Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1874-12-18
Q|lls Bnlltti'l.
FRIDAY DECEMBER Is 1874
Judge Lynch in Iowa.

brought the startling news OF man.
Hesitation of mob violence and lynch
law at the capital of our own State,
the parallel of which we are accus-
toned to look for only in the turbu-
lent communities of the South and
West, where the restraints Of law
and civilization are less stringent
than in our own usually well-ordered
State.
On Monday last the trial of Charles
Howard, in the District Court of
Polk county, for the murder of John
johnson, in a brothel in Des Moines,
in June last, came to a termination
by the conviction Of the prisoner of
murder in the second degree and his
sentence to the penitentiary for life.
Intense public feeling and excite
ment attended the course of the trial,
and was manifested at its close by q
burst of applause in the courtroom
when the sentence of imprisonment
for life was pronounced. But this
unseemly exultation, considering the
time aud place, was but the prelude
to that which was to follow, and dis
grace the community in which it oc-
Cured. The same night Il body Of
$50 disguised men entered the jail,
knocked down the jailor, bound him,
took his keys, and, overpowering the
guard, entered the cell of the muir
derer, put rope aroundh is neck,
and dragging him through the Jail
and yard, accompanied by the shrieks
and prayers of his wretched wife,
hanged him to lamp post. When
life had fed the body Of their victim,
the lawless vigilants fired an exult-
ant volley and rapidly dispersed.
Thus was the capital city of our
State, whose citizens are wont to
boast of their civilization, culture,
and law-abiding character, disgraced
by an act of lawlessness which finds
no palliation in any possible depth
OF criminality i'll the victim, and
which is scarcely excusable in the
half civilized communities of the
frontier, where law is almost wholly
subservient to the rule of the revol-
yer and bowie knife. But what
makes the transaction all the more
diseraceful and humiliating, is the
fact that it was suggested, almost in
vited, by the Judge who tried How
ard, from his place on the bench. We
may be misled in our estimate Of
their import, but we regard some por-
tons of Judge Maxwell's speech ac-
companying the sentence, as the most
demoralizing and mischievous in
their suggestions and indictments,
ever promulgated from the bench in
Iowa. Their tendency was to fur
Their infame the passions of an al
ready excited community, and to con-
firm the already settled purpose of
the mob to lynch the prisoner. Com
ing from a Judge on the bench, in a
community where the law is suppos-
ed to have untrammeled sway, and
where it bad just been amply vindi-
Gated by the conviction of the muir
derer, and his sentence to the extreme
penalty for a crime of the second
grade, they were not simply unjusti-
fable, but monstrous and disgraceful.
This is strong language, but to prove
that it is just, we give below por-
tons of Judge Aaxwell's speech as
we find them in the Daily Register
of Tuesday.
Referring to the murder OF which
Howard was convicted, and that of
Mrs. Barrett, which occurred soon
after, Judge Maxwell says:
0Ask the 10000 people of Des
Moines if they slept as soundly after
these murders as they did before.
Was it not case for reward, for de-
tectives, for vigilance committees -
Here the agencies for the detection
of crime are coupled with the idea of
mob for its punishment, as though
the conjunction was perfectly legiti-
mate.
Again Judge Maxwell says:
GAS much as l deprecate lynching
and the terrible ways of mobs, which
ought to be discountenanced and OPP
posed by all good citizens, yet, they
hare often been resorte0 to apde'' q
similar stute Of things that haze ca
listed IN this city, and sometimes
bands Of desperadoes have mecer been
broken ~, Except By the action Of
yigiiance committees. 1t is not the
greatest wonder in the world that
there was some talk of such thing
in this case. Men who talk about
such unnecessary punishment are not
the outlaws and disturbers of the
public peace. They are our best citi-
Zens-the law and order men of our
country"
Here is the plain suggestion that
it is common to right such abuses as
those existing at Des Moines, by
lynching the offenders, and the i'm
plication that no other way will
prove effectual. Lawless murder by
vigilance committee is invested
with no harsher name than "unnec-
essary punishment and the mob is
landed as s'our best citizens-the law
and order men of our country
However intended, can we doubt
that these words immensely strength
ened and confirmed the fragrant pur-
pose of the men who had already de-