O F J U D G E LYN CH their admission as states . A condition of admission was an irrevocable ordinance prohibiting slavery, and the “ writer added : we think lynching might have been ” included . mur der er s and Horse thieves , u desperadoes have been hanged under the guise of vigilance as late as

1 1 9 5 in Arizona , when two alleged bandits were

1 1 lynched at Lonely Gulch ; in Texas in 9 5 , at San i six Ben to , when were hanged on charges of murder and desper adism ; and in Arkansas in I 9 1 6 for highway robbery .

The War Between the States did not interrupt the activities of the Vigilance Committees operating in the western territories, but it did change , to some de ’ gree , the Southerner s relation to the Negro . After the surrender of General Lee , the Thirteenth Amend ment became effective in the former slave states ; the was was t i Slave now free , but he s ill a Negro , still g

t S . no ant, till loyal in many cases to his former master Governor Walker of Florida said in his inaugural ad dress : “Not only in peace but in war they have been faith ful to us . Our women and infant children were left almost exclusively to the protection of our slaves and

u . u they proved true to their tr st Not one case of ins lt, 69 JU D GE LY N CH

outrage , indignity has come to my knowledge . They

remained at home . They raised food for our armies . We know many were anxious to take up arms in our ix cause . For several years along S hundred miles of

coast they heard the guns of Federal ships of war, yet not a thousand of them left our service to ﬁnd Shelter ” and freedom under the Union ﬂag . S On the other hand , the former lave states began to enact repressive laws barring the free Negro from the

expression of his rights . Despite the words of the Gov er nor , Florida would give her assent to the Thirteenth Amendment only with the understanding that no “ power was given Congress to legislate o n the political status of freedmen in this State . Emancipation having been forced upon the southern states, they, in retalia va tion and without delay, enacted apprentice acts , grancy laws , black codes to deﬁne the economic rights of the colored people . To the people of the South the freed Negro differed in no way from the plantation slave , except that he could not be bought and sold , he e must be paid for his labor . The sweeping Reconstru tion policies of the triumphant North, aimed at chang l ing the whole fabric of a civi ization almost overnight, brought about something like chaos in many places . As d a result, color lines were rawn with added sharp ness , and only such laws for the whites as could with ’ safety, from the Southerner s point of view, be ex 7 0 T H E E A R L Y LI F E O F JUDG E LY N CH tended to the blacks were enacted in the Negro ’ s favor .

sit He could not serve in the militia , or in a jury was box, or testify in court in civil suits unless he a t par y to the record , or in criminal actions unless all parties were Negroes or if the culprit before justice was a white man charged with some act of violence to a Negro . He could not carry ﬁrearms without a permit, nor ride in a railroad car with white passen gers . He could not rent or lease land or houses save in segregated areas set aside by whites . All contracts for in labor, if for longer than a month , must be writing and attested and read to the Negro by a city or county officer or two disinterested whites . Should a

Negro run away from his employer, any person might ar r e St him and bring him back and receive ﬁve i dollars plus ten cents a mile for doing so . Negro ch l d ren under eighteen who were orphans , or whose parents refused to support them, must be apprenticed to some suitable person . Freedmen over eighteen who ,

1 866 on the second Monday in January, , had no law ful employment were to be treated as vagrants and

fined fifty dollars . If they did not pay, they were to be hired out to any who would pay the fine and costs 6 for the shortest times .

6 McMaster z His or o the aws o f ss ss 1 86 . uo e r o y f Mi i ippi, 5 # t d f m t L . ’ Pe ople of th e U nited States D ur ing Lincoln s Administr ati on. 7 1 JUDGE LY N CH

al The state of Mississippi enacted such laws , and, though they were promptly set aside by the Freed ’ r e - men s Bureau , many were later incorporated into the state codes and prevail today in most of the south ern states . With repressive laws ruthlessly set aside by the ’ Fr ee dm en s was Bureau , it necessary for the southern states to call for mob action against any attempt of - Ku the Negro to assert his new found freedom . The Klux Klan may have been started as a social club with no idea of anything but good clean entertainment for ts i members . When men pull masks over their faces for anything but a masquerade , they are encroaching upon the practices of those engaged in criminal activ ity . The original Klan called itself a social organiza its tion , but conception of society was terrorizing as i no Negroes . The newly freed Negro was , a rule , g a t as rant as child, often S upid , and as superstitious any i of his race who remained in Africa . The we rd Klans men riding about in hoods and nightshirts did make the night hideous for him for a time . But the average Negro learned quickly that there was nothing to fear l from their simple appearance , and the K an , to con tinue its work effectively, added whippings and lash ing , later hangings and burnings , to its repertory of repressive measures . For a few years it ﬂared across S s ter r or izm the darkened southern kie , g black and 7 2

JU D GE LY N CH

e L nch have be n high . James Elbert Cutler, in his y Law The N ew , reports that he turned to the ﬁles of

Y or k imes 1 8 1 — 1 8 T for the three years, 7 7 3 , and com r piled the following statistics . I will be noted that the

Klan , then legally dead for more than two years , is

Still mentioned .

E C : 2 r o e n e for r e 1 i e m an K NTU KY Neg s ha g d ap , wh t n e for r e I r o n e for r er e r e ha g d ap , Neg ha g d mu d , 3 N g o s “ ” m en e r ur er e th e n e 1 o . shot by mask d , N g m d d by Kla E E EE : 2 e r o n e for r o er and r on 1 T NN SS N g es ha g d bb y a s , r o and n for r o er and r er 1 e r Neg o sh t ha ged bb y mu d , N g o o for e ou r e 1 e r o n e and o for sh t att mpted t ag , N g ha g d sh t

r r 1 i m an for ur r o f i . mu de , wh te shot m de w fe I O I : or ieve n e 1 e r e M SS UR 5 h se th s ha g d, N g o hang d for r e 1 i e n for r er i e an e for out ag , wh t ha ged mu d , 3 wh t s h g d r er and r o r i e o for e en in and mu d bbe y, 3 wh t s sh t d f d g in o n e f i e e n be g b dsm n o county o ffic als accus d o fp culatio . LI O I : 2 i e n e for ur er 1 i e n e CA F RN A wh t s ha g d m d , wh t ha g d and o for ur r 1 n i n n e for r er 1 sh t m de , I d a ha g d mu d , Malay (stewar d of steamer ) shot and thr own over boar d for r vis in i ir l e e e e ld v n r o . a h g s ck g , l y a s O : 2 i n e f e M NTANA wh tes ha g d or mur d r . O I I : e r n for r er r i v L U S ANA 4 N g oes ha ged mu d , 3 ho se th e es hanged . V G : e I I I 1 e r o r ie and r r r n e . R N A d spe ad , ho se th f mu de ha g d L B : 1 i e f u A A AMA wh t shot or m r der . SO H OLI : 2 hi e o for ur er 1 0 e r UT CAR NA w t s sh t m d , N g oes and n e shot ha g d by the Ku Klux Klan . 74 T H E EARLY LI FE O F JU D G E LY N CH

EV : 1 r n 1 man n N ADA despe ado ha ged , white ha ged for ur er m d . I CO I : 1 i n for r r W S NS N wh te ha ged mu de . I : e r o e n e for ur er 1 r and IND ANA 3 N g s ha g d m d , despe ado “ ie e in i 1 hor se th f kill d ja l . NEB RASKA : 1 Negr o and 1 white killed for robbery and Shooting woman. : 2 hi n u 1 e and KANSAS w tes ha ged for m rder, d sperado “ 1 i i e i hor se th ef k ll d in ja l . OLO O : 2 i n e for e in in u C RAD wh tes ha g d k ep g gambl g o tﬁts . MICHIG AN : 2 whites died fr om beating they r eceived for i - kill ng a m an in a German Ir ish r iot on the str eets . H 2 n O IO : whites ha ged for mur der . MARYLAND : 1 Negr o hange d for ar son.

t : 1 hi s 2 r e 1 1 ndi n. To al 4 w te , 3 Neg o s, Malay, I a

The majority of those lynched, says Dr . Cutler,

were forcibly taken from officers of the law . In some instances , the jails were broken into , and the prisoners were taken out and hanged or were killed in the jail ; in other instances , the prisoners were taken from the officers and put to death before they could be taken to the jail . Some of the lynchings were car ried on by vigilance societies , others by mobs of ” - es masked persons or by Ku Klux .

These Statistics , compiled from a single newspaper, represent only a small percentage of the persons t lynched in thos e years . The total given for hree 7 5 JUD G E LY N CH

-ﬁve 1 88 2 years is only seventy , and in , the ﬁrst year that a comprehens ive effort was made to compile a

1 1 lynch record , we have reported a total of 4 lynch executions , both white and black . By 1 88 2 the kangaroo court of Judge Lynch was ﬁrmly established throughout the Union ; his juris diction was limited only by the reaches of our own S tates and territories ; his code , or body of laws , was - f all embracing, covering every of ense from murder down to the thumbing- of—the-nose (Negro to white) and merely being unpopular . Chapter Tbr ee

JUDGE LYNCH ’S CODE To attempt to codify the great body of offenses com ing within the purview of Judge Lynch ’ s activities is almost impossible , and the result would be useless .

The formal rules of procedure are dispensed with , his advocates do not have to pass any rigorous examina s set tion before they may practise , and precedents by other cases seldom have any bearing on the one being heard . The usual crimes against person and property head the list, but they share their places with many O Off ns ther e es , many of which are not recognized in the conventional civil and criminal codes of the land . One needs only to be suspected or accused of a crime to be dragged before Judge Lynch ; the trials are quick, the defendant is never given a chance to ms defend hi elf, nor to summon witnesses in his own defens e or even hear the charge against him . In mo ments of great benevolence the Judge will permit the prisoner to plead guilty . Many times the stating of the charge would be unnecessary ; the prisoner has heard it in the lower court, proven his innocence , and been 7 7 JU D GE LY N CH d acquitted . In too many cases to number the Ju ge has reversed the lower courts , placed the prisoner in double jeopardy, and , entirely ignoring the ﬁrst judge , determined the prisoner guilty . Jack West, a Negro , of Seminole County, Florid , was such a one . West was acquitted of the charge of breaking and e n tering and of an assault on a white child . As he was . u his h ret rning to home , appily proven innocent of the charges, Judge Lynch snatched him from the train and lynched him beside the tracks . Not turning out of the road for white boy in ” “ ” “ ” auto ; insulting white man ; activities in politics ; “ ” “ demanding pay for work done , being brother of ” “ ” “ ” “ a mur der er ; too prosperous ; too uppity ; remain ing in town where Negroes are not permitted after ’ sunset -these are capital offenses in Judge Lynch s

‘

Coll I t . Often when the Judge ’s advocates can ﬁnd no “ sus i charge against a victim , they convict him of p ” “ ” cion of rape or suspicion of murder, even when no assaulted girl is to be found and no corpus delicti

can be produced . Great numbers of white and black men have been lynch-executed for no better reason than that they were trying to improve the conditions m of their fellows and the selves . The spectacle of a

worker trying to organize a union , of a sharecropper going among his fellows seeking to improve their 7 8 ’ JU D GE LY N CH S CO D E working conditions , of a Negro refusing to remain

in peonage or not caring to pick cotton , when there is n cotton in need of picking, sends the ha ging judge

into a fury . des er adism Murder, rape , assault, arson , theft, p , and a wildly assorted list of minor offenses are what

usually call forth summary action from Judge Lynch , “ ” but there are also the categories cause unknown, ” “ ” “ by accident, without cause , and mistaken iden ” tity . Of the seven major causes

Murder includes attempted murder, murderous as

sault, assault with intent to kill , suspected murder, s su picion of murder, alleged murder, accessory to

murder, conspiracy to murder, complicity in murder .

Rape includes attempted rape , suspicion of rape ,

alleged rape , aiding and abetting a rapist . Assault is usually connected with murder and rape ln and includes assault with intent to kill , assault with

tent to rape . By itself it includes common assault, as

sault with intent to rob . n Theft includes breaki g and entering, larceny,

burglary, robbery, suspected and alleged robbery,

S . cattle, mule , and horse tealing bum Arson includes incendiarism , barn and house

ing, haystack burning . D es er adism i p includes outlawry, h ghway robbery, 79 JU D G E LY N CH

— in train robbery or wrecking general , the action of a

desperado . Minor offenses are multitudinous and sometimes

i f . unbel evable . They di fer for blacks and whites For in stance , in the case of miscegenation , it is only the

male black who is punished . Those minor offenses for which only whites are punished by lynching are f - wi e beating, cruelty, kidnaping, seduction , incest ; no Negroes are lynched for these offenses as long as they are committed against members of their own f race . Among the many of enses that apply to colored Offenders are these : ’ u tu Turning state s evidence , and ref sing to rn ’ state s evidence . t Testifying agains a white man . s In ulting a white man . i Inform ng on a white man .

Writing insulting letters to a white man .

Writing any kind of letter to a white woman .

Slandering a white man .

Asking white woman in marriage .

Paying attention to a white girl .

Forcing white boy to commit crime . n Refusi g to give right of way to white persons . r Riding in t ain with white passengers .

Trying to act like a white man . Other minor offenses are grave robbery ; slander; 80

JU D G E LY N CH

- ﬁve in their uniforms, were lynch executed in south 1 ern states . How many other Negro heroes were c killed , how many were beaten and barely es aped with their lives is not in the record . Frenchwomen ” spoiled niggers, the South called them , another way of expressing its fear . If the reader has persevered and read through this amazing list of offenses for which his fellow—citizens have paid with their lives , does he recall how many # times he has merited lynching Let him take heart ; few of the persons lynched were destroyed for the

particular offenses cited . These were but the sparks

that lighted already smoldering prejudices .

The Negro is almost consistently the principal per

- former in American lynch executions , the victim who l can no longer state his case before any earth y court . r e But seldom does he pull the rope , never in any

h 1 as . 0 8 corded case he lighted the faggots In 9 , at Pine t e Level , Johnston County, North Carolina, it is corded that an unnamed Negro entertainer was

lynched by Negroes for putting on a poor Show, and it is within the bounds of probability that all were drunk; many white performers have felt the ire of

i 1 the r cheated audiences . In 9 34, at Caddo Parish,

1 Alab ama 1 Arkansas 2 Flor a 1 G eor a ss ss . , ; , ; id , ; gi , 3 ; Mi i ippi, 3 8 2 ’ JU D GE LY N CH S CO D E

i - - Louisiana , Grafton Page , a th rty year old Negro, was beaten to death by members of his own race b e cause o fan alleged insult offered by Page to a colored girl who had been out driving with him . One of Judge Lynch ’ s most severe reversals was

1 1 when Negroes , at Clarksdale: Tennessee, in 9 4, lynched a white youth for the rape of a Negress . The ’ coroner s jury, believe it or not, brought in a verdict

' of justiﬁable homicide and freed the blacks . Chapter F our

JUDGE LYNCH ’S JURORS

“ i a m e i s with He wh o s not a inst me . g ,

JU D G E LYNCH .

WE can dismiss as absurd the contention that lynch ings take place only in the backwoods and rural dis tr i cts of the South . Climate and section do not make for lynch-executions any more than does the lack of t - O - theatres or motion pic ure houses , merry g rounds, and symphonic orchestras . There are few places with in the territorial United States where it is impossible

- to rouse a lynch minded mob , even though it may be frustrated by effective police action . The mob is lying dormant and needs but the spark of an overt act to i bring it into snarling act on , whether it be in Jack ni sonville , Florida, San Jose , Califor a , or Duluth, S Minnesota . ince the Armistice , lynchings have been t prevented in New Hampshire , New York Ci y , and the District of Columbia . ’ Nor are Judge Lynch s jurors conﬁned to a Single class or economic group . The man who pulls the rope 84 ’ JU D GE LY N CH S JUROR S or strikes the match is no more guilty of murder than ffi the police o cer who refuses to arrest him, the pro ri n secu ng attorney who refuses to seek an i dictment, the Judge who refuses to convict him ; or than those war dens and sheriffs and deputies , jailers , and guards . r e who , brazenly or with a false play at resistance , lease their prisoners to the death mobs . Add to these those who commit the crime of refusing to recognize or of denying recognition of members of the lynch mob ; those mayors and governors who refuse to call out their state troops to protect one or more of their citizens ; and those coroners whose stereotyped ver dict that “the deceased came to his death at the hands of persons unknown” is given in the face of criminal knowledge of the actual participants in the murder . The guilt reaches to those representatives of the people who sit in state legislatures or in Congress at Wash ington and vote against proposed laws to help abolish th e crime of lynching . When the Hanging Judge cries guilty as charged and utters the sentence of death , it is the jurors , the sen mob , who determine the method by which the tence is to be carried out . Americans who but a few hours before were going about their usual tasks, - i simple or intricate , become a blood lust ng mob , ex er cising their imaginations to think up new and more

hideous tortures . Shrieking and dancing, men , women, 85 JU D G E LY N CH and little children go out to kill or to look on sym l in pathetically while others kil , indulging practices that would make savages blush . These are not the lawless elements ; nor are they s irresponsible mobs, no victory of the lawle s over the law . The mob is you and me , and every other Ameri can .

Mobs are created ; they are man made and man led ; they are not the result of spontaneous action , of a sud den uprising Of public indignation or community f sense of outrage . Mobs have been persistent, suf ering r several f ustrations , only to return weeks later to achieve their determined purpose . Lynch mobs are more baffling than other types of mobs : they seem not content with the punishment of real or alleged f O fenders, but wish to wreak upon their bodies, both before and after death , greater and more horrible humiliations . The usual lynch mob is made up of three com po nent parts : i i (a) the leaders , who inst gate the lynch ng;

(b) the lynchers , who perform the lynching; i (c) the spectator mob , wh ch encourages the lynchers . The mob leaders a c are often, as matter of re ord , 86 ’ JU D G E LY N CH S JUROR S men of some local importance , of substance and repu tation , prosperous business men and merchants ; some tim es they are leading churchmen ; and in instances women have been numbered among the leaders . Most t s often they are local and pet y politicians, men of ea y

living, good fellows who seem to achieve an excellent standard of living with no great amount of mental

f . t or physical e fort Often , especially in the South , hey

are employing farmers , planters , and landlords . Still

in the South , they are likely to be members of the

Democratic party , of either the Baptist or the Meth

odist Church ; they believe the Klan was , and still is, — ’ a good idea real Americanism , that every Negro s is crowning ambition to rape a white woman , and that Negroes can be kept in their place only by oc

- casional warnings in the form of lynch executions .

The southern mob leader also detests Catholics , labor N orthem er s leaders , and most , especially those who believe the Negro is entitled to the same rights as the

whites . In the North the mob leader may belong to

either major political party, he seldom sees the inside

of a church , and , though he belongs to no repressive

clans , he is in entire sympathy with them . He , too , “ ” “ ”

wo s . hates labor leaders, Communists, p , kikes In

st l the We he fol ows the general pattern , and his added

hates are Japanese , Mexicans, and Filipinos .

The mob leaders, one or more of them, have what 87 JU D GE LY N CH can be called a working agreement with the Sheriff or other officer who has the person of the proposed victim . By working agreement is meant that the leaders have deﬁnite knowledge or assurance of the ’ officer s sympathy with their intent; that one or more “ ” of the leaders have something on the officer; that they know him to be a coward and a craven ; or that, because he is seeking political advancement or r e

f . election , he will not o fer any militant opposition On the part of the oﬂi cer s this working agreement may take the form , as it has in certain instances , of delivering in advance the keys to the jail ; of informing the leaders of the proposed route over which the prisoner is to be transported ; of placing the prisoner in charge of deputies acquiescent in the will of the mob or willing to be overpowered . Invariably the mob leaders have enough information to determine s the weake t link in the police chain . The snatch is made en route to or from the jail , in the jail , at the ir entrance to the courthouse , or in the courtroom self . The snatch completed , the victim is hurried to the place of the proposed execution and delivered or s relea ed into the hands of the lynch mob . The l nch mob y is , as a rule , made up of young men between their teens and their middle twenties , Its with a sprinkling of morons of all ages . members nu are native whites , mostly the underprivileged, the 88

JU D G E LY N CH

Its ties , before and after the death . chief purpose is by its presence and voice to lend encouragement to the actual lynchers and to urge them on to greater and more ﬁendish actions . Like spectators at a i baseball game or box ng exhibition, its members shout their personal instructions , urging speed or demanding i n that those in front S t down . They cha t burn that ” nigger and sing that happy days are here again . This mob is composed largely of men in their

‘ thirties and women in their forties . Many, though

they do not approve lynching in general , are held

in a strange and morbid enchantment, unable to tear themselves away from the sight they will spend ye

in trying to forget , unwilling to lift their voices in

protest or to shut their eyes to the horror . One thing all three parts of the mob hold in com mon is the willingness to accept without qualiﬁcation any and all reports as to the absolute guilt of the he . t in victim If various reports conﬂict, those that dicate the possibility of innocence or of mistake are

rejected . Too often the charge of rape is brought in

by the spectator mob , even when the original charge

will not permit it to be considered .

The mob leaders , actuated by motives best known t to themselves , recruit the ac ual lynch mob from the r pool halls and beer parlo s , as has been said . The 9 0 ’ JUD G E L Y N C H s JUROR S spectator mob is created by the usual methods of the ballyhoo . Publicly to whip up the emotions of the po pulace is dangerous ; there are too many sane per sons in any community who would seek every means to prevent the proposed murder . Only the known

- lynch minded are informed , and the statement is “ made in the form of a foregone conclusion : A nigger ” “ will be lynched at Slayden at sundown . Be at the ” courthouse at eight . You know why# Only the

- - lynch minded respond , and the anti lynchers avoid the scene . Should anyone opposed to lynching raise “ his voice , he is warned, boycotted , or labeled nigger ” n lover . Wisely he remai s at home . The methods used to produce this audience are the conventional advertising of commerce : news paper announcements , telegraph , telephone , the radio, nl word of mouth , and , less commo y, the United States

mail . It is direct advertising and its appeal is to the As - local carnivora . each lynch enthusiast gets the s news he pas es it on, elaborating on the crime the ’ victim committed , whetting the listeners appetite for

blood by suggesting the methods to be employed . Automobile owners make up parties and journey

long distances to witness a hanging or a burning . An “ ” announced slow-burning will bring out the largest

9 1 JU D GE LY N CH

As 1 8 early as 9 3 , Cutler notes , railways were used

1 1 8 to augment the spectator mob . On January 3 , 9 3 , was Henry Smith , a Negro charged with murder, publicly burned at Paris , Lamar County , Texas . Ex cur sion trains were r un for the occasion and there were many women and children in the throng that watched the sufferings of the victim . The automobile cut deeply into this neglected m feature of railroading, but modern train en, schooled in in the doctrine of service , may be of help in an u formative way . Witness the lady ret rning to Mary ville , Missouri , on a Burlington train , Saturday, “ ” r I 0 1 1 Janua y , 9 3 . Getting home just in time , said “ ’ the conductor . They re going to lynch that nigger ” S w . as Monday ure enough , Raymond Gunn burned to death in Maryville on Monday the twelfth . “ t Memphis , Tennessee , with its men of migh y - ni was beards , of cowhide boots and bowie k ves, once famous as a boat-landing where captains stopped to ” 1 ll hang Offending travelers . It is Sti an important

- lynch center, strategically located ; the lynch minded

of seven States can be summoned within a few hours . If there happen to be hostile oﬂicer s at the scene of a

proposed lynching, there is a conjunction of state lines that can be crossed with little delay or loss of

numbers . The Memphis press , through its frequent

1 Bancr o : Po ular Tr i nals ft p bu . 9 2 ’ JU D G E LY N CH S JUROR S editions, will keep the lynchers posted and direct S r idotto pectators over the shortest route to the .

1 1 E11 n ax- In 9 7 , Person , a co fessed slayer, was wanted by the mob . He was being held in Nashville for safekeeping when the glad news was printed in the newspapers that he would be brought back to

2 1 Memphis the evening of May . Fifteen thousand and persons read answered the summons . Again in 1 9 2 1 Th e Memphis Pr ess repeated its role of barker and made the burning of Henry Lowry an outstand 2 ing lynch success . Har tﬁeld When John , Negro farm laborer charged was with assault on a white woman , snatched from the law by a lynch gang at Ellisville , Mississippi, in

1 1 ackson D ail N ews June , 9 9 , the ] y , principal news in paper the state , carried the announcement of the exact time and place in the headlines . Ten thousand persons attended the burning and were addressed by i the District Attorney, T . W . Wilson , wh le the w lynching as in progress .

1 n In 9 34, the Marianna, Florida , lynchi g of Claude 3 Neal was ballyhooed over the Dothan, Alabama , radio station, and seven thousand persons from eleven

1 states answered the invitation . In 9 3 5 , Ab Young,

“ ’ 2 Th e ur n n o f Se e Chapte r Six : So me o f Judge Lynch s Cases B i g Henr o wr y L y . “ ’ ” 3 The Law N e er Se e Chapter Six : Some o f Judge Lynch s Cases : v Had a e Chanc . 9 3 JU D GE LY N CH

was il Negro accused of murder, held by the mob unt an obliging Memphis newspaper could publish the “

: . announcement Persons around Mt Pleasant, Missis sun sippi, are saying that a Negro will be lynched at i Pr ess—Scimitar down at Slayden . The Memph s sent a reporter over the sixty-three miles of road to cover the event, and he arrived forty minutes ahead of the ad lynching, even though it was held two hours in vance of sundown . The drollery of the County Prosecuting Attorney in this case should not be lost : “ ’ So far as the proof is concerned , we don t know ” whether it was a hanging or a suicide . After the ballyhoo has brought the event to the point of a great popular uprising, when the spectator mob is en route to the carnival or returning to its homes ﬁr esides and , choking the roads and endangering one ’ ffi s r e another s lives , the o cer of the law have to be lieve d fi t of other duties to direct traf c . While Mat Williams was being barbarously tortured in the pub b u lic square in Salis ry, Maryland , the police were directing traffic so that the lynching would not be

interrupted . Again , when Gunn was to be burned in tr aﬂi c Maryville , Missouri , the became badly snarled, and it was only due to the snappy work of the Mary ville police that the entire mob was able to witness the

lynching . 94 ’ JU D GE LY N CH S JUROR S

In legal jurisprudence the aim has always been to make the punishment ﬁt the crime . An eye for an eye has s been the yard tick, and it is only when a crime be comes too prevalent that a heavier or harsher penalty is devised for offenders : the Federal kidnap ’ ing act may be cited as an example . In Judge Lynch s court the enormity of the offense has but little re is . ni lation to the penalty Here what counts opportu ty,

imagination of the mob leaders , the time element .

Another factor is experience . No death seems to be too bad for a Negro ; whites u m e are seldom b rned , see ing to rat the quicker meth

n . ods of shooting, hangi g, and drowning If the mob t is in complete control of the si uation , without fear o of gubernatorial or other interference , there are p por t unities for protracted orgies that are limited only

by the imagination of the lynchers . If there is danger that the National Guardsmen or State troopers may in ter vene and time is important, it may be necessary to dispose of the victim by the quickest method pos é sible . But mobs also become blas ; a hanging or other quick execution no longer sufficiently satisﬁes ; burn

ing, especially protracted tortures followed by slow n - burni g, are necessary to attract the spectator mob

interest . Torture is often resorted to to extract a confession 9 5 JU D GE LY N CH

s so from the victim . Confession obtained would not stand up in any other court . In many cases where the prisoner has been taken from jails or courts , after he has either been found guilty or confessed to his crime , the mob will torture him to extract another

confession . Raymond Gunn had confessed to the

County Attorney, and the confession had been pub lishe d in whole or in part in the Missouri newspapers , where it was read by all literate mob members . Yet, before Gunn was burned , he was compelled to con m at . fess his hideous cri e the scene The average mob ,

however, does not need a confession , convinced as is it usually is that the victim guilty, that it has the

right man . Tort ure used to extort a confession and torture practised as punishment to ﬁt the crime differ not at

all . Hanging and lowering just before death , a favorite

Mississippi practice , is used in both instances . Gouging off of eyes , cutting of ears and nose are choice bits n of mob mayhem , which may be protracted by cutti g off the ﬁngers and toes joint by joint . While the

victim is still in the hands of the lynchers , members of the spectator mob often invade the sacred circle and

use their pocket knives to stab and cut . Corkscrews

have been used to tear the ﬂesh from the body and, 1 0 in 9 3 , at Ocilla, Georgia , a mob tried to make its

- victim swallow a sharpened pole . Wire plier s are used 96

JU D G E LY N CH V carnivals , especially when the ictim is a Negro n charged with rape upon a white woman , burni g is used because it is more spectacular and because through the shrieks and writhings of the victim the spectator mob is brought into a closer relation to the criminal lynch mob . Part of the ritual of a well-conducted lynching is _ he un the unsexing of t victim . George Hughes was sexed after death in the presence of women and chil

: - dren . The symbolism is simple the mob desire to

destroy the symbol of creation . In cases of burning, i the victim is unsexed before lynch ng , and in shoot

ing and hanging, after death . In the case of Wesley w Everest the unsexing as an act of purest sadism .

There is a ritual followed in this perversion , and , at

a certain moment, one of the mob leaders steps for a ward and performs the operation . In certain c ses he may be the father or husband of the original vic

White women who have been lynched were not t degraded before or after death . Negro women who a o f tract the attention lynchers are , regardless of age,

- invariably mob raped before being executed . Chapter Five

THE JURISDICTION OF JUDGE LYNCH

N IN as LY CH G today is American as apple pie . The practice does not prevail in Canada or in Mexico . n Ly ching, hand in hand with the Constitution, fol lows the ﬂag, and follows it across the mountains and the seas . Canada could not stand as a bar against n its i troduction into Alaska , and neither the Atlantic nor the Paciﬁc Oceans were wide enough or deep enough to stop the Hanging Judge . In Cuba , Puerto set Rico, and the Philippines Judge Lynch up his kangaroo court and brought in his single decision al most from the minute of American occupation . Even peaceful Hawaii has known the violence of Judge

Lynch . Though Judge Lynch today ﬁnds most of his cases in the southern states and the great majority of his m victims are Negroes , the Judge is ready at all ti es and in all sections to bring in his grisly verdict . From

Aroostook County , in northern Maine , along the

Canadian border to the Paciﬁc Coast, down to the

Rio Grande , no section of the country is without the

- — blood stained marks of lynch executions . Only four 99 JUDG E LY N CH

States can boldly proclaim that Since 1 88 2 Judge Lynch has been considered incompetent within their

: borders Massachusetts , Vermont, New Hampshire , and Rhode Island . If one could only gloss over the condign summary punishment of working men in all four states , there might be reason to become lyric over their records . One ﬁnds it difficult to become lyrical over sunny

California , to stand in admiration of the majestic mountainous coast of the Northwest or the breeze

Swept vistas of old Florida ; too many listless , dangling shadows , slowly swinging to the winds , mar the pleas t - r ure . The shadows cross and e c Oss the land and give little comfort to anyone . That they are decreasing yearly may be a matter for gratiﬁcation, but, as the - S chart lines how a decline in numbers, others Show a sharp increase in torture and bestiality . Five other states are entitled to a but slightly ﬂy

Specked crown for meritorious conduct . Arizona, n r e Idaho, Mai e, Nevada , and Wisconsin have no corded lynchings of Negroes . Let ’ s look at the record#

MISSISSIPPI

’ Mississippi s most important crop is cotton, but her production of that commodity is surpassed by that of

- Texas . In the matter of lynch executions and the low

1 00

JU D GE LY N CH Her mobs are responsive and easy to rouse and 1 as usually large , though on occasion ( 9 34) few as four Mississippians can successfully conduct a lynch ing, especially if the victim is a Negro aged seventy who has merely “talked disrespectfully ” to his white

landlord . Her mobs are made up of resolute and determined men who are able to outwit the ablest and

cleverest sheriffs . In one year two Negroes accused l of murder had been sent to separate jai s , miles apart,

- to circumvent any attempt at mob reprisal . After a

year in their respective jails , they were being returned k in separate parties for trial . Two mobs, working li e

teams , were formed and snatched the prisoners from ac the deputy sheriffs , joined forces , and hanged the se cu d men to the same tree .

1 1 8 — In 9 , four Negroes , all of them minors Major

20 1 2 0 Clark , ; Andrew Clark , 5 ; Maggie Howse , , and 1 6— Alma Howse, were taken by a mob from a jail at Shubuta and lynched from a bridge over the Chick asaw ct ha River . They were suspe ed of having mur

dered Dr . E . L . Johnston , a white dentist . An investigation conducted by the National As sociation for the Advancement of Colored People disclosed the fact that Johnston had been having illicit relations with both Maggie and Alma Howse ; ’ that Major Clark, who worked on Johnston s planta

tion, wished to marry Maggie . The dentist had gone 1 0 2 T H E JURI S D ICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH

his to Clark and warned him to leave woman alone . This had led to a quarrel that was made more bitter when it was learned that Maggie was to have a child i by the wh te man . Later it was revealed that Alma , was the younger sister, also pregnant by Johnston . i Shortly after this episode the dentist was found

- mysteriously murdered . The ﬁnger of mob suspicion pointed to Major Clark, though there were some who held to the theory that Johnston had been killed by another white man who had accused him of seducing a white woman . The Mississippi mob was not to be cheated by any such theories nor by the fact that both i g rls were pregnant . Mississippi mobs prefer the torch and faggot to the rope , and even burning alone does not always satisfy

s 1 2 was their sadistic lu ts . In 9 5 , Jim Ivy taken from the o fli cer s of the law and burned at the Stake for an ’ alleged attack on a farmer s daughter . Ivy had been taken to the hospital for identification by the attacked girl ; she was not certain , but he looked like the man who had assaulted her . That was identification enough for the Rocky Ford mob , and Ivy was taken to the scene of the attack and lynched . Another outstanding characteristic of Mississippi mobs is their determination to get their man ; nothing

is permitted to stand between them and their quarry . 1 0 The chase is part of the rare sport . In 9 4, Luther 1 0 3 JUDG E LY N CH

Holbert, Negro , of Doddsville , had a quarrel with

James Eastland , a white man , and with another Negro , dis John Carr . The white planter was killed in the ’ pute that arose when he came to Carr s cabin , found

Holbert there , and ordered him to leave the planta tion . Carr and another Negro named Winters were also killed . Holbert and his wife ﬂed the plantation

' and the man hunt was on ; two innocent Negroes were shot and killed before the mob took the Holb erts .

There was no charge against the woman , but simple ’ facts like that do not deter Mississippi s mobs . “ They were tied to trees , and while the funeral pyres were being prepared they were forced to suffer the most fiendish tortures . The blacks were forced to hold out their hands while one finger at a time was chopped o ff. The fingers were distributed as sou it c r ven s . The a s of the murderers (sic) were cut o ff. t Holbert was beaten severely, his skull was frac ured, his and one of eyes , knocked with a stick, hung by a shred from the socket . The most excruciating form of punishment consisted in the use of a large corkscrew in the hands of some of the mob . This instrument was bored into the flesh of the man and woman , in the arms , legs , and body, and then pulled

out, the spirals tearing out big pieces of raw, quivering ” 1 ﬂesh every time it was Withdrawn .

1 cksb Vi ur g (Mississippi) Evening Post. 1 04

JU D G E LY N CH should be hanged , the ritual to be observed caused a schism ; one was taken by the adherents of one form and the second by the dissenters . The ﬁrst brother was tied to the back of an automobile and dragged through the city streets before being carried out of town and hanged ; the other brother was hurried off in a car in the opposite direction and hanged from a bridge .

1 In 9 3 4, at Hernando,De Soto County, where the lynching of Negroes has long been regarded as a

- public necessity , the lynch execution of three Negroes was prevented by the star tling expedient of calling out the National Guard . Judge Kuykendall apologized for the presence of the troops by saying : there are now several anti-lynching bills pending in Congress . The effect of these bills would be to destroy one of the South ’s most cherished possessions— the supremacy of the white race— and I believe a lynching in this case would have effect inevitably in the passage of one of these laws by Con ” 2 gress . GEORG IA Georgia is a proud state and Georgians are a proud

: people . It is a diversiﬁed state Atlanta is known as n the capital of the New South , and Sava nah shares t with Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Charles on, South 2 Twenty-ﬁfth Annual Repor t Th e N ational Association for h l t e Advancem ent of Color e d Peop e . 1 06 T H E JURI S D ICTIO N O F JU D G E LY N CH i Carol na , the honor of being one of the last stands of the unreconstructed rebels . Georgians the State over point with pride to their State ’ s leadership in many a dep rtments of human endeavor and , for all one ew who knows , there may even be a f Georgians are ’ the - Al proud of state s record of lynch executions . though the state has to bow to the superior leader of - ship Mississippi in the practice of neck cracking, it can claim that it has lynched fewer white men in proportion to blacks than any state in the Union . In o p int of numerical lynchings, it led all the other states

1 1 1 2 1 1 0 1 2 1 1 6 . in the years 9 9 , 9 , 9 3 , 9 3 , 9 3 3 , and 9 3 Since 1 88 2 the Buzzard State has lynched no less

0 than 5 7 persons (November, of whom only thirt y-nine were whites ; of the 5 3 1 Negroes liqui dated , six were women . One was Mary Turner, whose killing brought forth one of the most gruesome ex pressions of bestiality recorde d in modern times . Of the Negroes executed by mobs , two were lynched all ff un for no reason at , ten were killed for o enses

- - known and unrecorded , and Sixty one lynch victims Wer e unknown in the communities in which their

bodies were found . Negroes have been lynched in

Georgia because they were unpopular, for throwing - 1 S for . C 1 tones , and window peeping In Salt ity, in 9 7 , two Negroes were lynched for disputing a white man ’s word 1 07 JU D G E LY N CH

1 88 2 The Gem of the South has had , since , thirty double and ten triple lynchings . In her record of multiple lynchings Georgia mobs have twice had four ﬁ e u v . victims , and on fo r occasions they have had In

1 8 t December, 94, a Brooks Coun y mob lynched

1 0 s seven Negroes ; in June , 9 5 , the citizen of Oconee County achieved what they believed to be an all time high of eight victims, seven of whom were

1 1 8 charged with murder and one with rape . In 9 ,

Brooks County was again drenched with blood , and ’ Georgia s record for mass- lynchings was established with eleven black victims . With this ignominious total she shares second place with Louisiana ; Arkansas still holds the unenviable record of having lynched i t the greatest number at a single r dot o . ’ The scenes of Georgia s lynch -executions are well distributed over the state ; no one locality, save the

- ill famed county of Lowndes , can lay claim to dis t tinc ion for any numerical score , nor can the state centers of culture and commerce dodge the accusa tion that , at some time within the last ﬁfty years , their citizens have on occasion pushed aside the legally constituted judiciary and summoned the rump court of old Judge Lynch . Only in Mississippi and Arkansas do mobs equal

- Georgian barbarity and savagery in lynch executions .

1 8 In April , 99 , Samuel Hose , a Negro farm worker,

1 0 8

JU D GE LY N CH dominant court of that realm , reversing the highest courts and setting aside decisions and sentences that were not in accord with his own limited views . Judge Lynch ’ s court is unlike the legal courts of appeal in that he does not wait until cases are brought to him for a rehearing ; in Georgia he has on occasion gone right into the courts of justice and snatched his vic tims from under the noseof the presiding judge . 1 0 In 9 4, two Negroes, Paul Reed and Will Cato , l the were on trial in Statesboro , Bul och County, for atrocious murder of the Hodges, a white family They had already been convicted and were before the bench for sentence when the mob broke into the courtroom and carried them off. In spite of the plea of the brother of the murdered man that the law be allowed to take its course , the two Negroes were burned to death in the presence of a large crowd .

That was April 1 6 . The day following was given over to rioting in which many citizens were beaten t because heir skins were black , and Albert Roger and hi s son . were lynched for no other reason Miles away,

in the same Bulloch County but in the town of Portal, McBr ide Sebastian , a respectable Negro, was beaten , S kicked , and hot to death for trying to defend his ’ wife , who was conﬁned with a three days old baby,

from a whipping at the hands of a white mob . 1 0 8 In 9 , Statesboro again gave way to its tradi 1 1 0 T HE JURI S D ICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH tional t 1 nu j i ters , and on February 7 lynched an on known Negro a charge of rape and , a week later, another Negro , Gilbert Thompson , on the same charge . Later, far too late for the two Negroes, they were proved innocent . Sidney Johnson was a Negro peon whose ﬁne of t t hir y dollars had been paid by a white farmer . Smith ill- had the reputation of treating his Negro employees,

and Johnson rebelled . After having suffered beatings

and abuse , the Negro shot and killed his employer as he sat in his window at home ; he also shot and ’ wounded Smith s wife . For this crime a mob of Georgia whites scoured the

surrounding country for more than a week, engaged n in a hu t for the guilty man . Failing to ﬁnd him, they began to kill every Negro who could even remotely

be identiﬁed with either the victim or his slayer . Will

Head, Will Thompson , Chime Riley, Eugene Rice , m mi Si on Shuman, Hayes Turner, and three u denti ’ ﬁed Negroes helped expiate Johnson s crime . Mary

Turner, who was within a month of conﬁnement,

loudly proclaimed the innocence of her husband, cry ing out maledictions on the mob and threatening to

swear out warrants for their arrest . She was herself taken out and lynched : hanged head downward while gasoline and motor oil were thrown on her clothing aﬁr e and set . Life still lingered in the dead body, and I I I JUDG E LY N CH a member of the mob Stepped forward and with his pocket knife opened the abdomen . The prematurely

born child fell to the ground , and the cruel surgeon then crushed its head with his heel . Before the mob

dispersed , further pleasure was derived from using ’ the mother s body as a target for pistol practice .

The murderer, Sidney Johnson , was at length dis sur covered in a house in Valdosta . The house was a rounded by posse headed by the chief of police , and hi s amm uni Johnson elected to shoot it out . Before was tion exhausted , the fugitive had wounded the

chief . When the house was entered , he was found

dead . His body was mutilated . When the courts of Georgia are not dominated by as mobs , in the Leo Frank case , or overruled by mob in law as the Bulloch County case related above , they

co— 1 1 1 a sometimes operate with the mob . In 9 , Thom s was l Allen , a Negro , in jai on a charge of attempted rape and Foster Watts was being held on a charge of “ ” loitering in a suspicious manner . The Judge ordered

Allen brought to Monroe for trial and , though the Judge knew that Citizens had organized a mob to

lynch the prisoner, refused to accept the troops f w of ered him by the Gover nor . Allen as sent to Mon roe in the charge of two oﬂi cer s ; the train was stoppe d

and the prisoner hanged beside the tracks . The mob then proceeded to Monroe and snatched Watts from 1 1 2

JU D GE LY N CH into blacks and whites , but also include Indians and Mexicans who may have been either white or In 1 8 8 2 dian . Since there have been 549 lynchings

1 8 1 2 8 6 ( 9 3 7 ) involving 3 4 Negroes , whites , 3 Mexi t -ﬁve 1 . cans, and Indian Fif y of those lynched were

- unknown by name , twenty two were lynched for

no known reason, and one for no reason whatever .

Seven were women, of whom two were white , and t one was a case of mistaken identi y . Texas has had twenty-three double and twelve

triple lynchings . On three occasions Texas mobs have

had four victims , one had ﬁve , and four had six . In 1 8 9 7 , a record was set with seven that was not broken

1 0 8 until 9 , when eight victims were claimed . Texas mobs achieved their all-time high in 1 9 1 5 when they lynched near Brownsville ten Mexicans who were

- charged with train wrecking and murder . Since the ’ v t Armistice , Texas mobs ha e lynched six y victims ; ni S - neteen were hot, twenty three were hanged ,

twelve were burned, two were ﬂogged to death , and

four came to their deaths by means unknown . In 1 89 1 a Cass County mob lynched two Negroes for being troublesome ; others were lynched for gam n - bli g, window peeping, marrying a white woman,

and eloping . The latter case was that of a white r minister, a Reverend Captain Jones, of Paris , Lama 1 1 4 T H E JU RI S D ICTIO N O F JUDG E LY N CH

ns County . Texa are touchy and resent any form of t irregulari y . 1 2 2 s The year, 9 , when Texa romped off with she numerical dishonors , achieved a total of sixteen six one out of a national total of tyz lynchings . May was i the banner month in Texas , ten be ng the total for the ’ vic month of merriment ; of the year s total , eight ﬂi tims were taken from o cer s or jails .

1 1 6 In August, 9 , the simple citizens of San Benito got so much pleasure out of lynching six Mexicans on the charge of pillage and murder that they spent the next two w eeks assembling six more Mexicans whom they lynched on the charge of banditry . As a matter of record it seems that 1 9 1 6 was a bad year for Mexicans in Texas ; twenty-six of their total were lynched in that year, but many of these cases were the result of border trouble with Mexico . Texas mobs have little to distinguish them from ir other mobs . There is a d ectness about them that is l a not found elsewhere , and on y on occ sions do they stoop to the savagery of their sister states . They do err, like others , and at times let Judge Lynch take over 1 8 their most sacred tribunals of law . In 9 5 a Negro was lynched for riding his horse over a little white

girl and inﬂicting serious injuries upon her . Later the mob found that the guilty man had escaped and the 1 1 5 JU D G E LY N CH

was Negro lynched innocent, but he was already too dead for them to do anything about it .

Dan Davis , a Negro , was burned at the stake at

2 1 1 2 Tyler for the crime of attempted rape , May 5 , 9 . “ There was some disappointment in the crowd and n criticism of those who had bossed the arra gements , because the ﬁre was so slow in reaching the Negro . It was really only ten minutes after the ﬁre was Started that smoking Shoe soles and twitching of the Negro ’s feet indicated that his lower extremities

e . were burning , but the time se med much longer The spectators had waited so long to see him tortured that they begrudged the ten minutes before his suffer ing really began .

The Negro uttered but few words . When he was u led to where he was to be b rned , he said quite ‘ calmly, I wish some of you gentlemen would be ’ r e Christian enough to cut my throat, but nobody ‘ s onde d p . When the ﬁre started , he screamed , Lord , ’ was have mercy on my soul , and that the last word

he spoke , though he was conscious for fully twenty i minutes after that . His exhibit on of nerve aroused ” 5 the admiration even of his torturers . Texas lays claim to one of the largest mobs ever distinc assembled , There is, of course , a ﬁne tion between the mob and the spectators ; the mob does

5 Th isis e Cr une Se emb er 1 1 2 . , J , pt , 9 1 1 6

JU D G E LY N CH

ni woman , achieved their desire by bur ng the court house in which the Negro was jailed . 1 C t 00 s In 9 3 5 , in Colorado oun y, a mob of 7 person , many of them women, took two Negro boys , aged ff ﬁfteen and sixteen, from the o icers who were taking them to face a charge of murder, and hanged them to a tree . The County Attorney, who should have prose “ cute d : the lynchers , said I do not call the citizens who executed the Negroes a mob . I consider their ” action an expression of the will of the people . The t Coun y Judge , before whom the lynchers should have “ : S vio been tried , said I am trongly opposed to mob lence and favor orderly process of the law . The fact that the Negroes who so brutally murdered Miss Koll man could not be adequately punished by law because of their ages prevents me from condemning those citi zens who meted justice to the ravishing murderers ” 7 last night .

Judge Lynch concurring .

LOUISIAN A

nl 2 1 Louisiana , with o y 4 lynchings to her credit, hardly belongs in the big company dominated by

. is Mississippi, Georgia , and Texas Her high rating she t - hardly justiﬁed today, for has had but thir y six

lynchings since the Armistice , and only her previous

7 Th e Crisis anuar 1 6. , J y, 93 1 1 8 T H E JURIS D ICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH numerical strength keeps her so high on the list . Of ’ Louisiana s total of 4 2 1 Sixty-two were white men , three were colored women, and one was a white woman . Three were lynched for no offense what f ever, eleven for of enses that could not be determined -six by investigators, and forty victims were unknown in the communities in which their bodies were found . There have been twenty-nine double and twelve triple

1 2 lynchings since 88 . On three occasions mobs have

1 8 1 had four victims , and on one , ﬁve . In 9 a New Orleans mob invaded a jail and lynched eleven Italians

1 8 who had been convicted of murder . In 94 a mob Talullah at , in Madison Parish , lynched seven Negroes charged with murder . Such centers of civilization as New Orleans had six

lynchings with seventeen victims ; Shreveport , eleven n lynchi gs , each mob content with a single victim ;

Talullah Baton Rouge , four . , with only three lynch n i gs , rolled up a total of twelve victims , but has had

- 1 06 no lynch executions since 9 . i Lou siana mobs are fallible , like those of other

. 1 8 2 states In 9 a mob was seeking John Hastings , a i Calab oula . Negro of , for murder Fail ng to ﬁnd John

his son . at home , they lynched and daughter Three days later the mob caught up with the murderer and

1 8 completed the job . Again , in 99 , at Lindsay, a town

near Jackson , there had been an attempted assault on 1 1 9 JUDG E LY N CH a white woman by a Negro , Val Bages . Mitchell r i was Cur y, a wh te farmer, hearing that someone in his cornﬁeld , took two Negroes with him to drive away the intruder . He proved to be a large Negro , and Curry, becoming convinced that he was Bages , o r gave chase and ﬁnally treed him . The man was dered to remain in the tree while one of his pursu l ers went for a rope to hang him , but he s id down and was shot to death . Examination showed that his cloth ing was that worn at the State Insane Asylum at Jack son , and investigation proved that he was an inmate i who had escaped a few days before . Wander ng at ff large , he had su ered death for a crime that he had m not co mitted .

1 1 In 9 4, at Sylvester Station , three Negroes were lynched for the murder of the postmaster . One , an old man , bore an excellent reputation in the neighbor hood ; there was no evidence against him and , under duress , he refused to confess to the crime . He was burned at the Stake in the presence of a large crowd . Post The Houston (Texas) , commenting editori on ally the lynching, said The conviction is irresistible that the old man who was burned to death had nothing whatever to do

. tu with the crime If he had been guilty, the tor re to which he was subjected would have forced a confes nf sion , and the wonder is that he did not co ess any 1 20

JU D GE LY N CH

Mississippi , Tennessee , and Florida . The Cotton State

: has an unenviable record of her own 3 7 5 victims, of whom ﬁfty -ﬁve were whites and eight were colored

- women . Forty one were unknown in the communi ties where their bodies were found , but only four suf fer e d death for offenses unknown , and two through t mistaken identi y . Alabama mobs have had fourteen tw - double and elve triple lynchings . Lynch carnivals have claimed four victims four times and ﬁve victims

1 8 1 twice . In 9 the citizens of Choctaw County got together and lynched seven white men for outlawry, ’ and therewith established the State s record . . Since the Ar mistice was signed there have been t - - for y two persons lynched , of whom twenty six were shot, three hanged , three beaten to death , one cut to pieces , and one burned . Eight came to their deaths by means unknown to the investigators . Lynching scenes n are eve ly distributed throughout the State , and such important centers as Montgomery and Birmingham have had seven and four lynchings respectively . Ala bama mobs seldom descend to the bestiality exhibited i by her s ster states of the Lynch belt, and only once in recent years has one run hog-wild ; when the smoke cleared away there were four dead Negroes and two

dead white men . S Clarence Boyd , ﬁlling tation operator at Geiger, 1 2 2 THE JURI S D ICTIO N OF JU D GE LY N CH seven miles from Emelle , picked a bad time to try to collect three dollars and a half that Esau Robinson ,

- Negro , owed him for a second hand battery . It was

1 0 July 4 , 9 3 , and a large number of Negroes had gathered at an Emelle Negro church for a picnic . and Clarence Boyd happened to be there , he de mande d payment for the battery ; when it was r e fused, he lifted the battery from the Robinson car and placed it in a store at Emelle, refusing to let Esau have it until he had paid for it . Esau left to get the money .

At four that afternoon Esau returned , accompanied by his father, Tom , two brothers , Ollis and King, and a cousin also named Robinson . The Negroes were i armed and were drink ng . They searched the stores of Emelle until they found Clarence Boyd . Motion ing him outside the store , Esau hit him over the head with a bottle . Boyd called to his uncle Grover for him help , and as the latter approached, old Tom hit with a heavy stick . Grover ran to his car for his pistol o nded and began ﬁring at Tom who , though , made

his s . e cape While Boyd was still ﬁring at Tom, either n s Ki g or Olli Robinson came up behind him , took

aim , and fired . Grover Boyd fell dying, and another member of the Robinson family fired several shots E him . into With the exception of sau , all the Robin 1 2 3 JU D GE LY N CH sons made their escape . A white merchant held on to Esau and tied him to a post to await the coming of ff the sheri . f When the sherif arrived , he was told that Esau w k as not the man who had illed Grover Boyd . Leav ing the Negro tied to the post , he went in pursuit of the fleeing Robinsons . Some time before midnight Esau was released from the post and shot to death by t a mob of less than fif y persons . The armed man- hunters converged on the home of

- farmer preacher John Newton Robinson , brother of

Tom and uncle of Esau . John would not give up his gun nor would he permit his house to be searched . In the resulting quarrel he was shot to death and a was ll white overseer, a member of the posse , ki ed , probably unintentionally, by a member of the mob . f The sherif , believing that the fugitive Robinsons were hiding in the house , ordered it ﬁred . There were no Robinsons within , and the mob went on with its N e hunt . On the night of the ﬁfth , Winston Jones, N ar keeta gro , received a fatal shot at , Mississippi , just f or . across the state line , failing to stop when ordered

Later in the night a Negro woman , Viola Dial , who was in a car with her husband and three other men, was shot when the driver refused to stop the car at the

- order of the man hunters .

For weeks the search for the fugitives went on , but 1 24

JU D GE LY N CH lack distinction : her mobs merely take their victims

i 1 88 2 out and dispose of them with dispatch . S nce there have been 3 1 5 lynchings ; sixty-nine of these involved whites , two of them women charged with or suspected of murder, and ﬁve colored women . nl r t O y one was lynched th ough mis aken identity, four for offenses unknown ; thirty-two were un known iii the communities where their bodies were found . Ar kansas mobs have held eleven double and six hi triple lync ngs . On four occasions they have had i 1 8 the four v ctims and, in 99 , good folk of Little

River lynched seven on the charge of murder . In 1 0 s 9 4 the white citizens of St . Charles , Arkan as

County, went berserk and destroyed thirteen of their es colored fellowmen in an orgy of race prejudice , tablishing the State and nation records for known

- lynch executions . ’ l H t Of the state s centers of fashion and cu ture , o Springs leads with a total of six lynchings ; Pine Bluff n follows with ﬁve , Little Rock with four, and Arka sas t w as t . Ci y with two , one of which a riple lynching Since the Armistice there have been thirty-three per sons lynched ; fourteen o f these victims were merci fully Shot, thirteen were hanged , three burned , and three went to their deaths by means unknown to the

1 26 T H E JURI S D ICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH If there is one thing an Ar kansan dislikes more i is than a black sk n, it the white skin of a class

cons cious sharecropper . So far the record shows that the dominant whites are content with slapping such o ab ut, whipping and beating , them out of the state . That none have been killed is due only to bad marks

manship ; enough shots having been ﬁred .

FLORIDA

1 0 t his In 9 3 , when Cutler comple ed records of i or lynch ngs , Florida was placed ninth in numerical ’ der; in Walter White s records ( 1 9 2 7 ) she was placed she l seventh , a position stil holds . However, in the i number of lynchings since the Arm stice , Florida is

2 0 securely in third place . Of the 9 victims of lynch

1 88 2 - executions since , only thirty one were whites ;

three were women . Florida mobs are willing to de f stroy for alleged of enses , but none were lynched for ff -six no o ense or through mistaken identity . Forty were unknown to the communities in which their b s odies were found , and the offen es of eight were

undetermined by investigators . Florida has had sixteen double and seven triple o lynchings . On two occasi ns the mobs have had four 1 1 1 1 1 6 t victims and on one , ﬁve . In 9 and 9 hey had ’ Six V i In ict ms , but the state s record was established 1 2 7 JU D GE LY N CH

1 8 9 7 , when eight blacks were executed on the charge of murder . t - Since the Armistice , six y eight Floridians have t - been lynched , of whom twen y eight were shot, eighteen hanged , seven burned , four drowned, and one beaten to death . Ten came to their deaths by means unknown . While the city of Ocala seems to lead the state in i V T number of lynch ngs, eight with nine ictims , ampa has achieved in fewer years the same number of vic tims in but six lynch occasions . Lake City also had six vic lynchings, but with only the same number of

tims . Florida mobs may be distinguished for their direct i l off ness ; they w l not be put when they lust for blood .

1 1 6 In August, 9 , in Newberry, a Negro farmer named Boisey Long was accused by white farmers of ff hog stealing . The sheri and the white man who had sworn out the warrant for Long ’ s arrest went to take d . ff him Both white men were shot, the sheri later y

ing of his wound . Boisey Long escaped and when the mob came to

get him they had to be content with his wife , Stella,

and a friend of hers , Mary Dennis . The two Negresses u were taken to jail where , it is said , they were tort red

to secure information . Two other Negroes, Bert Den nis McHenr and Andrew y, were arrested and tor 1 2 8

JUDGE LY N CH

for safekeeping . A party of lynchers gained admission to the jail by means of a forged telegram and secured the prisoners under the pretext of taking them to

Jacksonville for greater protection . They then took the Negroes to the outskirts of Lake City and shot

them to death .

TEN N ESSEE Though Tennessee stands eighth in numerical or i der, she has less than half the number of lynch ngs of ’ 2 Mississippi to her credit . Of Tennessee s 7 5 lynch ﬁft - executions , only y three involved white men and two white women . Three Negresses were lynched ;

- twenty eight victims were unknown by name , and six were executed for unknown offenses . Only one f suf ered through mistaken identity . Tennessee mobs have had twenty-one double lynchings and ﬁve triple lynchings . On one occa sion the mob had four victims and on another six . Since the Armistice there have been but eighteen persons lynched ; of these nine were shot and nine n were h anged . Ly chings have been well distributed throughout the state , though a small place named Tiptonville has succeeded in rolling up a lynch -total of twelve victims in seven lynchings . Memphis has ﬁve l had ; Nashvil e , three ; Chattanooga, two ; and 1 3 0 T H E JURI S DICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH

Knoxville , one . Ripley, another small town , has man aged to stage ﬁve lynchings, one a double .

1 0 1 Crutchﬁeld In 9 , at Rome , a Negro named stole f a purse . He was taken from the sheri f by a mob and

Started for the place of execution . In some way he so r managed to escape , and this en aged the mob that ’ it took the Negro s sister out and lynched her . Tennessee mobs continued their ungallant conduct

1 1 1 t in 9 . Ben Pe tigrew, a successful Negro farmer, and his two daughters were on their way to Savannah seedcorton (Tennessee) , taking a load of to a cotton

gin . On no known provocation they were ambushed u by fo r white men who shot the father, hanged the

daughters , and then drove the load of cotton under the tree from which the bodies dangled and set ﬁre to Two o th w it e w r ltim t l e it . f e h e m n e e u a e y hang d for their ar t in th l nchin p e y g . Tennessee ’ s greatest lynching carnival was held in 1 1 E11 x . a Memphis in May, 9 7 Person , confessed 1 6 - - was murderer of a year old white girl , burned to

death in the presence of men , women , and l litt e children . The mother of the murdered child cheered the mob as they poured oil on the Negro and set Th Mem his Pr ess n aﬁr e . e him p , in reporti g the

lynching, said that the mob fought and screamed

and crowded to get a glimpse of him , and the mob 1 3 1 JUDGE LY N CH closed in and struggled about the ﬁre as the ﬂames

ﬂared high and the smoke rolled over their heads . Two of them hacked off his car s as he burned ; an ”

off . other tried to cut a toe , but they stopped him Jim McIllher r on was a Negro who resented the s slights and in ults of white men ; he went armed, and 8 ff . even the sheri was afraid of him On February ,

1 1 8 9 , at Estill Springs , he got into a quarrel with three young white men . Threats were made , and Mc

Illher r on six l . fired shots, ki ling two of the whites He then fled to the home of G . W . Lynch , a colored clergyman , who helped him to escape and was him i Illh r r n self shot and k lled by the mob . Mc e o was cap tur e d and arrangements made for a gala lynching . S Men , women , and children came to Estill prings t from a radius of fif y miles . The Negro was chained to a hickory tree while the mob howled abo ut him . A

ﬁre was built a few feet away and the torture began .

Bars of iron were heated , and members of the mob amused themselves by holding them close to the vic i One tim , at ﬁrst without touch ng him . bar he grasped , and as it was torn away all the inside of his hand came

. u with it Then the real tort re began, lasting twenty 9 minutes .

During this time , while his ﬂesh was slowly roast hi s . ing , the Negro never lost nerve He cursed those

9 Th r e C isis Ma 1 1 8 . , y, 9 1 3 2

JU D G E LY N CH Most Kentucky lynchings have been conﬁned to ni the smaller commu ties . Among the larger cities ,

Frankfort has had two ; Shelbyville , three , with six — Victims ; Paducah , three one a double lynching ; and

. r Bowling Green, two Since the A mistice there have been ten lynchings ; four of these were hangings , three he i shootings, and three of t k llings were by methods

unknown .

Kentucky mobs do their jobs thoroughly . At Shel

b ville 1 1 1 its y , in January , 9 , a mob felt it duty to give two Negroes the hemp cure for insulting white

women . They took the two young Negroes from the aS t r jail and then , a sort of afterthought, re u ned and secured an old Negro who was awaiting death se n Th hica o r i e . e bun f i tence C g T , reporting the a fa r, stated “All three Negroes pleaded for their lives but the

lynchers paid no attention to them . The lynching was devoid of the minor brutalities that frequently mark

such occasions . There was no abuse of the prisoners .

The mob was made up of quiet, determined men ” was whose mission to execute but not to torture . The rope used on the two younger Negroes broke t and they made a dash for liber y, but were riddled i u . t w th b llets The mob numbered only twen y men,

all masked . 1 34 T H E JURI S DICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH

SOUTH CAROLIN A

’ Only nine of South Carolina s 1 80 lynch victims

1 1 were whites . Of the 7 Negroes, seven were women , two were executed through mistaken identity,four teen were unknown in the communities where their ’ w as . bodies were found , and one s offense unknown So uth Carolina mobs have held thirteen double and three triple lynchings ; in 1 8 89 they found eight vic

s 1 8 8 tim and again , in 9 , they found eight more . Ai - hon ton ken , the between season resort of the , seems to have achieved an unenviable reputation as a lynch o center; three carnivals produced seven victims . C lumbia , the capital , has had but one , and Charleston has a clean bill of health . Barnwell and Phoenix share honors in octuple lynchings . There have been nineteen lynchings since the Armi stice ; thirteen of the victims were shot , one hanged , h un two beaten to death , and t ree died by methods known to the records . The alleged miscarriage of justice is what turns 1 6 Ab o n . 1 honest S uth Caroli ians into mobs In 9 , at l a bevi le , Anthony Crawford, a we lthy Negro farmer, un came into town to sell a load of cotton . He had an fortunate run-in with a white Storekeeper over the w . as price of the cotton , and cursed him For that he 1 3 5 JUDGE LY N CH thrown into jail and released on bail of ﬁfteen dollars .

Enraged at this miscarriage of justice , a mob pursued him into a gin mill and became further infuriated when he tried to defend himself . He was dragged out, k beaten , icked , stabbed , and partially blinded before the Sheriff rescued him and took him back to jail . il Later in the afternoon the mob broke into the ja , dragged the Negro through the streets to the fair him grounds , hung to a tree , and riddled his body with bullets . Prohibition provided Aiken with its greatest lynch f ing bee . A sheri f and three deputies were sent to was arrest Sam Lowman , who suspected of selling w . as whiskey Sam away, but his wife and daughter, hi Bertha, were at home ; when they saw the four w te s i to fi o men , wearing no in ign a indicate their of cial p i i fi sur s t ons . , they ran into the house The of cers rounded the house and the sheriff entered and stru ck ’ Bertha in the mouth with his fist . The girl s mother started to her defense and was shot through the heart son by one of the deputies . A and nephew, working in a nearby field , heard the screams and shots and hurried to the rescue . In the shooting that ensued, the ff sheri was killed and Bertha , her brother, and her

cousin seriously wounded . The trial of the three Negroes was dominated by Ku ff his the Klux Klan , of which the dead sheri and 1 3 6

JU D GE LY N CH The state has staged nine double and two triple lynch

ings , two in which there were four victims , and one with ﬁve ; in 1 894 a mob hanged seven horse thieves

at a single ﬁesta . Since the Armistice , Oklahoma has f had ten lynchings ; four victims were hanged , our was shot , one drowned , and the tenth came to his

death by means unknown . One white woman was nk lynched by Indians for an u nown reason , and the other with her husband for an equally unknown rea

son. Oklahoma mobs do not require much reason for

1 1 1 N e lynching . In 9 , at Okemah , Laura Nelson, was gress , accused of murdering a deputy sheriff who had discovered stolen goods in her house . She and her son , a boy of ﬁfteen , were taken from the jail , dragged six about miles to the Canadian River, and hanged from a bridge . The woman was raped by members 1 0 of the mob before She was hanged .

t : 1 1 Fur her example of Oklahoman gallantry In 9 4,

- — Marie Scott , seventeen year old Negress of Wagoner

County, was assaulted and raped by white men . She was alone in the house when the men entered , but her

screams brought her brother to the rescue . In the

ﬁght that ensued , one of the white men was killed .

The next day the mob came to lynch her brother,

n t . but, ﬁndi g he had escaped , lynched Marie ins ead

1 0 The Cr isis ul 1 1 1 , J y, 9 . I 3 8 T H E JURI S DICTIO N O F JU D G E LY N CH

MISSOURI

tu With Missouri the lynch record , in order, re rns

- . 1 20 to the South In the lynch executions , fifty of men the victims were white , one was a white woman u accused of m rder, and one a colored woman whose f of ense was unknown . Missouri mobs have witnessed eight double and three triple lynchings and have had four victims who were unknown in the communi ties in which their bodies were found ; five were lynched for causes unknown . Since the Armistice , Missouri has had eleven lynchings with eight hang a un ings, one shooting , one burning, and one by me ns known . Two Missouri lynchings are considered of suffi cient significance to be treated fully in another chap 1 1 ter .

VIRG IN IA

’ 1 0 t - Of Virginia s 9 lynch victims , twen y four were whites ; one of them a woman who was lynched b e cause ofher disreputable character . Thirteen victims were unknown in the communities in which their of bodies were found , and three were lynched for fenses known only to the lynchers . There have been

“ ’ ” 1 1 So me o f Judge Lynch s Cases : The Five Thousandth ; Thr ee G over nor s G o Into Action. I 3 9 JU D GE LY N C H

five i double and one triple lynch ngs , one with four i . ti victims , and another with five Since the Arm s ce , has - Virginia had but five recorded lynch executions , and thr ee of these were accomplished by shooting and two by hanging . Negroes have narrow escapes in the Old Domin

1 1 ion . In 9 3 , William Harper was convicted of crimi nal assault on a white woman and condemned to “ ” ’ death . At a second trial the assaulted woman s es cort courageously came forward and testiﬁed that S she had pent the night of the alleged assault with him . was f The woman subsequently convicted o perjury .

NORTH CAROLIN A

Of all the States in the South , North Carolina has made the noblest effort to eradicate the crime of

. 1 0 hi s lynching Yet she has had 5 recorded lync ng , in which only twenty-one of the victims were whites ; twelve victims were unknown in the communities in which their bodies were found and two were lynched One m for undetermined offenses . white wo an , a girl , was lynched with an Indian doctor in 1 89 7 for an f o fense that is still unknown . North Carolina mobs n Ar have held six double lynchi gs . Since the mistice ,

- nine lynch executions were achieved by Shooting , seven by hanging , and two by methods unknown . 1 40

J U D G E LY N CH

1 895 vigilantes rode wild in Keyapaha County and ’ -ﬁve hanged four for rustling . Fifty of Nebraska s ﬁft - y nine victims were white , and she has had but one lynching since the Armistice : in 1 9 1 9 Will

Brown, Negro , was burned to death in Omaha for an alleged attack on a white woman .

KAN SAS

On ﬁfty-six occasions Kansans have risen in wrath and lynch-executed the same number of their fellow citizens ; nineteen were Negroes , a high percentage for a western state . On four occasions mobs have con ducted double lynchings ; murder seems to have been h the usual cause . Kansas has had t ree lynchings since s the Armistice ; two of the victim were hanged , and ns the third came to his death by mea unknown .

WEST VIRGIN IA

1 8 i n On the night of December 5 , 94, L ncol County A . . r n White Caps took Mrs T thur, a white woma , from her home and lynched her for reasons known w . 1 0 2 as only to themselves In 9 , a Negro lynched for conjuring and another through mistaken identity . s With these exception , murder and rape seem to be the crimes that rouse mob action in West Virginia . ’ fift - - Of the state s y six lynchings, twenty one have involved white men; on five occasions mobs have 1 4 2 T H E JURI S D ICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH found two victims , and on one , three . Since the Armi stice , five men have been lynched in West Virginia, three by hanging and two by shooting .

Blue field 1 1 2 In , in 9 , Robert Johnson, Negro , was accused of rape . He gave an alibi and proved every statement he made ; when he was taken before the she girl who had been attacked , failed to identify him . She had previously described very minutely the Th Blu el lic clothes her assailant wore . e efi d po e took ohnson out and dr essed him to t the descr i tion ] fi p , “ ’ ” and the girl screamed : That s the man# A Bluefield mob dragged Johnson out and severely abused him was and then hanged him to a telegraph pole . It later u concl sively established that Johns on was innocent .

IN D IAN A

t - : - Fif y four lynchings forty one whites, thirteen

Negroes .

- Long Klan ridden , the state of Indiana had still - s been free of lynch execution , though beatings and

u 1 0 2 1 0 m rders were frequent, from 9 to 9 3 , when the mob spirit ﬂared with shocking intensity . In that year, at Marion , two Negroes accused of murder were taken from jail and hange#d before a mob estimated to number between and Young gi rls and

In women, some with babies their arms, urged on the lynchers , and one girl , seated atop an automobile , 1 43 JU D GE LY N CH

” - — screamed : Hang-that-Nigger# Hang that Nigger# Unquestionably the ﬁnest example of mob -madness

outside of the Deep South .

CALIFORN IA

- hin : - Fifty three lync gs forty seven whites , two

i . Negroes, three Ch nese , one Mexican Two double i and one triple lynch ng; two lynchings of four, and

one of ﬁve .

Since the Armistice , California has had four lynch

ings with a total of seven victims , all white . Six came to their deaths by hanging and one was beaten to

1 l death . In 9 3 3 , a San Jose mob entered the jai and

snatched Thurmond and Holmes, confessed kidnap li Slayers of Brooke Hart, and hanged them in a pub c

park . WYOMIN G

-o ne n : - Forty lynchi gs thirty seven whites, four

Negroes . Wyoming has had but one lynching since the Armi

1 1 1 8 stice . That was on December 9 , 9 , when Ed o il ward W odson , a Negro charged with k ling a rail

road switchman, was lynched at Green River .

N EW MEXICO

i - n n n . Th rty i e ly chings, three Negroes 1 44

JU D G E LY N CH

WASHIN GTON Twenty-nine lynchings with only one Negro vic

Washington has had but one known lynching since

t . 1 1 the Armis ice This took place in 9 9 , when a blood hungry mob of patriots took Wesley Everest from the jail at Centralia, mutilated him , and hanged him 1 3 three times .

MARYLAN D

Twenty-nine lynchings with but two white vic tims . has had Maryland but two lynchings , two bad out

- breaks of mob violence since the Armistice . On De cemb er 1 1 N e 4 , 9 3 , at Salisbury, Matthew Williams , gro , was snatched from his hospital cot by a lynching t par y of three hundred, dragged three blocks to the courthouse square , and hanged to a tree . He is said his t t to have confessed to the murder of employer , s a ing that he was paid but ﬁfteen cents an hour for his work in a basket factory . Two years later, at Princess

Anne , not ﬁfteen miles from Salisbury, George Arm l wood, Negro , said to have confessed to way aying t - - a - and attacking an eigh y two ye r old white woman ,

1 3 “ ’ ” Wh o D eﬁe d th e osses . Some of Judge Lynch s Cases : Those B 1 46 T HE JURI S D ICTIO N O F JU D GE LY N CH was taken from jail and hanged by a mob of nearly His body was dragged through the mainthor oughfar e for more than half a mile and then tossed on a burning pyre . OHIO

t - Twen y eight lynchings, twelve white victims . i Oh o has had but one lynching since the Armistice .

1 2 On June 7 , 9 3 , a mob took Luke Murray from the

South Point jail , where he was being held for threat cui 1 1 ng two white men with a knife . On June Mur ’ w ray s battered body as found in the Ohio River . Four white men were arrested but later exonerated by r a ju y .

ID AHO

- hi s . Twenty one lynchings , all w te victim 1 1 Idaho has had no recorded lynching since 9 I .

OREGON

e . Twenty lynchings , one N gro victim 1 1 Oregon has had no lynchings since 9 4 .

IOWA

two . Eighteen lynchings , Negro victims 1 Iowa has had no lynching since 9 07 . 1 47 JU D GE LY N CH

MICHIGAN

Ten lynchings : seven white and three Negro vic tims . Michigan boasted a slate clean of lynchings from

1 0 2 1 9 until 9 3 5 . In that year Silas Coleman , a Negro was war veteran , shot to death in a swamp near “ Pinckney by members Of the Black Legion for tar ” “ or l get practice , just to see how it feels to kil a nig

1 6 ger . In 9 3 , members of this hooded secret order of alleged patr iots and regulators killed Charles A . WPA n Poole , a white worker for allegedly beati g his wife (who later denied she had ever been struck by her husband) and hanged Roy Pidcock , white , whose only known offense was that he refused to join the repressive order . Eight persons were sentenced to life terms for the lynching of Poole and ﬁve received similar sentenc es As for the killing of Coleman . this is being written, ﬂi l o lar ds . E n er es ca u Virgil F g , reputed head of g , has been arrested and will be tried on char ges of criminal i syndical sm and bomb possession .

MIN N ESOTA

: Nine lynchings four white, four Negro and one

Indian victim . 1 48

JU D G E LY N CH

six Eight lynchings , involving white and two Ne gro victims . S 1 00 Utah has had but one lynching ince 9 , and

1 2 that was in 9 5 , when Robert Marshall, Negro slayer ff of a police o icer, was taken from jail and hanged near Castlegate . NEVAD A

Six lynchings, involving four whites , one Indian , and one Chinese . has n 1 0 Nevada had no lynchings si ce 9 5 .

WISCON SIN

Six lynchings , all involving white men .

s has 1 0 Wiscon in had no lynchings since 9 3 .

Three lynchings, involving two white and one Ne i gro vict m . ’ 1 1 6 a New York s last lynching was in 9 , in W sh in ton g County . CON N ECTICUT

One white lynched .

N EW JERSEY

1 One Negro lynched in 9 00 at Hackensack . 1 5 0 THE JURI S D ICTIO N OF JUDGE LY N CH MAINE

1 0 One white man lynched in 9 7 at Bancroft, Aroos t took Coun y .

DELAWARE

1 0 . One Negro lynched in 9 3 , near Wilmington

Recapitulation by States

Blacks All Other s Total

547 44 S9 I 5 3 1 3 9 5 7 0 3 84 1 65 549 3 5 8 6 3 42 1 3 20 5 5 3 7 5 246 69 3 1 5 2 5 9 3 1 29 0 Tennessee 2 20 5 5 1 7 5 Kentucky 1 5 3 8 3 2 3 6 So uth Car olina 1 7 1 9 1 80 Oklahoma I I I I 43 Missour i 5 1 1 20 24 1 09 North Car olina 2 1 1 05 Mo ntana 88 Color ado 66 Nebr aska 5 5 Kansas 3 7 West Vir ginia 2 1 Indiana 4 1 JU D G E

State

California Wyoming New M exico a D kota , North Illinois Arizona Washington Mar yland Ohio Idaho Or egon Iowa Michigan Minnesota Pennsylvania Utah Nevada Wisco nsin New York Connecticut N ew Jersey

D elaware New Hampshire Vermont Rhode Island Ma ssachusetts

1 5 2

JU D GE LY N CH

Accused of a most atrocious murder, this young Jewish superintendent was put on trial the following summer . Newt Lee , the night watchman , was exon crated from any share in the guilt . Outraged by the t barbari y of the crime , certain people in Georgia , and particularly in Atlanta, where the crime was com ’ mitte d , and in Marietta , where the murdered girl s i victim family lived , insisted a be found to pay the t as penal y, and they fastened on the young Jew the one whose death would most surely satisfy their de sire for vengeance . The mob , led by Thomas E . Wat son The e er sonian and his weekly paper, ] ﬁ , at this point turned the case over to Judge Lynch in actu

The ﬂ imsiest evidence was admitted as long as it was detrimental to the prisoner . Certain facts not in e as the natur of conclusive evidence , such that Frank had phoned the night watchman at seven the evening before the discovery of the body to learn if every was thing all right, were seized upon as proof of guilt . Whether or not the testim ony at the trial was con vincing is entirely immaterial in considering the real signiﬁcance of this case . What made it a noted one was the spirit that pervaded the courtroom and the vicinity of the courthouse— the malevolence of the mob . The courtroom was thronged with a hostile crowd 1 54 ’ S O M E OF JUD G E LY N CH S CA S E S

e of p ople . The jury had to pass through this crowd u on its way to and from the j ry box . Outside the u courtho se the state militia was deployed for action . The local newspapers had lashed the people of the - h vicinity into a lynch frenzy . T e crowd in the court room was demonstrative in approval of the accusers was and the evidence against Frank . He a Jew . He did not know his place ; as superintendent he had had - under true blue Americans him . Mary Phagan had been an employee ; for the employed class this was convincing proof that the young girl had been help less . Inside the cour troom and outside the courthouse the mob spirit was vocal and demonstrative ; it yelled for blood and it meant, as the end proved , to have n u blood . The tria l co s med thirty days and the case w as turned over to the jury . Can anyone believe that those jurors were insensitive to the mob spirit that was manifesting itself on all sides#

When the jury was ready to give its decision, the Trial Judge and the Couns el did not dare to have the prisoner brought into court ; because of the mob r spirit, his right to be present and face his accuse s when the verdict was given was denied him . If that jury had decided that the evidence they had heard was ffi and considered insu cient to convict, if their “ ” u s verdict had been not g ilty, there was obviou dan I S5 JU D GE LY N CH

s was n ger to them elves ; if their verdict agai st Frank , ther e was equally obvious danger to the prisoner . The Judge who had presided at the trial in his an swer to a petition for a new trial later gave sufficient reason for doubting the verdict of the mob spirit in this case : “ It has given me more concern than any other case a sa al I was ever in , and I w nt to y right here that, though I heard the evidence and arguments during those thirty days , I do not know this morning whether ” t Leo Frank is innocent or guil y . Frank’ s absence from the courtroom at the time of his sentence was one of the grounds upon which he appealed his case to the state Supreme Court and then to the United States Supreme Court . The state Supreme Court held that the question should have been raised at a certain Stage in the proceedings ; Since it was not raised then , it could not be raised at all . The highest court in the land said it was a question of pro ce dur e that is to be determined solely by the state courts . The mob spirit that dictated the verdict and the absence of Frank from the courtr oom was never considered . During the whole process of appealing the deci s sion , the mob kept up its threats . When the ca e came m s before the Prison Com is ion of Georgia, where the ’ mob s action and inﬂuence could be weighed, the 1 5 6

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en whose power had been growing all these months, ter e d the prison and , with suspicious ease , overawed the warden and the guards , dragged Frank from his bed in the dormitory, carried him in an automobile to within a few miles of the bir thplace of Mary Pha r gan , and hanged him to a t ee . Former Governor Slaton was compelled to flee his native State because of threats on his own life . The lynching was done with fatal deliberation ; it s was the result of no hasty, impulsive pas ion but of cool plottings for weeks in homes and barrooms by hundreds of willing murderers . How; one may ask, were the twenty-five selected from the greater mob # By vote# Or because they knew the interior of the State Prison through previous incarceration# Or was this an occasion when the actual mob leaders took matters into their own hands# The lynchers believed they had done a solemn duty ; in trampling upon the law they believed they our nal had executed justice . Listen to the Marietta J the day after the lynching in its own town : “ The people demanded that the verdict of th e in court be carried out, and saw to it that it was . We - i iz sist that they were , and are , law abid ng cit ens of ” Georgia . And race -prejudice got into full flight in Thomas ’ Watson s weekly: 1 5 8 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S A Vigilance Committee redeems Georgia and carries out the sentence of the law on the Jew who raped and murdered the little Gentile girl , Mary Pha ” gan . Let Jew libertines take notice . The mob went even further and let it be known throughout Cobb County and the entir e state of Georgia that it would not be safe to try to discover and punish them , for they were determined men . The fullest accounts of the lynching appeared in all

Georgia papers . Every newspaper reader read the ’ story of Frank s death ride ; each reader, by referring all to his newspaper, could learn that had happened and all that had been said between Frank and the lynching party on their way from the prison to the place of hanging ; how Frank sat in the automobile and e how he acted during the trip . The stories r corded every word that had been said to him and

- every word he replied during the seven hour journey .

The lynch mob , the stories went on, had not been rough with him , and Frank had shown stoicism . ’ t Yet the very day this s ory broke , the Coroner s “ jur y brought in the verdict that Frank had come to ” his death at the hands of persons unknown . Many

witnesses had been summoned , but they all declared i they knew noth ng, had seen nothing, and recognized

no one . Only one witness ventured to admit that he had seen two men step out of an automobile near the I S9 J U D GE LY N CH scene of the lynching and that he had had a pretty w i strong suspicion of what as going on . Th s slight admission evidently made an uncomfortable sensation n i u in the courtroom . The Acti g Sol citor t rned to the witness and very slowly asked “ ” You did not recognize anybody# The witness moved nervously in his chair and re plied : “ sir Nobody, . At this word there was audible relaxation in all parts of the courtroom . The man who wrote the revealin g story of the was lynching, who either a member of the mob or his S had had tory, not from a single member of the

a . mob but from several members, was not c lled The one witness who could have been made to testify or be declared in contempt of court was not called . It was the ﬁnal stigma on the formerly fair name of ’ b eau este t Georgia, the mob s g to law and jus ice and honor . as The leading newspapers of Georgia , well as those of the rest of the South , condemned the murder of Leo Frank and the expression of mob-law it had was t evoked . The general tenor of these writers hat it would take the state from twenty-ﬁve to one hun dred years to live down the disgrace ; that Georgia its th e fu had probably learned lesson and would, in 1 6o

JU D G E LY N CH wages to his padrone ; the richest and juiciest plums came from those Italians who had been successful in business . Here the Shakedown ran into the thousands , and no one knew how extensive the gross takings t were . Blackmail followed petty ex ortion and led to kidnaping and even murder . The conditions existed in New York, Chicago , and other large cities with sizable Italian groups . It was in New Orleans, how ever, that this secret society ﬁrst exceeded itself . In 1 89 0 the four-year-old so n of a wealthy Italian merchant was kidnaped and held for $57 ransom .

When kidnaped , the child was healthy and robust ; a month later, when he was returned to his parents , his health was so impaired that he died within a short time . The case aroused public feeling to such a point that the police were compelled to take cognizance of ’ t the socie y s criminal activities . Chief of Police David in C . Hennessey himself took entire charge of the vesti ati n g o . Detectives were sent to Italy to trace the records of known members of the order ; others were sent to Chicago , St . Louis , and San Francisco, and, within a short time , the Chief knew enough to begin making arrests and to be assured that he would secur e

convictions .

Late one foggy night, just before the trap was to

be sprung , Chief of Police Hennessey was on his way

home . As he neared his residence , a boy darted out of

1 6 2 ’ S O M E O F JUDG E LY N CH S CA S E S the fog, shrilled a peculiar whistle , the Maﬁa signal , and a volley of bullets mowed the policeman down . was shOt his He three times in his abdomen, right knee and left hand were shot through , and his face and neck were horribly mutilated by gunshot wounds . He languished until the next morning , but only one word passed his lips : it was the whispered “ ” Dagoes . The evidence the Chief had secured was used to round up the members of the society . One , Pietro

Monasterio , who lived in a shack within sight of the ’ Chief s home , was arrested . In his house were found six -off shotguns , ﬁve with sawed barrels and with stocks hinged so that they might be doubled and car l ried under the clothing . The boy who whist ed the Signal and twelve others were arrested ; fourteen in all were brought to trial . ’ The State s case was exceptionally strong and was presented by District Attorney Lionel Adams, who was considered by bar and laity to be an outstanding and able prosecutor . Judge Romon, the presiding jus was una r o acha tice , uncompromising, digniﬁed , pp As m ble , and a capable judge . ide fro convincing cir cum stantial evidence , there were eyewitnesses , one young couple identifying no less than e ight of the was prisoners . The defense based on the old reliable

alibi, backed up with terrorized witnesses . 1 6 3 JU D GE LY N CH

In Louisiana the jury is competent to fix the terms i of pun shment in criminal cases and , when this jury brought in their written verdict, the Court was stunned . Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to jail for terms varying from ten to four years and two were declared innocent . Judge Romon looked at the written verdict with horror and stupefaction . “ ” r Bribe y, was the first cry, while others claimed the jury had been intimidated . Public indignation flared to such a degree that the convicted prisoners and the two who were acquitted were remanded to the Parish Prison . The verdict had been rendered on

1 s Friday, March 3 . That evening the New Orlean Item States n and the , and the following morni g the Pica une Times adver y and the , carried the following tisem ent :

MASS MEETING All go od citizens ar e invited to attend a mass meeting ’ ’ on S ur ar 1 1 0 o . . at day, M ch 4th , at clock A M at Clay s S e to e e the il r of u t in tatue, to take st ps r m dy fa u e j s ice he e t nn e . e e n He ess y Cas Come pr par d for actio .

’ About Clay s statue the streets were blocked , but

the people were orderly and attentive . They were

addressed by many leaders , temperately at ﬁrst . John

M . Parker, who later was to become Governor of the ’ state and in 1 9 1 6 the Progressive party s candidate for 1 64

JU D G E LY N CH

t the mob hove into sight . Three patrol wagons of Ci y Police that had been summoned by the warden were

disarmed by members of the militia , and the police were placed under military guard .

- A nearby lumber yard provided the battering rams , and the work of demolishing the entrances was soon

ﬁnished . The mob leaders admitted not more than sixty to the prison and posted armed men at all exits with instructions to shoot any prisoner who at tempted to escape . Ten of the Italians had been conﬁned in a large

new steel cell . The mob found it impossible to open

the lock , the warden having refused to give up the - m keys , and their battering ra s failed to gain them

admittance . It was decided to shoot the prisoners .

A few minutes were given them for prayer, and

then the ﬁring squad went into action . The new steel r cell became a shambles , one of the p isoners who had been a leader of the society receiving sixty-eight a wounds . The boy who gave the signal on the p was proach of the police chief was spared , as Mache

t ur . cia , the second who was acqui ted by the j y The

other two prisoners were lynched outside the prison . Monasterio was hanged to a cottonwood tree in front

of the prison and his body riddled with bullets . Polo was viso , insane from fright, hanged from a lamp

post, but he was too tall and his toes touched the

1 66 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S ground . A youngster shinned up the post and , placing a knee on each shoulder, jolted him to death . The mob then divided into groups with the inten tion of visiting punishment on the jurors who had taken part in the trials . No jurymen were found ; they had all ﬂed the city . so n - f Unlike ma y of our lynch executions , the a fair at New Orleans did not end with the demise of the victims ; three of the lynched Italians were proved to be loyal subjects of King Humbert . The Italian Con sul at New Orleans made his protestations , agreeing that some of the victims were very bad men indeed , but objecting that many of the charges against them i a s were unsubstant ated , b seless , that his reque t for the military had been ignored , and that he and his secre tary had been insulted and all but mobbed . The King

dom of Italy, too , raised her voice ; through the

Premier, Marquis de Rudin , relayed through Baron

Fava , the Italian Ambassador to Washington , a de mand was made for heavy indemnity for the families of the lynche d and the immediate extirpation of the he S lynchers . Mr . Blaine , t Secretary of tate , properly

expressed his horror and regretted the incident, but pointed out that his Government did not regard in de mnity as a right the Italian Government could de m h mand . Su mary punis ment of the lynchers , the Sec r etar was un- y able to maintain, would be American 1 67 JU D GE LY N CH

t l ’ and unreasonable , since the utmos that cou d be done t would be to insti ute judicial proceedings , and this function belonged exclusively to the State of Louisi

ana . There were threats by the Italians of breaking o ff i diplomatic relations ; Mr . Blaine repl ed that the Ital ian Government was trying to hurry him in a manner contrary to diplomatic usage and that he would an nounce no decision until the case was thoroughly in i e t ve st at d . g It was , to him , a mat er of indifference “ what persons in Italy thought of our institutions . I ” cannot change them , still less violate them . The Italian Government ﬁnally accepted s to be distributed among the families of the victim , ff “ o ered out of humane consideration , without refer ” ence to the question of liability therefor .

to the Negro as a people , it had no place in the life

nr 1 20 of He y Lowry . As recently as 9 this Negro was as much a slave as if he had been sold on the block in ’

r . r the eighteen thi ties But Hen y Lowry s master, a i wh te landowner named O . T . Craig, of Nodena ,

Arkansas , had a better deal than he could have had one m ’ hundred years ago . At that ti e a black of Lowry s heft and ability would have cost him at leas t 1 68

JU D G E LY N C H

t his name and seek work in the border ci y . The job t r he got paid him for y dolla s a month , and he wrote see was to Jenkins to go to his wife , who staying with a third friend , and give her the message that within a few months he would be able to send for her and their little daughter . That was the worst mistake

Lowry made . The white landlords for miles around Nodena had

' be en thoroughly aroused by this r eb ellio n of one of was their peons . If Lowry permitted to get away with his private revolt , other peons and sharecroppers would rebel . Class consciously they formed them i selves nto an avenging mob , dedicating their entire efforts to tracking down this helot and wreaking vengeance on him for assailing their feudal rights . So complete was their espionage that they managed to intercept the letter Lowry wrote to his friend , even w though it as Signed S . M . Thompson .

El Paso was too far away, too expensive a trip for ’ i t . as the mob The informat on to Lowry s whereabou s , d t his alias , even the a dress in the border ci y where he was living, were given to the police while the mob its bided time . Two deputies , Dixon and Greer, were sent to bring Lowry back to face Arkansas justice .

The deputies had instructions , orders, if you please , from Governor McRae not to take the fugitive back t to the scene of his crime nor to the coun y jail . They 1 7 0 ’ S O M E OF JUDGE LY N CH S CA S E S wer e to bring Henry Lowry by the shortest route to

Little Rock for safekeeping . t The deputies , it now seems , had a greater loyal y to the mob than to their state and their oath . Instead ’ McRae S of following Governor instructions, they took the fugitive direct to the mob . They brought him by way of New Orleans and were taking him into is Memphis , which many miles away from Little S Rock, in a tate that had no relation to the crime , and could not possibly be considered on the route to

Little Rock . The mob knew the route the deputies would take with their prisoner and stopped the train s over ower in and disar min at Sardis , Missis ippi , p g g sur r is d f the p e of icers of the law . The actual snatching was done by a handful of

r Of 2 6 men early in the mo ning January , a month ’ r after Low y s attack on his white master . The balance of the mob awaited their fellows at the Hotel Pea body in Memphis ; nearly one hundred of them were i gathered in the hotel lobby, laughing , talk ng , and preparing to return to Ar kans as come evening . This was to be no mere hanging : Henry Lowry was not to be taken to the nearest tree by an enraged citizenry

was . and strung up . Hanging too good for this Negro The mob dined happily at the Peabody ; it was a al g a occasion . In Little Rock Governor McRae was desperately 1 7 1 JUDGE LY N CH seeking a method of stopping the lynching . He said ’ “ f w so I can t get in touch with Sheri f Black ood, I ’ I under wouldn t know who to send the troops to . stand that Sher iffBlackwood is at the Peabody Hotel in Mem his p and I have tried to telephone him there , ’ ” 1 but they say he isn t in his room . The noon edition of The Memphis Pr ess announced in a headline the full width of its front page :

LYNCHING PARTY ON WAY TO SS R ARK. TO PA TH U MEMPHIS Negr o Who Kille d Two on Chr istmas Day Taken Fr om r S r i i i i Ofﬁce s at a d s , M ss ss ppi We are going to parade him through Main Street when we pass through Memphis , the leader of the “ ar e mob boasted at Sardis . Then we going to take ” him to Arkansas and that will be the end of him . The Pr ess insisted upon being helpful to anyone n i terested enough to wish to attend the lynching . Its directions were explicit . “ The mob , it is said , is taking Lowry back to Wil

‘ son, Ark . , near where he shot and killed two white

2 persons on Dec . 5 , and is to cross the Harahan As bridge over the Mississippi here . the roads

1 e or T Mem Pr e s 2 1 21 e d in h e his s anuar 6 . I al cs ar e R p t p , J y , 9 t i m n S . i e . F . 1 7 2

JU D GE LY N CH

“ gave the latest directions . It is rumored here that the mob will skirt Memphis and cross the Mississippi ’ River in launches at Richardson s Landing, Tenn . , just opposite Nodena . Only the Memphis police tried to stop the lynch cRae ing . Governor M could have called out the t Arkansas National Guard , pa rolled the river bank, i i and prevented the land ng of the lynch ng party , but was he could not have saved Henry Lowry . The mob ready to lynch him in any one of three states . But the Governor of Arkans as made no effort to save the other Negroes, either by reinforcing the guards at the penal institutions in which they were incarcerated or by moving them to what is known in the South “ ” - as a lynch proof jail . No obstructions were placed in the way of the mob and its designs save the feeble efforts of the Memphis police . c t r l The Memphis N ews S imi a was more exp icit . x t was i an In its si th (ﬁnal ci y) edition , it deﬁn tely ’ nounce d that the mob would cross at Richardson s

Landing , where they would be joined by a party “ waiting on the Arkansas side , prepared to lynch ’ ” ’ ix N ews Scimitar s Lowry promptly at s o clock . The dispatch was from Millington , Tennessee , and refers “ to the mob as a party of seven in two automobiles ” e with Henry Lowry, negro murderer . Lat r, in the same news story : 1 74 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S

’ The party stoppe d at Fowler s restaurant was for lunch . The negro taken into the restaurant and kept under observation while the party ate .

The negro said nothing, but showed the strain he w as . was under . He realized he on his way to death A number of Millington citizens were attracted to t i t the res aurant, and a few accompan ed the par y to the landing . They are not expected to cross the river . “Nothing occurred to mar the serenity of the t journey . The par y ate leisurely and after ﬁnishing ’ t went to E . A . Harrold s store , where a quanti y of w was rope as purchased . It said that the rope would

be used in place of chains for the automobiles . The road is very bad and slippery at the approach to the ” landing . Th e Memphis Pr ess had done a good ballyhoo job

and sent Ralph Roddy, its ace reporter, to cover the inco lynching; he did it admirably, even if a bit h er e tl n b e n y . He k ew his sheet and its audience and

fed both the pap they most desired . To get the picture

of the lynching of Henry Lowry as a whole , it is ’ necessary to jump about a bit through Roddy s

00 More than 5 persons, he wrote , stood by and

looked on while the negro slowly burned to a crisp . A few women were scattered among the crowd of Arkansas planters who directed the gruesome work I 7 S JU D GE LY N CH of avenging the death of O . T . Craig and his daughter,

Mrs . C . O . Williamson . “Not once did the slayer beg for mercy despite the fact that he suffered one of the most horrible deaths imaginable . With the negro chained to a log, members of the mob placed a small pile of leaves i around h s feet . Gasoline was then poured on the leaves, and the carrying out of the death sentence was under way . “ Inch by inch the negro was fairly cooked to death . Every few minutes fresh leaves were tossed on the funeral pyre until the blaze had passed the waist Even after the ﬂesh had dropped away from his legs r and the ﬂames were leaping toward his face , Low y retained consciousness . Not once did he whimper

or beg for mercy . Once or twice he attempted to pick up the hot ashes in his hands and thrust them in his mouth in order to hasten death time the ashes were kicked out of his reach by a As member of the mob . the ﬂames were eating

away his abdomen, a member of the mob stepped

forward and saturated the body with gasoline . It was then only a few minutes until the negro had been ” reduced to ashes . When Roddy had got all he could from the b um

ing, he anticipated the mob and hurried on to Wilson

and Blytheville , where the other Negroes scheduled 1 7 6

JU D GE LY N CH never for the killing of two fellow humans in what, in this America of ours , must always be called self ’ defense . But Lowry s skin was black , and for years Of to come the shadow will darken the State Arkansas .

- (D ) The Law N ever Had a Chaucer Claude Neal

Marianna is a city in Jackson County, in the north

western part of Florida, on the Alabama border . It is -ar— - in a shabby, down the heels sort of place and

habited by shabby people . It is a tourist stopover, and only travelers in the shabbier cars stop even for

a night . It has an imposing hotel and some stores , and a few of the tradesmen have built new homes for ’ is their families . Saturday Marianna s big day, when the rural folk come to trade and do their week ’s

shopping, and for that day there is a degree of activity

that has its attractiveness . The balance of the week

it is , at best, a very dull town . Marianna itself has been the scene of several lynch t ings, and Jackson Coun y has many others , two of

its d . n them double lynchings , to cre it All the ly ched

have been Negroes . Wages are low in Marianna , and morals do not achieve an altogether high in Jackson l run County . White men open y with colored women , n n and white women , not ope ly at all, are k own to

have colored lovers . The Negroes of Jackson County

know this and deplore the practice , and when it is 1 7 8 ’ S O M E O F JU D G E LY N CH S CA S E S mentioned shake their heads and shufﬂe out of ear it u shot . The whites deny and , sho ld the investigator t pursue the matter, he is answered with vi uperation r and th eatened with physical violence . It is a lynch t coun ry . It was that way with Lola Cannidy and Claude “ was Neal . Lola a white girl and Claude a Negro . For ” some months , says the white investigator for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored “ People , and possibly for a period of years , Claude Neal and Lola Cannidy had been having intim ate re lations with each other . The nature of their relation ship was common knowledge in the Negro com 7 , Neal ’s friends had advised him of the danger of l the re ationship and had urged him to discontinue it .

1 8 1 On the afternoon of October , 9 34, Lola dis l she appeared from her home . It is al eged that told r s id he . M . Cann S her parents , Mr and George y, that was going to water the pigs and to attend to some other r a cho es that were p rt of her tasks about the farm . The family took no particular notice of her absence when he s . Her failed to return in the late afternoon brother, who had been working in a nearby ﬁeld , reported sh e that he had seen her talking to someone . When

# tu n still failed to re rn that ight, a search was begun t for her in the vicini y of her home . Early the next I 79 JU D G E LY N CH

nin was n mor g her body, fully clothed , fou d by an i uncle , John K ng, a short distance from her home , badly mutilated about the head and arms and partially covered with brushwood and pine logs . A watch, a a ring, a piece of clothing , and a h mmer were among the articles discovered near the place where she came to her death . Several boys testiﬁed that they had seen Claude

Neal near the scene of the crime that afternoon , and that he had some wounds on his hands that he said he had received while repairing a fence . The ﬁrst f was i home visited by the sherif that of Ann e Smith,

mother of Claude , just across the road from the i Cann dy home . The ofﬁcers claimed to have found

some bloody garments in the house . A search for Claude Neal was started and he was nf arrested on a nearby peanut farm . He co essed and

implicated another man , Herbert Smith . Smith was n arrested and with Neal was take , as is the custom

in the lynch country, to a nearby woods and ques

tione d . It was understood that Neal had had a fight a l with Smith and Herbert had beaten him . Neal fin l y admitted that Smith had nothing to do with the crime was sub se and that he alone was involved . Smith fli er quently released by the o c s . What Neal told the officers in the woods was not Cannid revealed . Later he told a friend that Miss y had 1 80

J U D GE LY N CH by boat to Pensacola , and when a mob threatened h t at jail , he was moved across the line into Brewton ,

Alabama , two hundred and ten miles from Marianna . On October 2 3 the Marianna D aily Tim es Cour ier said : In a determined effort to locate the three Negroes held for the murder of Lola Cannidy near Greenwood last Thursday, a relentless mob continued to search ” the jails of West Florida . Cannid George y, father of the slain girl , stated to a representative of the same paper “The bunch have promised me that they will give me ﬁrst chance at him when they bring him back ’ ’ and I m ready . We ll put those two logs on him and ease him offby degrees . When I get my hands ’ ’ ” ni i on that gger, there isn t any tell ng what I ll do .

2 6 On the morning of October , a mob of a hundred armed men stormed the Escambia County jail, at

Brewton, Alabama , and snatched Claude Neal after “ ’ h h l e jailer Mike S an o st r had unlocked his cell . We ll tear your jail up and let all the prisoners out, if you ’ him ” don t turn over to us , the mob leaders had hanho lster threatened . They also told S that they were going to turn Neal “ over to the girl ’s father and let

him do what he wants with him . The mob came in i rt th y cars all bearing Florida plates , and the prisoner

1 8 2 ’ S O M E O F JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S w as placed in the ﬁrst car for the return trip . No w ffi attempt as made by o cers to follow the mob .

Within an hour of the snatching, the people of

a n 200 Mari n a , more than miles away, knew that

Claude Neal was in the hands of the mob , and news papers all over the country Were able to print advance announcements of the forthcoming lynching . Word was passed all over northern Florida and southern Alabama that there was to be a “lynching party to ” which all the white people are invited . Others got their jubilee invitation through the Dothan , Ala “ ” bama , radio station, which scored another ﬁrst for i the radio . The lynch ng was to take place in front nnid of the Ca y home . How many people responded to the invitation is has o 00 not known . Marianna a population of ab ut 3 , 5 and Jackson County has all told . But there were cars from eleven states , and the Chipola Hotel and the rooming houses had a hard time ﬁnding room for all the guests . To say that attended Mari ’ anna s lynch -carnival would be Stating it conserva tivel y . was en While the mob still held the murderer, it

cour ff . age d by word from the law . Deputy Sheri S “ t Paul Greene , of Jackson Coun y, stated , In my n0t opinion the mob will be bothered , either before 1 8 3 JUDGE LY N CH

” ackson ou t or after the lynching . Editorially the J C n y Flor idian feebly said “ Although many have strongly favored the court of Judge Lynch for the brutal slaying of a Jackson ﬁ County girl this week , local of cers have spared no effort to uphold their oath of o ﬂi ce and to protect their prisoner . In many instances this action has been con tr ar y to the wishes of citizens , but the consensus of ” Opini on is that one crime in a week is enough .

The lynch mob , the original group of a hundred that had snatched Neal from the Brewton jail , felt that the secondary or sight—seeing mob was too large

for safety , and that it would be better if they attended

to the lynching themselves . From the time they had brought him back to Jackson County they had been submitting their Victim to various sadistic indignities and ﬁnally took him to the woods about four miles

from Greenwood . From time to time during the torture a rope would be tied around Neal ’ s neck and he was pulled up over a limb and held there until he almost choked to death ; then he would be let down and the torture would b e

gin all over again . After several hours of this unspeak ”

r . able tortu e , they decided just to kill him After death the body was tied to a rope from the rear of an automobile and dragged over the highway 1 84

JU D G E LY N CH someone had the decency to hang a bu’ rlap sack over w the middle of the body . It as not cut down until

- about eight thirty Saturday morning . As soon as the body was cut down , the members of the mob qui ckly dispersed . There were . not so t many Negroes in Marianna that Sa urday . The entire week had been one of terror, and all Negroes who r could Stayed away f om the city . Those who were compelled to remain kept to themselves . f Before noon , a white man and a Negro had a scuf le , and the s ight of a Negro resisting a white man thr ew the crowd of loungers into a fury . The black ﬁnally e tore himself away and took refuge in the courthous , where he was gi ven protection by a friendly group of white men . The mob clamored for their victim , fr s but were held at bay by a machine gun . The u tr ate d mob began a systematic attempt to drive all

Negroes from the town . It attacked men , women, and children , and several blind persons were ruth lessly beaten . The Negroes started from the town in

n . droves , some runni g, some crying, all frightened

After emptying the streets , stores , and places of busi ness of Negroes , the mob started for the residential man district to drive out the colored maids . One , s who e wife shielded her maid from the mob , said, “ Saturday was a day of terror and madness , never to ” be forgotten by anyone . 1 86 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S The mob also drove the policemen of Marianna from their posts , and during the rioting the town was l without po ice protection . Members of the mob threatened to beat up any member of the force they t i found . The Mayor ried to deput ze some special Oﬂi ce r s , but was unable to ﬁnd anyone who would serve . Then the Mayor called the Governor in Talla s hassee . In respon e to his request , a detachment of u g ardsmen was ordered from Apalachicola, but a rainstorm saved Marianna . At eleven a downpour so dampened the spirits of the mob that it probably pre vented further rioting and terrorism . The guardsmen arrived at four-thirt y and quickly dispersed the rem t nan s of the mob .

(E) The Five Thousandth— Raymond Gunn

A Texas mob , incited by a woman in a red dress , u its burned down a co rthouse to lynch victim , and a

Missouri mob , led by a man in a red lumberjacket , used a school to make a funeral pyre for Raymond ’ Gunn , who became Judge Lynch s ﬁve thousandth recorded victim . Red is a color that irks bulls ; it seems to be an appropriate color for the garb of mob leaders . Raymond Gunn was guilty and he made no effort w . as to conceal it His crime , that of murder, com mitte d in a county that had never before had a lynch in g, had never been laid open to contempt by a mob 1 87 JU D G E LY N CH in any for m ; a county where the courts functioned r e rapidly and peace ofﬁcers were , supposedly, above

1 1 proach and loyal to their oaths . Yet, in 9 3 , the people of Nodaway County, city of Maryville , threw o ff their veneer of civilization and for a time became savages of the lowest order . They put aside their perfectly good court and ﬁled their case in Judge ’ Lynch s Court of Uncommon Pleas .

Raymond Gunn was known as a bad nigger . In 1 9 2 5 he had been convicted of attempted rape and sentenced to four year s in the state penitentiary . In the prison he was rated as a “smart nigger ” and he was

1 2 8 released in January, 9 . After returning to Mary s ville , Gunn made two further attempts at a sault on college girls who refused to push the cases because of G u the . notoriety that would result Shortly after, married a mulatto girl and moved with her to Omaha .

1 0 u Sh e In 9 3 , the Negro ret rned without his wife ; o — had died supp sedly of pneumonia but, according to many, from the frequent beatings administered by her husband . Some opinions are that Gunn had a criminal record in Omaha , but it seemed hardly worth while to check on that after the Negro had be en lynched . 1 6 1 0 - - On December , 9 3 , a nineteen year old white i - a teacher in the l ttle one room school at G rett, lo cate d hr was about t ee miles from Maryville , found 1 88

JU D GE LY N CH him i with it, whereupon he hit her aga n and knocked her down . She fell be tween the desks and he dragged her out into the aisle . was -b Here he interrupted by a passer y, a girl on a bay horse riding down the lane in front of the school s house . He watched until she had pa sed out of sight and then returned to the teacher . She had revived , and asked him to give her a drink of water; instead , he hit her another blow with his club . The examining physi e ian later stated that it was this blow that fractured her skull and caused her death . Gunn , at this point, heard another noise and , again becoming frightened, left without per forming the intended rape . The ex ’ amining physician again reported that the Negro s statement in regard to this was true ; there had been no rape . Later the prosecuting attorney, after checking ’ confes on Gunn s various statements , stated that the sion was complete . c - was Lyn h feeling high in Maryville , and Gunn was removed at once to St . Joseph for safekeeping . All i v the next day, Friday, crowds m lled around Mary ille talking lynching: Plans were laid to go to St . Joe and was Storm the jail , provided it not too strong and the ofﬁcers did not put up too much opposition . When f r the mob arrived on Saturday, it found the o ﬁce s r ready . A unit of the Missou i National Guard was on dut y with a machine-gun truck barring entrance to 1 9 0 ’ S O M E OF JU D G E LY N CH S CA S E S the jail ; others were mounted on the roof and dis was tributed about the yard . The mob defeated in its purpose , but it set up a great howl , booing, catcalling , and demanding the person of the Negro . The machine gun crew on the roof were oiling their weapon; one of the crew swung the barrel ba'ck and forth in a way w that suggested he as getting the range of the mob . its It forgot booing, evaporated , returned to Nodaway

County and Maryville , and that night the prisoner was taken to Kansas City . ’ tr Raymond Gunn s ial was set for Monday, January 1 2 is ﬂi ials . Th date was determined by the o c of the court and the Prosecuting Attorney . As soon as the an announcement was made , the mob unofﬁcially nounced that Monday the twelfth would be the day

Gunn was lynched . The mob was right . Gunn never no went on trial , at least t in Maryville , Nodaway nt Cou y, Missouri . Rather, say he was sentenced in that center of culture and civilization and executed i at a l ttle higher than usual cost to the taxpayers . The date set for the trial was given full publicity in all newspapers in that section of the Ozark state . Preparations for the lynching went forward just as surely as preparations for the trial progressed in the i ’ ﬁ Prosecut ng Attorney s of ce . The lynching was de lib er ately planned ; it was known to all Nodaway County that the Negro was nOt to be brought to trial 1 9 1 JU D G E LY N CH

n and it cannot, by any stretch of the imagi ation , be ar e - termed a quick ﬂ up of mob frenzy . These Mis sour ians of Nodaway County were as deliberate in this affair as they would be in a horse trade or betting

r . on a ho se race The leaders were known , they were Maryville and Nodaway County men ; they met in th e heart of Maryville and openly discussed their plans .

The Negro was to be seized at the courthouse . Even if the Sheriff and his deputies tried to protect their was prisoner, which not expected , one of the con r spir ato s was to pick him off with a riﬂe . The point on which these men commonly agreed was that Ray w so as mond Gunn as not to come to trial . In far they l were concerned, he had a ready been tried , found t guil y, and sentenced by the Hanging Judge . The spectator mob began forming on the Saturday before the trial . Men who came to Maryville for their “ weekly shopping on this day planned to Stay and see ” the fun . Those neighbors who lived in distant parts and who did not have ﬁr st -hand knowledge of the coming lynching were informed of developments by telephone . All day Sunday they received calls , the gist “ of the message being : Be at the courthouse at eight . You know why#” By Sunday evening every parking space in Maryville was crowded with out-Of-town 1 9 2

JU D GE LY N CH each door of the courthouse to give warning when w as . t the prisoner brought in In the light of later even s ,

that was hardly necessary . The court opened at nine “ and the clerk called the ﬁrst arraignment , State versus ” Gunn, and the Court ordered the Sheriff to bring

in the prisoner . While the Judge and Prosecutor ff waited , the Sheri left the court, went through the

crowds to the jail to secure the Negro . There he found was a car with two deputies awaiting him . Gunn placed in the back seat with one ; the Sheriff climbed into

the front with the other . N ew -Pr e The reporter for the St . Joseph s ss wrote “ It was an amazing sight ; here was the prisoner be was ing taken straight to the mob waiting for him . I

standing there with the editor of the local paper . We

ran toward the car, and the crowd nearly beat us to it . ‘ #’ Here he is they yelled, and crowded around the car as it came to a stop just opposite the courthouse en ‘ ’

ou . trance that Side Grab him # several men yelled . saw ff I the sheri open his door, and a big man put an

arm around him and pulled him over . Another leader opened the back door in the meantime and held the

deputy, while a third reached in and seized the Negro . A dozen men swarmed around the prisoner and pulled f him out into the street . The sheri f picked himself up ,

dusted off his coat and walked back toward the jail . 1 94 ’ S O M E OF JUDG E LY N CH S CA S E S

’ I don t know what happened to the deputies . They ” just sort of melted away . The National Guard unit was still in the armory awaiting the call that did not come . The mob , as though by common assent, did not lead their prisoner past the armor y but took him through another street . Here the arrangements went awry ; there had been no plans beyond the snatching of the Negro . At this point the unknown man in the red mackinaw took command . He mounted the running board of an automobile and announced that they would take the Negro to the

scene of his crime and burn him in the Schoolhouse .

The mob yelled its approval . They would march , con tinued the man in the red coat , and they would avoid

the armory . Miles down the road to the schoolhouse

marched the mob with their prisoner in chains .

When they arrived at the schoolhouse , Raymond ’ Gunn s face had been badly mutilated ; his nose and

ears had been cut and torn . There were still no signs al of any resistance on the part of the authorities ,

though , from the time that the man in the red coat had announced from the running board Of the car

what the mob intended doing with their victim , the

march had consumed no less than one and a half hours . m f e Ti e for the Sheri f to have gon into action, if he

had had any intentions of doing so ; time , too , for the I 9 S JUDGE LY N CH “ was Mayor, who one of the other local authorities see was mentioned in the state law, to that the Guard ’ sent to protect the Government s prisoner . The mob showed far more intelligence than did the city ofﬁcials . The Simple announcement that the prisoner was to suﬂi cient be burned was for some members of the mob . ’ Disregarding the red-coated man s instructions to O march , many drove at nce to the proposed scene of the the lynching . When the main body of mob ar it the rived, found that much of the work of clearing schoolhouse had been done . Gunn was taken into the schoolhouse and made to

. : repeat his confession When he had ﬁnished , he asked “Now what are you going to do with me #” “ l ” ’ We l , nigger, said the leader . We re going to ” burn you . Two members of the mob found a short ladder and mounted to the roof of the schoolhouse . They tore away some of the shingles on either side of the peak , was baring the ridge pole . The Negro pulled up , made was to lie prone along the ridge pole , and then chained a ic to it . G soline was sent up and poured over the v ’ tim s body and about the top of the roof . Below, car tanks were drained and the gasoline thrown inside the schoolhouse . Then the leader ordered the crowd to fall back while he lighted a paper and tossed it through was aﬂ am e a window . The interior of the schoolhouse 1 9 6

JU D GE LY N CH

for money due them, no matter how long overdue

or how badly they may need it . It meant burning to death for Henry Lowry in Arkansas and it brought

death in the same form to George Hughes at Sherman,

Texas . The law ofﬁcers of Grayson County tried their

best to give the accused Negro a fair trial , but the mob , instigated by an illiterate bootlegger and incited by a

woman of questionable reputation , carried the day and incidentally destroyed the county courthouse and

- a considerable portion of the Negro owned property .

- - - George Hughes , a forty one year old illiterate

- 1 0 itinerant farm worker, on Saturday, May 3 , 9 3 , went to his employer to collect the six dollars wages

. was due him His employer, a white renter, not at home ; his wife informed the worker where her hus band could be found and said that he would not re

turn from Sherman until evening . The Negro went away but came back less than an hour later armed with a double-barreled shotgun and again demanded

his wages . Again put off , he pushed the woman into

a bedroom and assaulted her . She begged him to let

her go and promised him all the money in the house .

Fearing that her small son might give an alarm , he tied her to a bed and told her that he was not through ’ with her and would return . The renter s wife man aged to break her bonds and fled across a field to a ’ neighbor s house . At once the neighbors went to res 1 9 8 ’ S O M E OF JUDGE LY N CH S CA S E S i cue the child , and they found Hughes walk ng aim lessly about the barn . At the approach of the white men , he fled . A deputy sheriff arrested Hughes in a creek bot tom , and later announced that Hughes had fired at u Th e n him with the shotg n . Negro co fessed his crime , agreed to plead guilty, and was taken to a jail some miles distant for safekeeping . His trial was set for May 9 , less than a week from the commission of i h s crime . Within two days highly colored rumors about the crime were widespread ; not only had the Negro raped the woman , but he had a venereal disease , her sh e was throat and breasts were mutilated , not ex ecte d n p to live . Medical exami ation of the woman and the Negro proved that all the reports except that of the rape were untrue . They had served their odious was purpose and Sherman , by the time the Negro f - ready for trial , was suf iciently mob minded to de mand the services of Judge Lynch . The law officers of Grayson County sensed the mob growing spirit and sought a change of venue , but the relatives of the assaulted woman demanded w that the trial be held in Sherman . Hughes as brought into court on schedule , escorted by four members of the Texas Rangers . Outside , a constantly growing crowd made their opinions vocal as the j ury was b e I 99 JUDG E LY N CH ing selected . People from outside Sherman were con stantl y arriving and , it was later learned , had been urged to attend the trial by an illiterate horse trader “ ’ and bootlegger . Cries of Let s get the nigger right a un now were heard, and a wom n , dressed in red and in known Sherman, circulated among the men , chid ing them for their yellowness . A small segment of the mob got into the courthouse and tore an American flag from a corridor wall and paraded about the build ing ; later this group was ejected from the courthouse by the use of tear bombs thrown by the Rangers . Th e whipping up of the mob was comparatively ’ i ineffective until one o clock . At th s time the woman who had been attacked was brought from the hospi AS she tal to the courthouse in an ambulance . was being taken into the courtroom on a stretcher, the mob became active , vicious , and uncontrollable .

Again it charged into the courtroom , and this time was dispersed with a single charge of buckshot and more tear gas . The leader of the Rangers instructed his men not to shoot , and this order . was heard by members of the mob . Later it was interpreted as an order from the Governor and one that applied not only to the Rangers and peace ofﬁcers but also to the

National Guard , who were summoned later . The woman in red continued to rib the young men for their lack of courage and, to prove that they were 200

JU D G E LY N CH

was or not the Negro really in the vault, and arrange ments were made to blast it open . Earlier in the evening the Rangers had telephoned

Governor Moody for reinforcements , and a small de tachm ent r of National Guardsmen a rived at this time . The mob greeted the soldiers with b o ots and catcalls and later with bottles and bricks from the burning building . One woman , a mother, held her baby aloft,

: over the heads of those in front of her, and screamed “ ’ ” - # Shoot it, you yellow, nigger lovin soldiers

The militiamen , realizing they were outnumbered , t retreated to the coun y jail , some three blocks away . v At se en, another detachment of more than fifty ar rived from Dallas and were posted as guards about the already totally destroyed courthouse . “ ’ The mob Still gave credence to the don t shoot rumor and they wanted the Negro , dead or alive . b After dark , a pitched battle etween the troops and the mob took place , and the troops were thrown back to their headquarters in the county jail . Several sol dier s were badly cut and beaten and many had their rifles taken away from them . The mob , again in com “ lete p possession of the scene , sang Happy Days Are ” Here Again as a victory song . By eight o ’ clock the embers of the courthouse had cooled sufficiently to permit attempts to open the

20 2 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S

- second story vault . The structure resisted all methods w until an acetylene torch as applied . A hole was made and a charge of dynamite inserted and deton ated . One of the mob leaders entered , and the body w of George Hughes as thrown to the waiting wolves . Whether the Negro was baked to death or killed by the dynamite blast is not known ; part of his head was blown off and the water bucket that had been placed w in the vault with him as empty . The corpse was dragged behind a Ford containing two young men and two girls to the Negro section, a distance of less than half a mile . The entire mob “ S followed , yelling, till singing Happy Days Are ” i : Here Again , tooting automob le horns a gala night in the old Lone Star State . These people were not through with George Hughes . In the center of the

Negro business district, in front of the Smith Hotel , they paused and hanged his body to a cottonwood tree . A further touch of sexual perversion was added to the necrophilism of the night when a mob leader unsexed the body in the presence of men , women ,

. t and children The Smith Hotel , Negro proper y, was and t denuded of chairs , tables , other furni ure to build the pyre under the hanging body . While the body was roasting , the mob took everything of value from the hotel ; chewing gum, confectionery, soft drinks 20 3 J U D GE LY N CH were passed about the crowd , and then the hotel was its fired . The mob resumed singing and dancing about the fires . When the hotel fire died down, the crowd - u went to the Andrews building, a two story str cture owned by Negroes , and fired that, deserting the old

ﬁre for the new . They, the members of the mob , openly boasted that they would burn the home of town ‘ and every Negro in , they proceeded with their

- self appointed task . e One house was occupied by a white t nant, though owned by a Negro . The mob considerately helped the tenant move out his personal goods and then set

fire to the house . Negro property owners called upon the police , the fire department, the Rangers , and the i Nat onal Guard for protection , but the police were f too busy directing tra fic , and the entire attention of the fire department was being given to saving white r t f . So e owned prope y One white man, named y, whose son was later indicted as a member of the actiial - mob , saved a row of Negro owned residences by falsely swearing to the mob that he was the real owner . At four o ’ clock in the morning enough troops were sent to Sherman to put the mob to rout . Before they u arrived, the destr ction , in addition to the courthouse ,

included a hotel, the Odd Fellows Hall, the Knights 2 04

JU D GE LY N CH men and women questioned by this court , twenty nine were arrested and jailed to await whatever ac r tion the Grand Ju y should take . Three women were arrested , but no indictments were drawn against them . The two young men and two girls whose Ford had dragged the body were nor identiﬁed and the family of the victim of the assault was exonerated of all t e n sponsibility for the ly ching and rioting .

Of the fourteen indicted , only one owned any tax t able proper y, and a new courthouse is costing the county And there are other items to be added to the bill : rent for offices for county officials ; fo r of expenses guardsmen , Rangers , and other state ficer s sent to the scene ; and the salaries of the fifty men who served under the Director of Public Safety w as . when martial law lifted Ironically enough , the f Negroes who su fered most, losing their life savings in fire and smoke , cannot collect on insurance policies ’ because of the riot clause . When Hughes burned ’ was ff torso cut down , it was o ered to the town s two

Negro undertakers , but since both had been burned was out of business , it turned over to a white under taker .

1 0 On the night of May 9 , 9 3 , Black Friday as it is now known , the city of Sherman gave strength to the r statement made yea s ago by old Bill Sherman . He “ ’ ” : said If I owned Hell and Texas , I d rent out Texas .

206 ’ S O M E OF JU D G E LY N CH S CA S E S

— (G ) Thr ee G over nors G o Into Action 1 93 3 The almost constant decreas e in the number of lynchings since the high of eighty-one in 1 9 1 9 to a low of eight in 1 9 3 7 received a severe setback in ’ the ﬁrst year of President Roosevelt s administra - - r - tion . Nineteen thirty th ee had twenty eight known i u lynch ngs, and during the last fo r days of Novem

- ber, American newspapers carried lynch news almost to the total submergence of other matter . During those days the Governors of three widely separated states , yet each with its capital approximately on the i - line of the th rty ninth parallel , went into action in r varying manners and with decidedly va ying results . In two of the states Negroes had been lynched ; in the third, two white men had lost the decision before

Judge Lynch .

1 8 On October , a Negro , George Armwood, was taken from the jail at Princess Anne , Maryland , and hanged by a mob of After the lynching, the body was dragged through the main thoroughfare of the town and burned in the public square . Governor e Albert M . Ritchie demanded the arrest and convi tion of the leaders . After a month of inaction from the i authorit es of Somerset County , he gave the names of nine alleged lynchers to the Maryland Nationa l 20 7 JU D GE LY N CH

Guard and sent a provisional battalion of 3 00 men to make the arrests . The Governor did not declare mar tial law; a provision of the Maryland Constitution gives him power to use the National Guard to quell ﬂ ow or enforce the law . To make the arrests the troops were compelled to act with military precision and to employ war-time

strategy . They moved secretly from Baltimore in a

ﬂeet of eleven buses , followed by trucks carrying ’ ﬁeld kitchens . At Salisburythey took over the town s armory and waited while a detail of State Troopers

raced along the deserted roads at two in the morning, taking over the Princess Anne telephone exchange and stopping all calls to prevent word of the arrival of

the troops from spreading over the wires . Then they went to the homes of the nine men for whom they u had warrants, routed from bed those they co ld ﬁnd,

four all told, bundled them into a truck, and sped

back to Salisbury . Here the prisoners were taken to the armory and

turned over to the waiting guardsmen . Two of the

warrants were invalid , one having been made out for ’ a ﬁctitious name and another in the man s nickname . Of the other alleged leaders for whom warrants had

s . been is ued, one was in Virginia and two had escaped The bed of one of them was still warm when the

troopers came for him . 20 8

JU D GE LY N C H

‘ r e— ad and the mob retreated , only to form and again vance threateningly . A second tear gas barrage was f more e fective , and the mob pressed back out of the zone of danger . m or m n Later in the g the mob , reinforced by more t farmers and more oystermen , again a tempted to break through the line of troops outside the armory, but were again repulsed with tear gas ; this time it was used in such quantity that from then on the mob stayed behind what might be called the menacing oﬂi cer s e point . The Guard and the Stat Troopers had w as a conference , and it decided that it would be unwise to attempt to take the prisoners to Princess

Anne , a dozen miles away . The temper of the mob was such that anywhere along the route they might expect pitched battles or sniping from roadside bushes . The four prisoners were hustled into buses and , almost before the mob was aware of it, they were on their way to Baltimore for, as the phrase goes, safe keeping .

The mob , cheated , looked about and saw those it considered responsible for its predicament : newspa per correspondents , photographers , and newspaper trucks . The reporters were forced to ﬂee to cellars ; the photographers , recognizable by their cameras , t were easy prey; later, when the delivery rucks were r d bringing papers , they were met , their loads dest oye ,

2 1 0 ’ S O M E O F JU D G E LY N CH S CA S E S and their drivers forced to return to their home towns . The following day the Governor ’s prisoners were returned to Princess Anne on habeas corpus proceed ings and taken before the very judge who had refused to issue warrants for their arrest and fr eed for lack of i nc witne ses t e ev de e and s . Governor Ritchie sharply buke d the judges sitting in the case , charging that they knew that “evidence entirely sufﬁcient to war rant holding the accused men “would be promptly ” produced ifthey were willing to hear it .

Judge Lynch was not reversed . Governor Ritchie and the Free State of Maryland did everyt hing in their power to punish the guilty; there is no stain on the honor of either . But the people of the Eastern S hore , and particularly of Somerset County, respect and revere the Hanging Judge and insist that all oth ers accept his decisions without question .

During this time , far across the American conti as ma nent, indeed as far one y travel overland, the state of California was meeting the problem of lynch s en execution in an tirely different manner, as radical ’ in i ts way as that of the Free State . California s double in - lynch g was in the best moving picture tradition, a quickie that wrote its own scenario and was passed by

2 1 1 JU D GE LY N CH a censorship board of the state ’ s most distinguished citizens with only a few dissenters .

Thomas H . Thurmond confessed that he and John

Holmes had kidnaped and murdered Brooke Hart , young San Jose businessman . It was a brutal affair ; even a brief review of that part of the crime is revolt as r ing . Hart was snatched he drove out of a pa king lot on the evening of November 9 . His abductors took him to the San Jose bridge , where they blind a folded him with pillow slip , tied heavy cement him blocks to his body, slugged with a revolver, and him shot him . They then threw from the bridge and , his t observing s ruggles in the water, ﬁred half a dozen more shots into his body . The kidnap -murderers proposed to collect a ran ’ som of from their victim s father, carrying on their negotiations almost entirely by telephone . set The wires were tapped by the police , a trap was ,

1 6 cus and Thurmond , on November , was taken into w . as tody His confession implicated Holmes , who at once arrested, and both were incarcerated in the

Santa Clara County jail to await trial . A reward of ’ $ 5 00 for the recovery of Brooke Hart s body was o f fer e d 2 6 by his father and, on November , two duck hunters found it in three feet of water in San Fran cisco Bay . osans ni That night, as peaceful San J were retur ng 2 1 2

JUDG E LY N CH

Park ; Thurmond had fainted , but Holmes fought for i man h s life every inch of the way . The unconscious was hanged without difﬁculty and to the jeers of

spectators . Holmes was a powerful man, weigh

200 ing above pounds , and he put up a valiant strug gle , fighting furiously . He was beaten down repeat l e d . y, only to rise again , his body naked and bleeding At last he was beneath the tree selected as his gallows and a rope was thrown around his neck ; almost un w off. as conscious , he managed to throw it Again he was beaten down , and once more the noose slipped about his throat , but he freed his hands and again off threw it . After a final beating , from which he did not revive , he was hauled fifteen feet into the air . Six thousand San Josans applauded the hangings and others , unable to get within Sight of the lynchings, had to be content with adding their vocal i approval . Men , women , and ch ldren enjoyed the as barbaric spectacle they would a circus . The San Jose police did their level best to help the affair to a successful climax by keeping out of the way and by permitting no one to enter St . James Park save the l a ready there . When the lynchings were c lete d so p , the police kept the crowds moving that all might witness the bodies before they were humanely cut down . 2 1 4 ’ S O M E O F JUDG E LY N C H S CA S E S

e t Photographers were pr sent, and many sho s of the lynching and the lynchers were made ; the actual n d ly chers could have been identiﬁed , arreste , and # prosecuted . But for what purpose Governor James r wa . s Rolph , J , no Governor Ritchie . Not by far . Governor Rolph must have had criminal knowledge of the proposed lynching, for he postponed a trip to

Idaho to attend a conference of governors . “ ” ’ I I had one awa f g y , said Rolph s statement, “ omeon would have called out the tr oo s on me s e p ,

r i e in Lo An eles I would not o th t and I p om s d s g d a . Why should I call out the tr o ops to pr otect those two #” 2 fellows ’ # It l i s . Why, indeed rather ate to be nquiring Gov cruor Rolph has gone to his reward . The alleged indi spontaneity of the uprising , the ﬂash of public g

n . ation and outrage , seem to have been phony It approaches criminal conspiracy if the Governor ’s words are to be taken literally . If he had gone away, someone would have called out the troops and then there would have been no lynching .

Earlier, Governor Rolph had said , even while the “ bodies of the lynched men were still warm : This is the best lesson that California has ever given to the ” country .

2 n S . Italics ar e mi e . F . 2 1 5 JU D G E LY N CH What is the worst lesson that California ever gave the country#

- Later, when public spirited Californians spoke of ’ going over the Governor s head and seeking pr osecu tion of the lynchers , Rolph came further to the aid “ of Judge Lynch : If anyone is arrested for the good ’ ” job , I ll pardon them all . For several months it was touch -and -go between the pro -lynch Americans and their fellows opposed to the decisions of the incompetent judge . The pro lynchers ﬁlled the columns of the daily papers with words of praise for the San Jose mob and for Gover t nor Rolph , contemp uously referring to those who “ ” - protested the outrage as the right minded . There was one hopeful sign in the fact there were so many

- if . right minded , mostly outside Cal ornia

During these days while the Judge was traveling i - l his circuit along the th rty ninth para lel, the state of

Missouri found another case requiring his attention . Approximately half way between Maryland and Cal ’ ’ ifor nia , Missouri s Governor Park s method of han dling his affair was approximately half way between ’ that of Rolph and Ritchie . Park s method was what may be called the traditional one .

- - Lloyd Warner, a nineteen year old Negro , was 2 1 6

JUDG E LY N CH

San Jose strategy and believed it effective . When as they were repulsed with tear g , a small detachment fi - was sent for a ve inch iron pipe . The jail door r e sisted and , leadership failing to indicate the plan of attack, the mob retired out of range . Governor Park had time to order out a unit of the Missouri National t -fifth m Guard , specifically the Thir y Tank Co pany,

- with about Sixty ﬁve men . “ There appeared not to be time enough , said the “ Governor, to get National Guardsmen from other ” towns nearby .

i Recalling that a single guardsman with an empty l machine gun had dispersed the Maryvi le mob, one might have thought sixty-five men with tanks would have been enough . a one n The t nks rolled up to the county jail, and ta k soldier who had failed to loc k himself in was removed from the machine by members of the mob and climi us u ted from f rther participation . Then state highway e polic were ordered to the scene . The mob had by this time increased to such vast proportions that it w as too powerful . The tear gas bombs proved inef fectual r , and hund eds of the mob crashed through the Of doors of the jail and raced through the corridors . ficer s within the jail hurled gas bombs indiscr imi natel y , fist fights took place , and shots were fired ; ffi then the forty o cers melted before the mob , and the

2 1 8 ’ S O M E OF JUDGE LY N CH S CA S E S

was . prisoner taken The Negro , Warner, was a pow er ful m man ; he fought and kicked, and it took any members of the mob to quiet him . Subdued and stripped almost naked , the victim was dragged out by four young members of the mob , others who were following kicking and beating him . He was rushed to a tree about a block away, the mob cheering and ar shouting and cursing . Under the tree the Negro “ ” tempted to talk, but shouts of string him up drowned out whatever he said . He was pulled about eight feet into the air as the crowd cheered . Later the mob raided a nearby ﬁlling station , saturated the body with gasoline , and applied torches . When the rope by which the Negro was hanging parted , a ﬁre w as built about the body . f t Later in Jef erson Ci y, when told of the lynching, “ ” Governor Park said , I have no comment to make .

However, four arrests were made . Two of the men were charged with ﬁrst degree murder, one with possession of a pistol stolen from a guard on the night l of the lynching , and the fourth with ma icious de struction of property when the jail was attacked . There was none charged with simple obstruction of trafﬁc . The four men were discharged the following year, after the failure of the jury to convict the one S man against whom the State had the trongest case . Thus three Governors in widely separated states 2 1 9 JU D G E LY N CH

’ met Judge Lynch s incursions in varying ways ; all of the Governors failed .

On December 5 , President Roosevelt, speaking -u over a nationwide radio hook p, condemned lynch ing and rebuked Governor Rolph , though he did not mention the California executive by name : “ This new generation , for example , is not content with preaching against that vile form of collective

- murder , lynch law, which has broken out in our is delib midst anew . We know that it murder, and a c rate and deﬁnite disobedience of the commandment, ‘ ’ Thou shalt not kill . We do not excuse those in high ” - places or in low who condone lynch law .

(H) Th ose Who D eﬁed the Bosses i The Un ted States , reputedly the most advanced of industrial nations , is probably the most backward in its attitude toward labor . Not only are the great industrialists themselves reactionary to the point of

Sheer feudalism, but they are backed up by a body of t public opinion , vocal even if in the minori y , that is ready to go to any lengths to preserve the present

order . The basis of lynching Negroes in the South is obvious : the law of Judge Lynch is invoked to keep is the black in h economic and cultural place . It is the unreconstructed South ’s answer to the Thirteenth Amendment ; the southern Negro today is no less a

2 20

JUDG E LY N CH

IIn les o j g of industry, the unorganized and the po rly z neces organi ed , those workers in whose minds the sit vic y for union is becoming apparent, who are the

tims of these repressive measures .

When any of these workers attempt to organize , to form themselves into unions for collective strength

and open bargaining, to protect their jobs and r secu e better working conditions , these underhanded employer-weapons fall upon them with ’ a form of - t lynch law . There are high motives that send pries s

and missionaries into savage lands, and the motives that take labor organizers into the jungles of industry

are often no less exalted . They are missionaries of a

better world . These missionaries , who seek to preach t a bet er everyday life , are often met with violence

and death , their temples wrecked , their leaders

mobbed and beaten or jailed . When the police and

laws have failed , when the workers become insistent

upon remedial measures , the embattled industrialist

Old his summons his ally, Judge Lynch , and mob r ju y . Posters are thrown against walls announcing, “ So and So Is Communistic . Communism Will Not K u . Be Tolerated . Klux Klan Rides Again ’ Although Judge Lynch s white victims are not so ff numerous as his black su erers of the same class , the whites would make an impressive total if any compu tation were possible . In labor wars the remains of the

2 2 2 ’ S O M E OF J U D GE LY N C H S CA S E S lynch-victims are often destroyed by burial in quick lime , in phosphate pits , dropped into abandoned mines , or weighted down and thrown in rivers and harbors . Only on rare occasions are the bodies left to be found by the coroner; a lynched working man is propaganda too powerful for the masters e Frank Littl was lynched . So was Joe Hill , though the entire state of Utah and the Mormon Church had to get down in the mud to bring it about . Wesley Everest was barbarously mutilated before he was lynched . Frank Norman and Joseph Shoemaker were ’ lynched . It isn t often that Judge Lynch wastes his time on cripples ; not that he is too gallant to take advantage of women or the physically handicapped . Little was a barb in the crop of organized greed even if he hobbled on crutches .

Butte, Montana , has always been a wide open town for those with money . The bosses gambled and won in with their proﬁts and the workers lost . Speaking dustr iall h as y, it been called the city of gunmen and w h l s eat o es . widows , of and cemeteries The sweat holes are the mines ; they have been on ﬁre for half a

u 1 1 6 cent ry, and the temperature averages about de fi n . un grees summer and wi ter The ﬁres are , of cially, der control ; it is only when the ﬂame strikes a pocket of gas that things get messed up and some miners are picked up in grilled pieces and sent to their bereaved 2 2 3 JU D G E LY N CH k families . The mine jobs are considered ris y work, but there are many men in Butte who are happy to so have the work . Sometimes conditions get bad that even the most loyal workers are compelled to rebel .

8 1 1 On June , 9 7 , the aptly named Speculator Mine , ’ t one of Bu te s most important, caught fire , and nearly two hundred miners were burned to death . Investiga tion showed that the Montana State Mining Law had ahnost e been violated , that two hundred liv s had been sacrificed for small profits . The solid concrete bulk heads separating the mines did not contain the r e

quired safety manholes . When the ﬂames broke out,

the workers swarmed to the lower levels , trying to

ﬁnd exits into other mines through the manholes . They found instead that the mine owners had saved discov some money by not putting them in , but the

ery cost them their lives . No mine operator was prose cuted for this violation of the law or for the deaths of

the workers .

While the Speculator still stank of burned ﬂesh , the

miners went on strike , demanding not higher pay or

t . shorter hours, but a higher safe y standard They didn ’t want to die while earning their pitiable wages sweath les in the o . The Industrial Workers of the

World sent in Frank Little , a small , crippled fellow known from one end of the mining territory to the

Other as a capable organizer . Little had been beaten 2 24

JUDGE LY N CH

What the workers in the outposts of industry, in i f i ’ the woods and m nes , suf ered dur ng America s par tici ation p in the World War will never be known .

Under the whiplash of the patriots , driven by the war-time need for immediate materials and the un t paralleled opportuni y for tremendous proﬁts , many W was la lon ue a rebellious orker sent down the trail , g

r e The workers , once the Armistice was signed, sumed organizational activities . The patriots were through with their chauvinistic shouting and ﬂ a g waving ; that curse was lifted . If the bosses had har bored any idea o f recruiting returned veterans for s their subversive tactics , they were sadly disillu ioned, for only in isolated instances did the Legion permit itself to be used against the workers . The average Legionnaire soon realized that in any battles at home he belonged on the side of his fellow workers . w Centralia as an exception .

Calling names never does much harm to either op ponent in a quarrel, no matter how apt the epithets - r e happen to be . When the union lumber workers “ ” as ferred to the lumber interests the timber beast , “ ” the beast retaliated with timber wolves . The appel lations was n were well deserved , and it o ly when the

2 2 6 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N C H S CA S E S stronger beast” began exterminating the “wolves that war was declared . And the beast showed how beastly it could be , and the wolves proved to be only

- so . many rabbits , though of a lion hearted variety In most of the various warring nations the soldiers i who were fortunate enough to survive returned to their home towns and became a part of the civilian r population, changing their unifo ms for mufti and , i save for a small star in the r lapels , becoming indis

i i ha l — t ngu s b e from their non combatant fellows . In tu America , the re rned veteran , whether he had been n to the battleﬁelds or o ly to a camp , became a sort

d . t of emigod His person, his welfare , and his fu ure became the deep concern of the patriots and of the

Government . Nothing was too good for our brave

- heroes . They had founded a veteran organization b e fore they left France , and no one protested , though i such an organization m ght have wielded , under cer tain conditions , a greater influence for evil than the K - u Klux Klan . The veteran organization prospered r and th ived where labor unions failed . Many towns and cities gave their units small endowments , rent free quarters , and many other considerations . It was something of a Shock to the people who had so glorified the veterans to learn that on the first anni ver sary of their victory four of them had been shot down in cold blood by members of a subversive body 2 2 7 JUDGE LY N CH

1 1 1 1 known as the I . W . W . On November , 9 9 , the i Legionna res of Centralia , Washington , had donned their old uniforms and gone forth to parade the streets , to celebrate their victory, and to honor the memory of those fellows-ar-arms who had not t e It was e r e turned . was a memorial service that b ing peate d in every town and city in the land ; in the minds of most Americans the victims might have been their own boys in their own home town.That was i the way it read in the papers , in the indignant editor als and in the letters to the editors . But the story did not begin and end on that No vemb er 1 1 1 1 2 , but went away back to 9 , when the beasts and the wolves started calling each other names .

Armistice Day parades follow a definite program . i The participants assemble at a predeterm ned point, the band strikes up , and the parade moves over a known route , past a reviewing stand and on to the dispersal point . In some parades, unloaded or dummy rifles are carried by all the participants ; in others, only the color guard or the guard of honor carry rifles loaded with blank cartridges . The parade is a peace time demonstration . In no Ar mistice D ay par ades ar e r opes car r ied nor ar e cer t in le er wit ol er a ad s ar med h loaded r ev v s .

1 1 8 o - In 9 , the patri ts of Centralia, as a war time measure , had raided and closed the hall of the local 2 2 8

JU D GE LY N CH been conducted under cover of a Red Cross parade ; the 1 9 1 9 affair would be covered by the Armistice “ Day services . The idea was to let the men in uniform ” do it . The parade formed and passed down the main street; it did not stop at the designated dispersal place , but at the command of armed leaders continued for

. . an several blocks , past the I W . W union hall for other block . Then , again defying parade customs , it turned in its tracks and made its way back to the A union hall . S the Legionnaires of Centralia came i abreast of the bu lding, a leader shouted the usual “ ’ command : Let s go # and some of the paraders broke ranks and charged the union headquarters .

The proposed raid was no secret in Centralia . The — Wobblies knew it was coming had , in fact, secured legal advice that they would be within their rights As e . in protecting their prop rty , the glass of their windows crashed and armed men began entering their

n . hall , they let go a burst of gu ﬁre One of the leaders ab of the paraders , Warren Grimm, was shot in the “ : domen, and before he died , he said It serves me right . I had no business there . Others were wounded,

and during the lull occasioned by the shock , the

Wobblies retreated through back doors and windows . ma Many of the Wobblies, it y be remembered, Ev were veterans themselves . One of these , Wesley 2 3 0 ’ S O M E O F JUDG E LY N CH S CA S E S c t -ﬁve rest, was armed with a for y caliber automatic , and it is believed that his shots had killed Grimm and lfr h his McE es . another veteran , Arthur With pocket full of cartridges , Everest retreated , shooting . He would run a hundred yards , followed by the mob , o turn and shoot . The mob w uld stop with him and resume running when he ran . He was cornered at a

- river bank, made his last stand , and , in self defense , shot and killed Dale Hubbard , a nephew of one of the lumber owner s . “ ” Stand back , he shouted , brandishing his auto “ ’ in sub matic . If there are any bulls the crowd , I ll ” mit to arrest .

The mob closed in on him , and it was then learned what the ropes that had been carried in the parade were for . “ ’ Let s finish the job , said a voice . You haven ’ t got guts enough to lynch a man in ” ’ m was m the dayti e , Everest s defiant com ent . his The rope was placed around neck , but the cries to swing him up were interrupted by a woman who brushed through the crowd and thr ew the rope from his neck . “You are curs and cowards to treat a man like that#” Everest had been shot in the side ; he was taken not t was to a hospital but to the ci y jail , where he thrown u into the b ll pen . There he lay in a wet heap on the 2 3 1 JU D GE LY N CH cement floor, twitching in agony, only an occasional moan escaping his lips . off That night the lights of Centralia were shut , and under cover of darkness members of the mob went to the jail and took the semi-conscious Wesley

Everest out . They had no trouble ﬁnding him ; a guard called through the darkness : “ ’

# . Don t shoot, men Here is your man

Everest knew why the mob had come . He stag er e d g to his feet deﬁantly and , as the mob dragged

: him through the corridor, he shouted “ ” Tell the boys I died for my class .

He was thrown into the back of an automobile , pushed to the ﬂoor, and hurried to the Chehalis River bridge . Before they reached their destination the his hands of captors were sticky and red , their trou sers sodden with the blood of their captive . One had o reached into his p cket, brought out a razor, and for a moment fumbled over the body on the ﬂoor . Sud denly there was a piercing scream and Everest cried “ ’ # ’ For Christ s sake , men , shoot me Don t let me suffer like this #”

The man with the razor ﬁnished his work . The car him sped on to the bridge , where the men hanged , not

once but three times . As they lowered him over the u side of the bridge , his hands conv lsively clutched in n the plank g, and one stamped on the ﬁ gers until 2 3 2

JUDGE LY N CH who questions the voice that constantly intones the “ chant : We know how to run this part of the coun I 7 , try . When they are unable to corrupt their courts of law, they go to a higher authority . They call in the ud e Klan . The White Legion . The Men of Justice . ] g L nc y h .

Although workers in any part of these United

States are subject to repressive measures , the chief

the . t centers of repression are in South Harlan Coun y, t ﬂ out Ken ucky coal mining area , is infamous for its ing of civil liberties ; conditions in eastern Arkansas among the farm and cotton sharecroppers are a stench in the nostrils of all Americans ; the Vigi lantes have spattered the fruit and vegetables of southern California with the blood of American and

Mexican workers . In Atlanta , Birmingham, and New Orleans one has only to be denounced as a Red or a

- Communist to have a mob of r e d baiters on his heels .

Number One sore spot is Tampa, Florida . - is Tampa is noted for its cigars, but cigar making ’ r the city s third largest indust y . It is the center of a - ahnost citrus growing country, and an steady stream

- of oranges , grapefruit, and sub tropical vegetables 2 34 ’ S O M E O F JU D G E LY N CH S CA S E S passes through the seaport; yet the citrus industry is ’ ﬁftee n - not Tampa s greatest . The to twenty million - - ll- a a is . dollars year industry, the year crop , gambling

In Tampa the dominant whites are Klansmen , lead ers who use the rank and ﬁle of members to hold their i positions . The citizens of Tan pa differ not at all from the citizens of any other American city ; they choose their mayors and city ofﬁcials by ballot, the police

- are appointed and patrol the streets , the tax gatherers is are just as insistent as anywhere else . Yet the city l a K an dominated . It is said that it is useless to seek p pointment to the police or fire department unless you are a Klan member . If a Klan member commits a is f crime , it di ficult to secure an arrest, and it is said that if the Klan does not care for you , your house may burn for all the fire department cares .

A few citizens , working men for the most part, deplored the situation and thought that something

. 1 as should be done to correct it In 9 3 5 , always , there was n o ly the dominant Democratic party, and a pro fessed Republican was no better than an alien . As a i s matter of pol cy, these protesting citizen decided to b e call their new party the Modern Democrats and , o cause s me of them were former Socialists , the Klan o osmo dominated pp n charged them as communist s . The Klan did not don their nightshirts and go after 2 3 5 JU D GE LY N CH the Modern Democrats ; they were fearless and kept on their police uniforms and plain clothes and did it all according to the book . In a democracy such as ours any individual or s group has a right to fight, obeying all legal rule , any Ku other individual or group . If the Klux Klan de its cides to fight communism, it is well within rights ; it may fight tooth and nail and no holds barred . The Communist party has a right to battle the Klan and its fas cist implications under the same terms . But the is sues and terms should be clearly defined : the Klan may not pursue its own subversive activities by merely labeling anything to which it is Opposed as i communism . But reason is too rare and beaut ful an impulse to expect from a Klansman . “ ” Kr ee d All things , says the Klan , and matters which do not exist within this Order or are not an thor ize d by or do not come under its jurisdiction shall ‘ ’ s Al be de ignated as the ien World . All persons who are not members of this Order shall be designated as ‘ ’ Aliens . The men who organized the Modern Democrats were anything but communists : a few had been So cialists r i , most were indust ious work ng men, all the ni organizers were u on members . It is known now that many of the citizens of Tampa were sympathetic to if their movement, but they were permitted to con 2 3 6

JUDGE LY N CH

o s . by one , and shoved into cars and taken to the wo d When Poulnot struggled and fought against being taken into the automobile , a crowd gathered . One of the kidnapers announced : “ ’ i We re tak ng a crazy man to Chattahoochee . Shoemaker was tumbled in on top of Pouhi ot and the car hurried to a point fourteen miles outside w Tampa . Rogers as taken in another car . For some reason Roush and Jensen were not beaten, but were t u was permitted to re rn to their homes . Rogers stripped and placed over a log . His hands and feet were held while he was beaten . Then boiling tar was l app ied to his abdomen , sexual organs, and thighs ln u Shoemaker and Pou ot suffered even worse . Po l ﬂ o e d not was gg with a chain and a rawhide , then he

was . tarred and feathered Once , as he revived , one of “ ’ his lynchers said : The is faking . Let s give it to him #” The tortures that Shoemaker went through will w never be known . He as too horribly mutilated ever ff Poulnot evi to tell . That he su ered more than is e dent . The boiling tar had been poured over his nak d

' body and burned into his lacerated flesh . For seven s hours he lay beside the road, uncon cious through a Es afiol night suddenly turned cold . At the Centro p was Hospital, to which he taken , it was possible to 2 3 8 ’ S O M E OF JU D G E LY N CH S CA S E S warm him only with hot water bottles . A leading Tampa surgeon examined him and stated : “ ’ He was horribly mutilated . I wouldn t beat a hog w the way that man as whipped . He was beaten until was he paralyzed on one side , probably from blows sa n on the head . He cannot y a ything to you ; he does not know what happened . He cannot use one arm , and I doubt if three square feet would cover the total area of bloodshot bruises on his body, not counting the parts injured only by tar . For days Joseph Shoemaker lingered between life f and death , suf ering terrible agonies . In a final , des perate attempt to save his life , one of his legs was amputated . On the ninth day he died .

The people of Tampa were aroused . On December ’ 1 2 , three days after Shoemaker s death , the Tampa “ Tr ibune stated : The state investigators have found evidence that leads them to believe Shoemaker and ” the Other s were framed . Such a public admission of w police guilt as unexpected in Tampa . News of the outrage had spread throughout the country, and the

- Klan police knew they had overshot their mark . n r i Policemen were warned o to talk . Police Ch ef Tittsworth his , devoting all activities to covering up as the evidence of the crime , found himself indicted

. i an accessory after the fact Local public indignat on, 2 3 9 JU D G E LY N CH

S in backed by Tampa newspapers , was trong, and dictm ents followed on charges of kidnaping and mur der . How great was the power of the Klan was seen in the indictments , which were loosely worded and - i was provided many legal loop holes . St ll the Klan thoroughly frightened, how frightened may be guessed from the fact that the Klan str ategists asked o o venu f r a change f e . It was known that the same men who h ad beaten Poulnot E . F . were the murderers of Joseph Shoe maker, yet they were placed on trial charged with the l ot Sh ltz kidnaping only of Pou n . Governor Dave o D ewell designated Judge Robert T . to hear the case , was t and the trial moved to Bartow, in Polk Coun y, on the ground that the Klansmen-police - defendants could not hope for a fair hearing in Tampa . The main defense argument was that the victims were com munists and therefore not entitled to the protection ’ of the law . The trial was marked by the Judge s sym pathy for the defendants to such an extent that the Court rallied to the defense attorney ’ s argum ent that unless the sole intent of the kidnaping was to conﬁne the victim secretly, the jury could not convict . Here the honorable Judge ’s own words of instruction to the jury : “ Even if you are satisﬁed from the evidence b e 240

JU D G E LY N CH committed an error in permitting the introduction of evidence concer ning a conspiracy on the part of the defendants to commit the crime of kidnaping . e 1 ahnost The new trial was held in Octob r, 9 3 7 , two years after the ﬂogging, the criminal assault, if you insist, and the defendants , again before Judge

o . D well , were acquitted

Earlier, the Klan decided their members would not be put on trial for the murder of Joseph Shoe ’ maker . When State s Attorney Rex Farrior appeared before Judge Dowell to have the date ﬁxed for the

murder case , the Court announced that no trial of the homicide case would be allowed because the state had failed to pay Polk County the sum of expenses incur r ed for bailifffees and the like in the

Poulnot c se a . Public-spirited citizens became indignant and has tened to contribute the money owed Polk County so that the eleven men who were indicted for murder

might be brought to trial . Somewhat reluctantly,

D ewell set 1 1 Judge the murder trial for April 9 , 9 3 7 , later removing it from the calendar ; he gave as his

reasons the failure , at that time , of the higher court to pass on the appeal of the ﬁve men convicted of kid

naping . Even to a layman it must be apparent that the murder of Shoemaker had nothing to do with the P t conviction of the men who ﬂogged oulno . The 24 2 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S Klan works in mysterious ways its wonders to per form .

The Florida Klan has a better plan than lynching to be rid of those they label communistic : it is mys ter ious disappearance with no traces left . Frank Nor ’ man was an organizer of the United Citrus Workers i Union and a thorn in the side of the dom nant whites . One of his aims was that blacks and whites should stick together , each refusing to scab on the other . It was bad enough to try to organize the white fruit N e pickers , but to urge them to stand together with s groe was too much . There was a knock on the door of the Lakeland home of Frank Norman , and he answered it to learn that three men , calling themselves Sheriff Chase and two deputies, wanted him to go down the road toward Haines City to identify a Negro who had ’ been lynched . They said that Norman s name had ’ been found in the victim s pocket . r M s . Norman wanted to go with him but was dis suade d : S instead , a friend, Ben urrency, went with ’

f . Norman to the Sherif s car Mr . Surrency was the last friend to see Frank Norman :

r e e Mr . No man st pp d in th e car in th e r ear seat ; I fol o e in h e i e Th e su e t . o Mr e i l w d m ddl pp s d . Chas got n i us in e w e r ve w th the back s at . As d o o ff a possible one 243 JUDGE LY N CH

n r e r o ou . r n . hu d d yards f m the h se, Mr No ma asked Mr Chase to show hi s author ity as h e did not know whether ‘

was th e i er i f or not . The man n e he h gh sh f a swer d, I am e e i i nOt S r i f as d utiv r n . he f Ch e, but a p f om H ghla d C ty It ’ do esn t matter; the Negr o h as a car d with your name and r on it and we n to i en i him so home add ess , wa t you d t fy ’ we can him o for an in ue . Mr . r n take d wn q st No ma says , ‘ Will you please stop about o ne hundred yar ds far ther n th e r so c an i u n r man as i dow oad I p ck p a othe , he m ght ’ ‘ ’ i n i th e e r # m an S r be a help to de t fy N g o The says , u e, and tur ned on Ingr am Avenue instead of following the ’ i r n in ru on . Bartow Road accor ding to Mr . No ma s st ct s I judge we drove forty yar ds when th e c ar came to a e m an i in i e i r o sudd n stop . The s tt g bes d the dr ve c vered

h e e n e . r r n i un. en m M . No ma w th a g Th asked my am As ‘

him n e was Ben Sur r en i G et . I told my am cy, he sa d , out ’ ’

n w o . r r n n ot out as M . I do t wa t you . I g as I t ld No ma ut u his n in m an in th e r p p both ha ds, ask g the what wo ld i Mr . n i r do es th s mean. Norma was say ng other wo ds as I was r ushed out of th e car and I could not under stand

r e n e . what he was saying . As I go t on the st e t a gu ﬁr d e And an awful thumping noise was hear d in th e car . Th suppose d-to -b e Sher iff Chase to ok me by th e shoulder n r and face d m e back home and told m e not to lo ok . A othe car for ty or ﬁfty feet back of the car I j ust got out of i i B and facing me stoppe d with the r br ight l ghts on. oth car s r emained still until I had passe d th e second car some i ” n e . en e n d sta c Th th y both sped o .

Frank Norman did not return . Nor has his body un been discovered . It may have been buried in an 244

JU D G E LY N CH had got right down in the mud with a credit of eight

—hy e of the total of twenty lynchings for the year . But even as the Governor left the platform he was N e given the news that , while he was speaking, two groes were being lynched in the state of Mississippi .

Only eight men we re lynched in 1 9 3 7 ; all were

was . colored , and only one accused of a sexual crime All the lynchings were conﬁned to what is known as

- the lynch belt, and all followed the constant pattern of the years . There were two double lynchings, one while Congress was debating the Gavagan Bill ; a brand new method in torture was introduced ; one N egro lynched was innocent of any crime and was thrown by the Sheriff as a sop to the mob . One was lynched by a mob seeking another .

2 In Alabama , at Abbeyville , on February , Wesley t - Johnson , twen y two , was taken from the Henry

County jail by a mob of a hundred men . He was charged with attempted assault and was taken to the scene of the alleged crime and riddled with bullets .

- Later Attorney General A . A . Carmichael asserted he could prove conclusively that Johnson was inno f in cent of the crime , that the Sheri f knew he was

nocent , but made the arrest to appease the populace . 246 ’ S O M E OF JU D GE LY N CH S CA S E S

There were no arrests , though impeachment pro cee din s f g against the Sherif were instituted, and no convictions .

1 At Duck Hill , Mississippi , April 3 , two Negroes accused of the murder of a country merchant on De cemb er 0 1 6 e 3 , 9 3 , were snatch d by twelve men from the Sheriff and two deputies as they were being t e ” MacD aniels turned to jail . Boot Jack and Roosevelt

Townes , the victims , were hurried to the scene of t their crime , s ripped to the waist, and chained to e trees . A member of the mob brought out a gasolin

- blow torch . The torch ﬂames were sprayed on the Negroes ’ bared breasts and they were ordered to

f acD aniels con ess . M was the ﬁrst to feel the searing blow-torch and readily confessed that he had robbed the merchant after Townes had killed him . He was then riddled with bullets . Townes , the Associated

Press reported, died under the torture of the blow torch . Both men in their confessions implicated an other man, who was later captured and brought to the carnival . The third man admitted he had origi nally been a party to the conspiracy but insisted he had withdrawn before the crime . He was severely beaten and ordered to leave the state . The lynch mob , r assisted by the hund ed spectators , piled brush high

about the victims and burned their bodies . Governor 247 JU D GE LY N CH

“ ” White was reported outraged, but even at that there were no arrests , no indictments , and no con

victions .

20 On July , Judge Lynch went to Tallahassee ,

Florida , and snatched Richard Hawkins and Ernest

Ponder, two young Negroes charged with stabbing a policeman, from a jail but two blocks away from the Florida capitol . They were taken three miles over

- the Tallahassee Jacksonville highway and hanged .

There were no investigations , no arrests , no indict

2 Pe ments , and no convictions . On August 7 , the St . ter sb ur g Times commented : “ An investigation into the lynching of two N o groes in Tallahassee got nowhere , just as everyone , ”

m . fa iliar with Florida justice , expected ’ Just about the time that Florida s state capital was its enjoying double lynching, Tennesseeans were smugly telling themselves that it couldn ’ t happen in

. 1 Tennessee On July 9 , Sheriff Vaughan outraced a mob that had formed to lynch Albert Gooden , his charged with murder, and got man to Memphis for safekeeping . The state was getting credit for a prevented lynching when the Sheriff went to bring f Gooden back to the Marion jail . The Sheri f, it seems , brought the prisoner direct to the waiting mob and

delivered him without any protest . Something had

happened in the meantime . The Sheriff had been put 248

JU D G E LY N CH ough ’ investigation has been promised and in each case up to the present, the investigators were quite ‘ ’ ” unable to establish the identity of the murderers . Score : Florida 3 ; Mississippi 2 ; Alabama 1 ; G eor gia 1 ; Tennessee 1

The total membership of all lynch mobs for the year was under ﬁve hundred ; the number of peace o f

ﬁcer s unfaithful to their vows was but seven . This small number of criminals has put the lynch-curse on the rest of the one hundred and twenty-ﬁve million Amer icans and held us up to the contempt and scorn of all civilized peoples . Chapter Seven

‘ THE REVERSALS OF JUDGE LYNCH

AS a nation we have been conditioned to the lynch spirit . Throughout our lives we shout our disapproval of baseball decisions and demand that the umpire be killed . When we meet with a new type of criminal , or when one of us proposes a too -radical public s course , we as ure one another that the offender should be taken out and strung up to the nearest telegraph - i pole . Lynch spirit s not the monopoly of the South ; is it firmly fixed in our national psychology . Much of our collective thinking ends in thoughts of violence . There is but one effective curb on the activities of H the anging Judge , and that is an awakened public consciousness of the evil . Lynchings do not happen where the people do not want them . Peace officers are human ; they are politicians dependent upon popu lar support for continuance in office ; they give their e p ople what they want . Crime in any form must be tolerated to exist . As a people , we may not entirely

- approve lynch executions , but we do tolerate them . An extended educational program might correct this 2 5 1 ILII PJ CIII

l fault, but it would be a long and costly process , cost y in the lives that would be destroyed while the program was being brought to a conclusion . n l - With public opi ion fai ing to end the lynch spirit, dependence must be placed upon better peace officers and upon the enactment of more stringent laws . Since i as i the Arm stice, twice many threatened lynch ngs have been prevented as have been consummated . But a frustrated lynch mob is as much an expression of

- the lynch spirit as a successful lynching . Lives have been saved through the resourcefulness of the peace f —b e o ﬁcers , and would lynchers have been prevented from becoming actual murderers . That the list of frustrated lynchings increases annually is a matter for 1 satisfaction . Most lynchings occur either soon after the com mission of the crime, when the criminal has been ar or is rested , later, when he to be brought before the court . The earlier mob can usually be handled by f resolute peace o ﬁcers . It is the later mob , more de ni liberate and better orga zed, that is the more dan

er ous . g The lynch leaders , having determined upon a lynching, survey the situation and make their plans

- Sour ce : e r o Y e B k 1 1 8 . N g ar oo , 937 93 2 5 2

JUDGE LY N CH

ganizing a lynching and nipped the affair in the bud by delivering the leader a hefty blow that knoc ked

him Offhis feet .

n Most legislation relati g to lynching is punitive , o and some of it is prophylactic . The great b dy of such laws are designed for the protection of intended lynch -victims who are already in the hands of the is law . The chief need for the protection against lynch

ing of a person not yet arrested .

Lynching has no technical legal meaning . It is merely a descriptive phr ase used to signify the lawless acts of persons who violate established law at the f time they commit the acts . The o fense of ” 2 lynching is unknown to the common law . Some states have deﬁned lynching and made it a

: t crime Alabama, Indiana , Kansas , Ken ucky, Virginia ,

and North Carolina . Georgia has made lynching a t s sta utory crime , but without deﬁning it . Other state have deﬁned mob -Violence and made it a cr ime : Il linois , Pennsylvania , New Jersey, and West Virginia .

Of the ten. States having statutory deﬁnitions of the n crime of ly ching or mob violence , seven have had

2 Cor us ur is o l ur n : L n h p ] V . XXXV , 28 . #uo e r o m a o c , III 3 t d f Ch db y in a g nd the Law. 2 54 T H E REV E R S AL S O F JUDG E LY N CH

h n : m lync i gs since the respective enactments Alaba a , 1 8 8 7 ; Illinois , ; Kansas, 5 ; Kentucky, ; North Carolina , i 8 1 I . 3 ; Virginia ; West V rginia , ALABAMA : Any number of persons assembled for any unlawful purpose and intending to injure any person by violence and without authority of the law

shall be regarded as a mob , and any act of violence exercised by such a mob upon the body of any per in son shall, when such act results the death of the s injured person, con titute the crime of lynching ; and any person who participates in or actively aids or i f abets such lynch ng shall , on conviction , su fer death or be imprisoned in the penitentiary for not less than ﬁve years , at the discretion of the jury ; and any per a son, who , being member of any such mob and

present at any such lynching, shall not actively

participate in the lynching , shall be deemed guilty of t abe ting such lynching , and , on conviction, shall be imprisoned for not less than one year nor more than

- u . twenty one years , at the discretion of the j ry if f i Any Sher f , deputy sheri f , or ja ler who negli or gently through cowardice , allows a prisoner to u be taken from the jail of his co nty, or to be taken V from his custody and put to death by iolence , or to

receive bodily harm , must, on conviction, be ﬁned not less than $ 5 00 or more than and may 2 5 5 JU D GE LY N CH also be sentenced to hard labor for the county for not more than two years . No provisions are made for the liability of a city or county for mob violence causing personal or prop et ty damages .

- ARI#ON A : No anti lynching legislation . S - ARKAN SA : No anti lynching legislation . Change of venue and special court terms to avoid mob violence in cases involving rape , murder , etc .

- CALIFORN IA : No anti lynching legislation . Every county and municipal corporation is responsible for injury to real or personal property within its cor

or ate m . p li its , done or caused by mobs or riots D - COLORA O : No anti lynching legislation .

- CON N ECTICUT : N O anti lynching legislation . City or borough respons ible for all injuries to person and t proper y, including injuries causing death , when such injuries are caused by an act of violence of any per or s son per ons while a member of, or acting in con cert with , any assembly of persons engaged in dis tur bin i g the publ c peace , provided such city or borough or the police or other proper authorities thereof shall not have exercised reasonable care or diligence in the prevention or suppression of such dis mob , riotous assembly, or assembly engaged in tur bing the public peace 2 5 6

JU D GE LY N CH

as lawful authority, Shall be regarded and designated “ ” a mob .

Any person or persons who shall compose a mob , with the intent to inflict damage or injury to the person or property of any individual charged with e a crime , or, under the pretense of exercising corre tional powers over such person or persons by violence , and without authority of the law, shall be subject to a fine of not less than $ 1 00 or more than and may be imprisoned in the county jail not less than thirty days nor to exceed twelve months for each offense . In case the person or persons composing the mob commit injur y to a person or damage to property they shall be deemed guilty of a felony and suffer imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding five years . sur viv In the case of the death of the victim , the i ing spouse , lineal he rs , or adopted children may re cover from such county or city damages for injuries sustained by reason of the loss of life of such person a sum not exceeding Damage to property by mobs may be collected from the county or city to an amount not exceeding The loss by a Sheriffof his prisoner to a lynch mob is to be considered pr ima facie evidence of failure to his t do du y, and he may be removed by the Governor . The law also enables the Sheriff to remove any pris 2 5 8 T H E REVER S AL S O F JU D GE LY N CH oner in danger of lynching to another county for safekeeping . D IN IAN A : Lynching and mob clearly defined . Any number of persons assembled for any unlawful pur pose and intending to injure any person by Violence and without aut hority of the law shall be regarded as a mob , and any act of violence exercised by such mob e t upon the body of a p rson Shall , when such act resul s in the death of the injured person, constitute the crime of lynching ; and any person who participates l in or actively aids or abets such lynching sha l , on in conviction , suffer death or be imprisoned the state prison during life ; and any person who , being present i at any such lynching, shall not act vely participate in the lyn ching Shall be deemed guilty of abetting i i im r is such lynch ng, and , on convict on , shall be p omed in the state prison for not less than two years

- nor more than twenty one years . The law further provides complete protection for the Sheriff and his prisoner who is threatened with

n . t lynchi g The prisoner may be sent to another coun y, the Sheriff may “ comm and all bystanders and others with whom he can directly comm unicate to aid and ” assist in defending such prisoner, and he may appeal directly to the Governor for further aid by the state ’s military forces . Failure to use all the weapons placed at his command and losing his prisoner to the mob 2 5 9 JU D GE LYN CH shall be considered pr ima facie evidence of failure of official duty and result in removal and a ﬁne of not more than t The law, however, makes no provision for liabili y t of ci y or county for personal or property damage .

- IOWA : No anti lynching legislation . KANSAS : Any collection of individuals assembled for an unlawful purpose , intending to injure any per son by violence , and without authority of law, Shall “ ” for the purpose of this act be regarded as a mob , and any act of violence exercised by such mob upon the body of any person shall constitute the crime of “lynching ” when such act or acts of violence result in death ; and any person who participates in or aids or abets such lynching, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in the state prison for not less in than ﬁve years or during life , the discretion of the jury .

The law further provides that anyone who harbors , conceals , or assists any lyncher to escape arrest shall e be de med an accessory after the fact, and upon con viction be imprisoned from for two to twenty-one f years . Complete protection for the Sheri f and his prisoner who is threatened with lynching is part of the law : the prisoner may be transferred to a state ﬁ prison or reformatory , the peace of cer may command all bystanders and others with whom he can directly

2 6o

JUDGE LY N CH f from o ﬁce . Provision is also made for the liability of t the city for proper y damage if preventable .

- LOUISIAN A: No anti lynching legislation . Law pro v ides that a prisoner may be removed for safekeeping .

- MAIN E : No anti lynching legislation . Law provides that prisoner may be removed when jail is adjudged

unﬁt or insecure . Liability of town for property

‘ damage limited to three fourths of damage done . L N - MARY A D : No anti lynching legislation . Law t i provides for ci y, town , or county l ability for prop r er y damage if it might have been prevented .

- MASSACHUSETTS : No anti lynching legislation .

Property damage to three fourths of the damage done ,

if more than twelve persons are engaged in the riot .

- MICHIGAN : No anti lynching legislation . Law pro

vides for the transfer of prisoners for safekeeping . MINNESOTA : Lynching is the killing of a human

being, by the act or procurement of a mob . Whenever l any person sha l be lynched , the county in which said lynching occurred shall be liable in damages to the dependents of the pe rson lynched in a sum not

exceeding to be recovered in a civil action . u ff The law f rther provides that any Sheri , deputy f fi sherif , or other of cer having custody of any person whom a mob seeks to take from his custody who shall fail or neglect to use all lawful means to resist such 2 6 2 T H E R E VE R S A L S O F JUDG E L Y N CH taking shall be deemed guilty of malfeasance and shall fi be removed from of ce by the Governor .

- MISSISSIPPI : No anti lynching legislation . Prisoners may be removed to another county for safekeeping, or the Sheriff may summon a guard sufﬁcient to pro tect his prisoner .

- MISSOURI : No anti lynching legislation . Law pro vides that the Sheriff may employ sufﬁcient guards to protect his prisoner or may move that prisoner to a t jail in another county for safekeeping . Liabili y limited to property damages .

- MO NTAN A: No anti lynching legislation . Prisoners may be removed to jails in contiguous counties , and cities and towns are liable for property damage done or caused by mobs or riots within their corporate

NE BRASKA : A collection of people assembled for an unlawful purpose and intending to do damage or n r c or r ec i ju y to anyone , or pretending to exercise tional power over another person by violence and “ t without authori y of the law, shall be deemed a mob

for the purpose of this act . An act of violence result ing in the death of the victim by a mob upon the body of any person shall constitute a “lynching” within

the meaning of this act . The law makes no provisions for the punishment 2 63 JU D G E LY N CH of lynchers or for the removal of ofﬁcers for mal feasance . The legal representative of the victim may sue the county in which the lynching occurred for

damages .

- NEVAD A: No anti lynching legislation . Law pro vides for the removal of prisoners upon written ap

plication by the Sheriffto the Governor . N W - E HAMPSHIRE : No anti lynching legislation . Law provides for removal of prisoners “for such im ” ’ er ati e r t p v and extraordina y purpose . Town s liabili y

for property loss limited to damage done .

N EW E SE : ﬁve J R Y Any collection of individuals , or s u more in number, a sembled for the unlawful p rpose of offeringviolence to the person or property of any one supposed to have been guilty of a violation of the law , or for the purpose of exercising correctional powers or regulative powers over any person or per

sons by violence , and without lawful authority, shall “ ” be regarded and designated as a mob . The penalty for any person or persons who Shall compose a mob as above deﬁned shall be a ﬁne of not less than $ 1 00 or more than and he or they may be imprisoned in the county for a period of n ot less than thirty days or to exceed twelve months for f each and every o fense . If material damage to the n property or serious i jury to the person ensues, the offender shall be deemed guilty of a felony and shall 2 64

JU D GE LY N CH

- i N EW YO RK : No anti lynch ng legislation . City or ’ county s liability for property destroyed by mob violence limited to damage done . A OL NORTH C R IN A : Lynching not clearly d eﬁned . Lynching in North Carolina is constru ed as the illegal entering of a jail for the purpose of killing or injuring ’ a pris oner placed by the law in the Sheriffs custody . The law makes provision for the punishment of wit nesses of lynchings who refuse to testify but not for the punishment of the lyncher . Under certain con dirions the heirs of the lynch-victim may sue for damages the county wherein the lynching was com r mit ed .

O : - N RTH DAKOTA No anti lynching legislation . OHIO : A collection of people assembled for an un lawful purpose and intending to do damage or injury to anyone , or pretending to exercise correctional power over other persons by violence and without “ ” authority of the law, shall be deemed a mob for the purpose of this chapter . An act of violence by a mob upon the body of any person shall constitute a “ ” lynching within the meaning of this chapter . The act further provides that any person con cerned in such lynching may be prosecuted for homi cide or assault, and anyone who breaks or attempts to break into a jail or prison , or attacks or attempts to attack an officer with intent to seize a prisoner for 2 66 T H E REV E R S A L S O F JUDG E LY N C H

iin r isoned the purpose of lynching him , shall be p in the penitentiary - for not less than one year or more than ten years . The legal representative of the victim of the lynch ing may recover from the county in which the lynch ing occurred a sum not to exceed

- OKLAHO MA : No anti lynching legislation . In case f of an emergency, a Sherif , with the approval of the t coun y commissioners , may appoint additional jail guards to protect his prisoner . R - O EGON : No anti lynching legislation . “ N L N : PE NSY VA IA The putting to death , within any county, of any person within the jurisdiction of the county by mob or riotous assemblage of three per or sons more , openly acting in concert in violation of the law , and in default of protection of such per son oﬂi cer s by such county or the thereof, shall be deemed a denial to such person by such county of the equal protection of the laws , and a violation of the peace of the Commonwealth and an offense against the same . “Every person participating in such mob or riotous i assemblage by wh ch said person is put to death , as described in the section immediately preceding , shall be guilty of murder . “ Every county in which such unlawful putting to death occurs shall be subject to a forfeiture of ten 2 67 JU D GE LY N CH thousand dollars , which may be recovered , by action therefor in the name of the Commonwealth , against such county for the use of the dependent family, if so any, of the person put to death , and , if none , for the use of the Commonwealth .

- The act further debars mob members , pro ly nch ing advocates , or anyone who has ever entertained or expressed any opinions in favor of lynching , from fi f serving as jurors . Of cers who suf er their prisoners to be taken from them by lynch mobs shall be deemed guilty of felony, and , upon conviction , shall be punished by imprisonment for not exceeding five years , or by a fine not exceeding or both HO E SL N — R D I A D : No anti lynching legislation . Law provides for transfer of prisoners . SOUTH CAROLIN A : The South Carolina code pro f vides no punishment for lynchers . If a Sherif , through negligence , permission , or connivance , permits his prisoner to be taken from him for pur pose of lynch is ing, he to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon a true bill being found , shall be deposed from ofli ce , and, upon conviction, unless pardoned by the fi Governor, be ineligible to hold any of ce of trust or profit within this state . s In all cases of lynching when death en ues , the t coun y where such lynching takes place shall , with fi out regard to the conduct of the of cers , be liable 2 68

JU D GE LY N CH purpose of this act; and any act of violence by a mob upon the body of any person , which shall result in “ l ns the death of such person, Sha l co titute a lynch ” ing within the meaning of this act . The lynching of any person within this state by a ” mob shall be deemed murder, and any and every “ ” person composing a mob and any and every ac cessor y thereto , by which any person is lynched, shall S be guilty of murder, and , upon conviction , hall be punished as provided in chapter 1 7 8 of the Code of 3

i . Virgin a It shall be the duty of the attorney, for the

Commonwealth , of any county or city in which a “ ” lynching may occur, to promptly and diligently endeavor to ascertain the identity of the persons who

in any way participated therein , or who composed “ ” the mob that perpetrated the same , and have them

apprehended, and to promptly proceed with the prosecution of any and all persons so found ; and to the end that such offenders may not escape proper u punishment, s ch attorney for the Commonwealth may be assisted in all such endeavors and pr osecu

tions , by the Attorney General , or other prosecutors designated by the Governor for the pur pose ; and the Governor Shall have full authority to spend such sums as he may deem necessary for the purpose Of

3 D e ath . 2 7 0 T H E R E V E R S AL S O F JUDG E LY N CH seeking out the identity and apprehending the mem i “ ” bers of such gu lty mob . Nothing herein contained Shall be construed to relieve any member of any such mob from civil liability to the personal representative of the victim of such lynching . The law makes no provision for the punishment of peace officers who release their prisoners to lynch mobs .

SH ON : - i WA INGT No anti lynch ng legislation .

E I I : 1 An W ST V RG NIA ( ) y collection of individuals , s ﬁve or more in number, as embled for the unlawful purpose of offering violence to the person or property of anyone supposed to have been guilty of a viola tion of the law, or for the purpose of exercising cor r ectional powers or regulative powers over any

s au person or per ons by violence , and without lawful “ ” tho r it l y , sha l be regarded and designated as a mob “ ” or riotous assemblage . ( 3 ) The putting to death of any person within this state by a mob or riotous as sembla e g shall be murder, and every person partici paring in such mob or riotous assemblage by which a is i person put to death shall be gu lty of murder, and , upon conviction thereof, shall be punished as provided ’ 4 1 by chapter 44 of Hogg s Code of West Virginia .

4 D e ath . 2 7 1 JU D G E LY N CH (6) The county in which such person charged with a crime and within which such person has been t O taken from a state , coun y, or municipal fﬁcer and lynched and put to death shall be subject to forfeiture of which may be recovered by appropriate Of r e r esen action therefor, in the name the personal p tative of the person put to death , for the use of his

dependent family or the state . Such action may be brought in any state court . The law makes no provision for the punishment of peace oﬂicer s who release their prisoners to lynch

mobs .

- WISCON SIN : No anti lynching legislation . The county shall be liable for injury to person or property

by a mob or riot therein , except that within cities the t ci y shall be liable . This section shall not apply to property damages to houses of ill-fame when the

owner has notice that they are used as such .

- WYOMIN G : No anti lynching legislation .

2 7 2

A P P E N D IX

3 3 3 7 2060 1 904 86 79 1 90 5 65 60 1 906 68 64 I 9O 7 6 2 59 1 90 8 1 00 9 2 1 909 89 7 5 1 9 1 0 90 80 1 9 1 1 80 7 2 1 9 1 2 89 86 1 9 1 3 86 85 1 9 1 4 74 69 I 9 1 5 I 4S 99 1 9 1 6 7 2 65 I 9 1 7 5 4 5 2 1 9 1 8 67 6 3 I 9 1 9 8 3 79 1 9 20 65 5 7 1 9 2 1 64 5 8 1 9 2 2 6 1 54 1 9 2 3 2 8 26

1 9 24 1 6 1 6 v 1 9 2 5 1 8 I 8 1 9 26 34 29 5

1 - f er 1 0 r o Estimates to 1 903 fr om Cutler : Ly nch Law. A t 9 4 f m N atio nal Asso ciation for th e Advanc ement o f Co lor e d Pe ople . 2 74 AP PE N D I X B ibliogr aphy

Books and Pamphlets

D O na ite h tor o ss o n A IC U I . m : t e C a Vi e ce in AM , L S Dy S y f l l i i i e r k 1 i . R w N Y o . Am er ca ev se d Ed t o n. : 9 34 r i e n the ur in at t t An Ame can Ly nching . B i g B n g h e S ake of enr Lowr a t o ena Ar kansas Januar 2 6 1 2 1 H y y N d , , y , 9 , a h e a n as To ld in Amer ic n Newspaper s . T N tio al Asso e ciation for th e Advancement o f Co lor e d Pe ople . N w

k n . d Y o r : .

B ib una s Th e Wor ks C O U E OW E . o u ar Tr BAN R FT, H RT H P p l l , b r t San o u e t owe ancr o and . fH H B f, XXXVI XXXVII an Fr cisc o : 1 8 87 .

I HO CH LES M Th e C uses Co nse uence s and Cur e . a B S P, AR , q o f Mo io en r c in E rnest W ashin b ce em oc a a . V l , D y g ton 1 1 : 9 8 . LE r A er i an W E J I . A ocia isto o th e m c BRA Y, B N AM N S l H y f e r o N ew Y o r k 1 2 N g . : 9 1 . L h e CH D B OU E O nchin and th e aw . C a A RN, JAM S HARM N . Ly g p l ﬂ 1 fi h 9 3 3 . L R L ir Th e r uth Th nt i ns c . CH I H . e Ce r a a Co a T AP N, A P l p y Ab out th e r ist e ener a e ense A m ice D ay Tr ag dy . G l D f Co mmitte e Chic a o 1 2 : . , g 9 4 CO ES ROB E M t a Y ear Th e istor o th e Th e u w s. AT , RT . O l H y f

an ir T a N ew Y or k: 1 0 . L d P ates of th e Na tch ez r ce . 9 3 C LI I I T Tr uth Ab out nchin and the OL S W ELD . h e N , NF H Ly g

e Y or k: 1 1 8 . Negr o in the South . N w 9 CU LE ES LB E nc -Law: an Investi ation into E . h T R, JAM RT Ly g N ew th e Histor y of Ly nching in the U nite d States . Y r k: 1 0 o 9 5 . 2 7 6

B IBLIOGRAP HY

a A io a I L E R and F ot. r h WH E W . o e o T , A T R p gg B g p y f k 1 2 e Y or : . Ly nch . N w 9 9 it r Th e o Y ear ook 1 O K MO OE N . E o e r W . R , NR , d N g B , 93 7 k 1 8 T s e ee 1 . 93 . u g : 9 3 7

Magazine Refer ences “ Fr ank Case the Le o : Mob Law In e or i a Liter ar D i , G g , y “ ” est Au u 2 8 1 1 Th e Case f Leo M Fr ank st o . g , g , 9 5 ; , “ ut oo k Ma 26 1 1 An ut aw tate ut ook O l , y , 9 5 ; O l S , O l , ’ ” Au ust 2 1 1 eor ia s h ame In e en ent g 5 , 9 5 ; G g S , d p d , “ ” Au ust 0 1 1 A eor ian nvesti atio n ar er s g 3 , 9 5 ; G g I g , H p W ek c e 2 1 1 e tob r . ly , O , 9 5 “ h e c hin s ati n B A F . M t n N . ou r n o 0 , S Ly g , N , LVI , 4 7 . “ i i A oub e nchin in ir n a In e en ent 8 . D l Ly g V g , d p d , LII , 7 3 “ ” O hin : A o th e n iew At antic P E C . . nc u r C , H Ly g S V , l , X III ,

1 55 .

Anar ch in e awar e ut ook . y D l , O l , LXXIV, 543 m e i a in So r v lle : Som e Co oper ating C uses ofNegr o Lynch g .

or th Amer ican Review C 0 6 . N , LXXVII , 5 “ B R A R e i ation T E . em for nch n A R, S . dy Ly g, N , LXXV, 478

Th R Ewin n nc hin In e en ent 20 . e ev . o # . g Ly g, d p d , VIII , 59 “ ” W h a h a Be ne it b s# entr a Law MC I . W t W h Mo C S A N S ll D o l ourna J l, LXVII , 3 75 . Th ause f i i L e C o nc h n a t on XL 6 . Ly g, N , , 4 3 “ ” - ELL La i a Ar ena 1 . W E . nch w in Am er c BARN TT Ly , , XXIII, 5 “ OEB EL U LIU Th e nter nati na Res onsibi it o f tates . o G , J S I l p l y S for Inj ur ies Sustaine d b y Aliens o n Ac c ount o f Mob io enc e nsur r e ctions and Civil W ar Am er ican our V l , I , I n l o I a nter nationa Law 8 1 . f l , VIII , 5 ” A Me ican o c o t In e en ent 1 1 1 1 . x B y t , d p d , LXIX, 2 7 8 B IBLIOG RA P H Y “ ” nchin : An Amer ican Ku tur N ew Re ub ic Ly g l , p l , XIV, 1 1 3 .

nchin a a iona Evi ut o k C o 6 . Ly g, N t l l , O l , XXXII , 59 “ ” R Y n SH O . c hin o f Anth on Cr aw or Ind e end NA , Ly g y f d , p ent 6 , LXXXVIII , 45 . “ E Th e onstit ti na i f a e - DY R . C u o l ty o F der al Anti Lynching ” Law t L uis Law Revie 1 S . o X w 86 . , , III , ” nchin and Fe er a Law Chautau uan 08 Ly g d l , q , XL , 4 . ” N ew h ases o fth e Fi h t A ainst nchi n Cur r ent in P g g Ly g, Op i on . , LXVII , 45 TTHEW L Th e La M S A B E . e T r m nch w Mo er n A , RT Ly , d i h o o 2 . P l l gy , II , “ REE Th e r i in f n hin r e n T . G e B o c a . Y O g Ly g, g, XXV, 39 3 “ ” An n uir Re ar in nchin s outh At antic uar I q y g d g Ly g , S l #

ter l . y , I , 4 nchin and nter nati na eac e ut o k C s o o . Ly g I l P , O l , , 5 54 “ h M ” I R D OL H THO S . Th e over nor and t e ob n e AN P , MA G , d en ent p d , LXXXIX, 347 . The eavenworth nchin Review o Reviews L Ly g, f , XXIII ,

26 2 .

U RL Th e Re ati f nchin t th e iz e o f Y O G E F . on o o N , A l Ly g S ”

o itic a Ar eas ocio o and o cia Resear ch 8 . P l l , S l gy S l , XII , 3 4

Re war s to Catch nch er s a tion C 2 1 8 . d Ly , N , VII , ”

nc hin s and outh er n entim e nt ut ook 200 . Ly g S S , O l , LXII , “ ” Th e r eve ntio n f nch -Law E i emics Review OLL . o P P Ly p d ,

o Reviews 2 1 . f , XVII , 3 Th e Kentuck Cur e for nchin iter ar i est y Ly g, L y D g , LXIV,

20 .

How Tam a Tr eats nch er s iter ar i est CI 1 2 . p Ly , L y D g , X II , ”

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tal 1 0 o f N e r o es 1 0 o f Ho se Samuel nc e 1 08-1 0 , 7 , g , 7 , , , ly h d , 9 wo en 1 0 u e 1 08 o f Ho t S r n s r ansas nchin s m , 7 , m ltipl , , p i g , A k , ly g N e r o e er ans 8 2 at O c l a at 1 26 g v t , , il , , 6 at Sa 1 0 O f aul Howse a l nc e 1 02-1 0 9 , lt City, 7 , P , Alm , y h d , 3 ee and a o 1 1 0 o f Howse a e l nc e 1 02-1 0 R d Will C t , , , M ggi , h d , 3 er o er 1 1 0 o f Se as an Hu e s G e o r e ynch e d 8 1 1 8 Alb t R g , , b ti gh , g , y , 9 , , McBr id e 1 1 0 at S a es or o 1 -206 , , t t b , 97 1 1 0 1 1 1 o f G er o so n , , ilb t Th mp , 1 1 1 o f Sidne o nso n l aho : o al r e cor e nc n s , J h , Wi l d T t d d ly hi g , ‘ ' I He a lfi o m son ru e 1 n - nc n e sla on d , Will p , Chi 47 ; A ti ly hi g l gi ti , e Eu ene R c e S o n 2 Ril y , g i , im 57 S u an Ha es ur ner ar lin o s : nc n s : r e cor e to h m , y T , M y Il i Ly hi g d d ur ner 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 o f o as tal 1 o f N e r o e s 1 S nce T , , Th m , 45 5 g , 45 , i e n and o s e r a s 1 1 2 r s c e 1 o f E a o e All F t W tt , A mi ti , 45 , lij h L v f o 6 - o f l a e 1 1 1 f . as 1 1 o . o o 3 , T J Th m , 3 , j y, 5 59 , Wil i m B ll , 45 ; R c ar ar s a l 1 1 o f Le o n - nc n e sla on 2 i h d M h l , 3 , A ti ly hi g l gi ti , 57 r an 1 1 1 1 -1 6 1 o f 2 F k, , 5 3 , Will 59 ir 2 n - nc n le n ana : L c n s : r e co r e to K by , 49 ; A ti ly hi g g I di hi g d d islatio n 2 tal 1 e tween 1 8 1 - o f , 57 , 43 , 7 7 3 , 75 , G e r as o nc e 6 —6 N e r o es 1 a t ar o n 1 v i , ly h d , 4 5 g , 43 , M i , 43 G o r o n l a nc e 1 2 1 1 n - nc n e s a on d , Wi li m , ly h d , 44 ; A ti ly hi g l gi l ti ,

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oo se e r an n D . 2 20 60 R v lt, F kli , o sar o ar a d el nc e 6 -6 So u h a on assacr e - R i , M i , ly h d , 4 5 t mpt m , 3 3 , 3 7 45 So uthe r n Co mmission o n th e nsas nc n s S u o f n 1 St . ar e s r a nc 0 Ch l , A k , ly hi g t dy Ly hi g, at 1 26 S u r e r c 1 8 1 1 2 , q i Bi h , , 9 , 5 , 5 sso ur nc n at S a e s o r o G e or a nc n s at St . o se t J ph , Mi i, ly hi g , t b , gi , ly hi g , 2 1 6-2 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 9 , - 6 Mo . nc n at S e s er S a on o u s ana St . o u s L i , , ly hi g , 54 5 ylv t t ti , L i i , Sa is ur ar an nc n o f nc n at 1 20-1 2 1 l b y, M yl d , ly hi g ly hi g , a ll a s 1 6 M tt Wi i m , 94, 4 Sa G e o r a nc n at lt City, gi , ly hi g , 1 0 a a asse e o r a nc n s at 7 T ll h , Fl id , ly hi g , San e n o e as nc n s a t 2 8 B it , T x , ly hi g , 4 1 1 T alullah o u s ana nc n s a t 5 , L i i , ly hi g , San D e o a ifo r n a nc n at 1 1 i g , C l i , ly hi g , 9 6 a a o r a nc n s at 1 28 4 T mp , Fl id , ly hi g , , San o se a o r n a nc in at 2 -2 J , C lif i , ly h g , 34 45 1 enne sse e : n c n s : e ar l 6 1 44 T Ly hi g y, , Sco ar e nc e 1 8 r e co r e o a 1 0 e ween tt, M i , ly h d , 3 d d t t l , 3 , b t Sc o s o r o a se 1 2 1 8 1 - o f N e r o es 1 0 tt b C , 5 7 73 , 74, g , 3 , S e e e n uc nc n s o f wo en 1 0 u e 1 0 h lbyvill , K t ky, ly hi g m , 3 , m ltipl , 3 , at 1 s n ce r s c e 1 0 at ar s , 3 4 i A mi ti , 3 , Cl k S e e e nne ss e e m ob r e a e 8 o f Ell e r so n 1 0 h lbyvill , T , d l , 3 , P , 9 3 , 3 ul se ur ns co ur ouse own 1 1 at o n e e s p d , b th d , 3 , Tipt vill , M mphi , 1 a a no o a N as e no 3 3 Ch tt g , hvill , K x S er an e as nc in at 1 1 ll e e o e 1 0-1 1 o f h m , T x , ly h g , 7 vi , Ripl y, R m , 3 3 , 1 1 8 1 -206 Be n e r ew 1 1 o f Mc , 97 P ttig , 3 , Jim S o e a er o se 22 -2 Illh er r o n 1 2-1 o f er h m k , J ph , 3 43 , 3 3 3 , Alb t Sh o ltz G o er no r D a e o f or G o o en 2 8-2 n - nc , v v , Fl d , 4 49 ; A ti ly h id a 2 0 in e s a o n 26 , 4 g l gi l ti , 9 S r e e o r o u s ana nc n s e as : nc n s : e ar r e h v p t, L i i , ly hi g T x Ly hi g ly, 5 3 , at 1 1 c o r e o a 1 1 o f N e r o es , 9 d d t t l , 4, g , S u a n S o n nc e 1 1 1 1 1 o f w o en 1 1 ul e h m , im , ly h d , 4, m , 4, m tipl , S a on G o e r no r o f G e or a 1 1 1 a t So u Su ur 60 a t l t , v gi , 57 , 4, th lph , , 1 8 San e n o 6 a t ar s 2 o f 5 B it , 9 , P i , 9 , S He nr nc e 2 e e r en a a n o ne s 1 1 mith, y , ly h d , 9 R v d C pt i J , 4, So u ar o na : nc in s : r e o f D an D a s 1 1 6 o f esse th C li Ly h g vi , , J c o r e o a 1 e we en as n o n 1 1 6 -1 1 o f two d d t t l , 3 5 , b t W hi gt , 7 , 1 8 1 — o f N e r oe s 1 o f N e r o no r s 1 1 o f G e o r e 7 7 3 , 74, g , 3 5 , g mi , 7 , g wo en 1 u e 1 s nc e H u e s 8 1 1 8 1 -2o6 n m , 3 5 , m ltipl , 3 5 , i gh , 9 , , 97 ; A ti r s c e 1 n - nc n n c n e s a o n 26 A mi ti , 3 5 , A ti ly hi g ly hi g l gi l ti , 9 e s a on 26 -26 nc e 1 1 8 o a s . l gi l ti , 9 Th m , T . J , ly h d , 3 So u D a o a : Se e N o r and o so n G er nc e 1 1 1 th k t th Th mp , ilb t, ly h d , Sou D a o a o so n nc e 1 1 1 th k t Th mp , Will , ly h d , 2 87 I N D EX

ur m o n om as H . l nc e a er #ac ar a nc e 1 Th d , Th , y h d, W lk , h i h , ly h d , 49 1 2 1 2-2 1 6 ar ne r o d nc e 2 1 6 -2 1 44, W , Ll y , ly h d , 9

on e ennesse e nc n s as n o n . nc in s : t e Tipt vill , T , ly hi g W hi gt Ly h g at 1 0 c or e to tal 1 6 o f N e r o e s , 3 d d , 4 , g , o r ur e - 8 1 0 1 0 1 08- 1 0 1 6 s nce r mis ce 1 6 o f T t , 94 9 , 3 , 4, 9 , 4 , i A ti , 4 , 1 1 0 1 1 1 -1 1 2 1 1 6 1 1 1 1 8 1 20 e s e E er es 1 6 226-2 , , , 7 , , W l y v t, 4 , 3 3 ; 1 2 1 1 1 4 1 2 1 1 4 8 n - n c n e s a on 2 1 5 3 3 3 5 4 9 491 75 7 9 A ti ly hi g l gi l ti , 7 1 8 -1 8 1 6 -1 20 1 -20 22 as n on e sse nc e 1 1 6 4 5 , 9 97 , 3 , 5 , W hi gt , J , ly h d , 2 8 2 2 1 1 3 1 39 1 47 7 - o wne s o o se e nc e 2 a s on o as E . 1 1 8 1 T , R v lt, ly h d , 47 W t , Th m , 54, 5 59 ur ner Ha e s n c e 1 1 1 a s o s e r n c e 1 1 2 T , y , ly h d , W tt , F t , ly h d , ur ner ar nc e 1 0 1 1 1 e s ac nc e 8 T , M y, ly h d , 7 , W t, J k, ly h d , 7 1 1 2 We st Vir ginia : Lynchings : t e ur ner N at - c o r e o a 1 2-1 o f N e T , , 3 7 43 d d t t l , 4 43 , us e e e D e ar men of e cor s r o es 1 2 o fwo en 1 2 s nce T k g , p t t R d g , 4 , m , 4 , i r s c 1 f and e se ar c 1 0 e o Mr s . . A1 R h , A mi ti , 43 , T er e as nc n at 1 1 6 ur 1 2 o f o er o nso n Tyl , T x , ly hi g , th , 4 , R b t J h , i 1 n -l ch n g e T r o nne . nc e 1 0 n l sla o n y , R . J , ly h d , 5 43 ; A ti y gi ti , 27 1 -27 2 ’ U n e r us or er s U n on e G o e no r Hu o f Mis it d Cit W k i , Whit , v gh 2 sissi i 2 2 -2 8 43 pp , 45 , 47 4 U a : L c n s : r e cor e o a e a er 1 0 1 2 t h hi g d d t t l , Whit , W lt , , 7 1 0 o N e r o es 1 0 o f o er l a s a nc e 1 6 5 , g , 5 , R b t Wi li m , M tt, ly h d , 94, 4 ar s a 1 0 o f o e H 22 l n o n D e awar e nc n M h ll , 5 , J ill , 3 ; Wi mi gt , l , ly hi g n - nc n e s a on 26 ne ar 1 1 A ti ly hi g l gi l ti , 9 , 5

so n W . D s r c or ne Wil , T . , i t i t Att y Vau an S er ff el e r e Al a d r esse s m o b gh , h i , d iv d d , 9 3 er G o o en to m ob 2 8 -2 sco ns n : nc n s : r e cor e b t d , 4 49 Wi i Ly hi g d d e er c e o f e s a a 1 6 o al 1 0 e wee n 1 8 1 — V hmg i ht W tph li , , t t , 5 , b t 7 7 3 , 75 ; I n — nc n e s a o n 2 2 7 A ti ly hi g l gi l ti , 7 er m o n : N o l nc n s 1 00 o en nc n o f 6 8 1 0 2 V t y hi g , ; W m , ly hi g , 5 , 9 , - nc n e s a o n 26 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 -1 1 2 1 1 1 1 Anti ly hi g l gi l ti , 9 3 , 4, 7 , , 4, 9 , e se D enm ar - 1 2 1 26 1 2 1 2 1 0 1 1 1 V y, k, 3 5 37 4, , 7 , 9 , 3 , 3 , 3 3 , - c s ur ss . nc n s at 1 1 6 1 1 8 1 1 0 1 2 Vi k b g, Mi , ly hi g , 3 5 , 3 37 , 3 , 39 , 4 , 4 1 0 1 o o son E war n c e 1 49 5 “ W d , d d , ly h d , 44 - - an e s 1 6 6 1 1 1 2 o r onr o e N . 1 0 igil t , 7 , 5 9 , 4 4 W k, M , V ’ r n a : nc n s : r e co r e o r er s D e e nse e a ue 1 0 Vi gi i Ly hi g d d W k f L g , o tal 1 e we en 1 8 1 - o n : L c n s : r e co r e d t , 39 , b t 7 7 3 , 74, Wy mi g hi g d o fN e r oe s 1 o fwo en 1 o al 1 o N e r o e s 1 s nce g , 39 , m , 39 , t t , 44, g , 44, i u t e 1 s nce r is ce r s ce 1 o f E war m l ipl , 39 , i A m ti , A mi ti , 44, d d 1 0 An - nc in o o son 1 n -l nc in 4 ; ti ly h g W d , 44; A ti y h g 26 -2 0 e s a o n 2 2 9 7 l gi l ti , 7

ac l nc n at e as l nchin at 1 1 6 azo o ss . s W o, T x , y g , Y City, Mi , y hi g , 1 1 7 1 0 1 al er D a 1 2 o un Ab I n c e W k , vid , 3 , 3 Y g, s y h d ’ 93

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