The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1891-12-11
The State and Its Outlaws

One act of lawlessness, especially If
the law-breakers are not punished, be-
gets another and holder. We see this
truth strikingly verified in the last out
rage of the miners at Oliver Springs,
Anderson County, this State. They
first liberated a corps of convict miuers
there employed and destroyed several
hundred dollars worth of property in
simple, devilish wantOnness. Now
they mob party of inoffensive negro
miners : in a spirit equally devilish
more so, if possible. 1t is high time
this element of anarchy were taught a
lesson they would not soon forget, and
we hope the Governor and the lessees
will be equal to the demands of the
situation. If a few miners in Anderson
County may with impunity run rough
shod over the laws and obligations of
the State, and supplement this by a
ruf1anly, cowardly, murderous attack
on peaceable citizens, whose sole often
ses are their color and their desire to
make an honest living, we may next
expect they will disperse the legisla-
tive, executive and Judicial forces of
the law and takes possession of the
States affairs. If Order-lOving and
honest Tennesseans have not become
hopelessly lost to State pride and their
own interests, they will see that this
sort of thing goes no farther. Those
ever had on the sympathy of good cIti-
zens. The watch-word as to them
should now be, Make them obey the
law, no matter the cost.-ChattanoOga
Times.
The American desires to give it's
unqualified Endorsement to every
word of the foregoing. The men who
have the impudence to appeal to pub
lie sympathy to sustain them in their
lawless acts In Anderson County,
Tenn, have committed nearly all the
crimes in the ordinary list of felonies
and attempted those they have not
committed. Besides turning loose q
horde of desperate and depraved
criminals to prey upon society, they
have in a spirit of pure lawIessness
committed burglary, robbery, larceny
and arson. To temporiZe with such
degraded scOundrels as these is a
lamentable show of weakness, i'm
becility and folly. If there were
sympathy their violent assaults upon
inOffensive negro miners, whose only
fault was that they did not join the
ruffian gang in deeds of violence,
would be sufficient. Warrants were
issued for twelve miners who en-
gagged in these assaults upon harm
less negroes, but only two were ar
rested. The mob ruffians formally
demanded the release of these, and
when it was refused they went on q
strike. Such are the men who have
paralyzed the arm of the State, scoffed
at it's authority and jeered at its
power. A more depraved and I'M
scrupulOus gang of scOundrels never
preyed upon society.
There should be and must be no
paltering with situation so grave
and q spirit of outlawry SO desperate.
1t was a mistake even to have tenn
porized with men who mistake kind
illness for fear and evidences of SYM
pathy as license to commit crime.
In the effort to appOrtion the blame
for the continued gravity of the situa-
ton we have dealt impartially; aud
il we have gone wide of the marx we
believe It has been in judging the adj
with too great leniency
and perhaps In laying upon the les
sees more blame than was their due.
It seems now reasonably certain that
the imminent danger of the outbreak
was conveyed to the administration
some days before II occurred, with