The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-12


must be prevented. and he recently ordered
the return Of the negro who murdered the
mayor of Spartanburg, in that state, and
whom the sheriff had brought to Column
bia because he feared lynching, to the
Spartanburg jail, under military escort,
and told the sheriff to summon a posse
sufficient to protect him if it took the
entire militia Of the state. It is safe to
say that that negro will not be lynched,
because the mob knows perfectly well that
Governor Tillman is a brave. resolute
man who will shoot a lynching party down
without hesitation.
On the Goth Of August last Frank Almy,
who had murdered beautiful and estima-
BILE young girl, Christie Warden, in Han
over, N. H. was brought to bay in barn
and finally. after being shot three times.
he offered to surrender upon the promise
that he should have fair trial. Ex-Sheriff
Brigham addressed the angry crowd OF
pursuers as follows:
"Fellow-citizens: Almy has been found. Now
call upon you In the name OF law and good
order to restrain your anger and let the law take
the request of the county officials, men whom
we chose by our votes to act for US. We all
have confidence In them. We have as good
courts as there are on the face OF the earth"
Then turning to the county solicitor, he said:
solicitor Mitchell, I think can assure you that
these ], 500 people, most of whom know per-
sonally, will consent to let the law take Its
course"
The crime Of Almy was horrible MUIR
he he rirI MI
her way home from church, from the side
of her agonized mother and sister and
shot her dead because she had refused to
marry him. He fired repeatedly upon his
pursuers and had wounded one of them,
but the law-abiding spirit of the people
was equal to the strain and the feeling
that Almy should be disposed of by the
courts prevailed. In the South or in some
of the Western States Almy would have
been killed outright, but in New Hamp-
shire he was captured by 1900 sturdy
farmer-bred men who allowed the authori-
ties to take charge of him. The people of
New Hampshire are as brave and high
England; their record of their soldiers in
the Revolution and in the civil war was
that of the very best fighting quality, but
they recoil from mob law because they
know that even imperfect administration
oflaw through the courts is better than the
dangerous precedent of restoring the
powers of life and death, of liberty and
property to an irresponsible, angry frac-
ton of the people assuming to be the
whole people of New Hampshire, who SOL
EMMY delegated these extraordinary pow.
ers of government to the state of New
Hampshire, her legislature and her
courts. Such people as these New
Hampshire farmers showed themselves to
be are fit for free government They
reasoned that the courts were of their own
free creation; they were either fit for their
work or they were not fit.
If they were fit there was no occasion for
interference, and If they were not fit it did
not belong to any mob in New Hampshire
to decide upon their unfitness or usurp
their functions. The people of New Hamp-
shire who created her courts are free to
recast and reform them, if in their judg-
ment they are unworthy of their trust, but
no town meeting run mad has any right to
pose as the state of New Hampshire. If
the state with its courts and its legisla-
ture. to whom the people have delegated
their powers Of life and death, was worth
creating 1t is worth maintaining, and we
cannot maintain its dignity or its laws if
every time we get angry we capriciously
&oh hoo Ok 20 Iva hoe Sc
and death and allow them to be admins
tered by bowling mob of maddened. ire
sponsible men, avulgar fraction of the peo-
pie posing as the state. This is the way the
New Hampshire farmers reasoned, and
their state was spared the demoralizing
spectacle of that bloody barbecue of
brutality, rage, folly and cowardice we call
lynch law.
There is no part of the country where
human life, liberty and property Is as safe
from attack, or is so seldom assailed than
in this same state of New Hampshire,
whose farmers and mechanics under cir
cumstances of the deepest and most excep-
tional provocation refuse to trample law
under foot; refuse to prove themselves
incapable of that self-restraint and civic
self-respect that is indispensable to the
success of free government On the other
hand, given a community where lynch law
is resorted to and successfully executed
without serious resistance or reputation
by public opinion, and you will find human
life, liberty and property less sacred
its right to absolute protection more fire.
quently violated than you do where lynch
law is unknown.
So far from lynch law securing justice
by illegal violence, it only erects a gloomy
precedent for another act of mob law at
the next provocation. If it occurs in a
community that sternly resists it the riot
ers suffer; If it is not resisted it virtually
terrorizes every judge, juror, witness and
prosecuting officer; warps him from his
highest moral courage and integrity; the
whole machinery of justice is placed un-
der duress by the mob, who say: eff you
don't convict this man wen hang him,
and accuse you all of corruption;" or they
will say eff you do convict this man well
rescue him and kill you, if you attempt to
detain him." This is the ultimate of the
logic of lynch law.
Lynch law satisfies the Southern bar.
barrie idea of justice disigured by the fell
spirit of vengeance and it is a moral
malaria that has fairly poisoned the con-
stitution of tho paopla in tba GuIf statas