The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-04
MIR. BEECHER ON RIOTS.
Newspapers and Public Sentiment Could
Have Accomplished All That Was Needed.

Have Accomplished All That Was Needed.
Interview in Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.
Mr.. Beecher was found seated with his small
party at a table, preparing to eat an l1-o'clock
supper upper, ,.,, 90. ,o 49,,
sit down. l am not going to ask you to eat any
thing, though" said Mr.. Beecher, laughing
Information, not food if you please, was the
reply.
riots will prove scarcer than food here. Waiter,
what is the matter with this watorl 1t tastes
like it had cucumbers in it. prefer my cucum
bers separate" Mr. Beecher remarked.
''Do you look upon such calamites as the one
which has Just come upon Cincinnati as a mani
festation of special Providence!' the reporter
queried.
mo. l do not believe that it is an act of spe-
cial Providence. 1 do not think that it was
necessary to kill and wound the two hundred
persons in this city for the purpose-of Furnishing
its iniquitous courts l do not believe that
wickedness is so punished, because l much
worse crimes on which Providence visits no i'm
mediate punishment, while others not nearly so
wicked fare much more seriously" said Mr..
Beecher
A gentleman sitting at the table said:
sit would have saved all this trouble if they
had obtained possession of those murderers on
the fret night and strung Thorn up
Eyes said Mr.. Beecher, Gas the Dutchman
remarked, If my foresight was only as good
as my hind sight wouldn't make so many mis-
takes"
do you believe. then that it would have been
better policy to have surrendered those prisoners
on the night of the first attack" was asked
II believe that the laws should be sustained
and that violence should be subdued. l under
stand, however, that on the first night the crowd
was composed of good citizens, who were sin
cerely DESTROYS Of enforcing justice, and that
furnished an opportunity for the lower element
of society to come together and cause the subse
quent bloodshed said Mr. Beecher
''Do you not believe atlynch law Unsuitable
when the regular courts no longer deal justice
to the criminals" asked the reporter
'In a new and unsettled country the people
are sometimes justified in coming together and
taking the law in their own hands, but where the
country is settled and has regular institutions of
law, they should be allowed to run, and mob
violence ought not to be resorted to. They will
regulate themselves in time, for the public in
dignation will be so great that they must feel
the force of public sentiment. The news
papers should open out them and keep
it up just as they did in our city on the Tweed
matter. We have had worse things to suffer
than the Cincinnatians have suffered, and infu
ence brought to bear through the newspapers and
by public sentiment at last exposed and corrected
these outrages. just now, in Brooklyn, there is
great cry against the iniquity in the Office of
the sheriff, and he is going to be arrested and
locked up, and an investigation is to be made of
his office, and the surrogates, and other Offices
and the system of fees will be abolished so that
in the future man going into such an Office as
the sheritfs will not make 800 900 and 800, 900
year, but must be satisfied with his salary of
S.. 000
'"These wrongs will regulate themselves if they
are given time They are like the currents of
the ocean and the aerial currents. The direction
they take depends on the influences brought to
bear against them. 1t is just like dynamite and
gunpowder. Men discovered that when they
brought certain chemicals together an explosion
followed, and the chemist was blown to pieces.
After that they took care how they handled
these chemicals