The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-03

and then in their fury killed eleven. The
charges against the jury and the witnesses
fell to the ground; the grand jury refused
to indict the murderers. and yet this
Antwerp Fury" of 1000 ruffians Of a city
of $4,000 people, calling themselves ''the
people," is quoted as in accordance with
the precedent set by the grave. deliberate
action of the people of San Francisco, act
ing within all the forms of law, without
haste, passion, fury or vindictiveness- So
frightful has become this drift to lynch
law, when the judicial machinery from
top to bottom can be entirely trusted to
fairly try the accused, that even at the
South the influential newspapers raise
their voices in protest.
The Charleston Ne,es and Courier, under
the caption stop the Mob Murders"
says:
Murder by the mob has become one of the
greatest evils in the South and West, and 1t 10
growing worse, not better. 1t 10 q great evil
and cannot fail OF most evil consequences in the
end. Many people have already become accus-
toned to lynching, and have learned to regard
1t as matter of course. and that ID bad sign.
1t is time to call q halt II we can. 1t il high
time to stop mob murders in the South.
The Memphis Commercial bitterly de-
nounced the recent lynching of three negro
prisoners In the Memphis Jail, and on the
Both ult. q mob of 200 men were permitted
to take negro from the Jail of Nashville
and lynch him. The St. Louis Republic
(Dem. is eternaliy right when it says that
"every lynching is murder, and it makes
more MURDERS" and then says:
Whatever is wrong in our court. 10 wrong In
the makers OF the courts-in ourselves-or We
would make them better. They are our crea-
lures. Let US improve them II we can. a. We
can. But let Us not confound the last resort of
open rebellion against the bad government
which attempts to eoerce and control 4 free peo-
pie with the anarchist spirit Of cowa:dly mobs
composed of those who herd together to commit
murders they are afraid to commit singly. Hon
est and upright men may rebel againsrbad gov
ernment in the hope of lettering it; but lynch
ers are not rebels. They are murdsrers and an
archists, moved by the criminal spirit which,
while it prevails extensively, makes it
hard to secure justice, in the courts
or out OF them. The stronger hold
this criminal spirit has on any community the
less justice there will be in the courts Of that
community. In the cities in which mobs for
lynching or any other purposes have occurred
most frequently the morals of the people are
VIGOROUSLY lax. their politics vicious their
newspaper press corrupt and venal, their whole
community spirit that OF the fraudulent in
Justice which, sooner or later, ends in violent
injustice. Wherever you have q demoralized
and iawIess people there, and only there, in q
popular government. do you find thoroughly
demoralized and lawless courts. Every lynch
ing makes more murders
Lynch law is anarchy, and there is no
essential difference in principle between
the American mob that in their contempt
for law storms jail overpowers sheriff
and as self-appointed administrators of
justice executes its victim, and the Euro
pean anarchists who execute their idea of
justice by the use of dynamite. A COM
munity ruled by mob, d state that winks
at lynch law is a state which prudent
and peaceful folk avoid or desert. The
guilt or innocence of the victim cuts no
figure in the case; the question is whether
We are living under government of Or
ganized society, or whether We are at the
mercy of the caprice of the mob.
If mob may determine that am guilty,
and without waiting for the courts, murder
me, the mob may with equal justice. with
out waiting for the courts to pass on nv
title, Jump" my claim and run off
my stock. as band of ruffians re-
Gently did in Kansas, where a man
bought and occupied q farm that
another fellow had lost on a mortgage.
Lynch law is not recklessly resorted to
and does not go UNPUBLISHED except in
communities that are too cowardly to re-
sent and rebuke it, or too stupid, and such
communities, whether cities or states, will
surely repent their stupidity in sackcloth
and ashes.
No valuable. peace loving, property
holding, and wealth coming immigration
will stay long in community where the
machinery of justice is so corrupt or in
efficient that it is displaced by mob law;
or where the machinery of justice is sub
ordinate to an irresponsible mob, where
courts and officers of the law crook the
knee TO Judge Lynch.