Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1897-09-23
ABILENE WEEKLY REFLECTOR ABtN KANSAS SEPTEMBER g. w97ELvE PAGES
Clarifying Lawlessness.

fying the mob down in the mining
districts and condemning the sheriff
who was compelled to shoot some oil
the members In order to secure peace.
The tone of its remarks is character
istic Of the ignorance both OF the
public and the mob Of the profound
difference between resistance to law
by an individual or by an organized
body Of men.
If a single man resists an officer OF
the law he is guilty Of crime for
which he can be punished as for any
other crime, but he has taken no step
which separates his act from the
crimes and misdemeanors familiar to
the courts. But when number OF
organized men resist an officer of the
law they have not done each what
one man does when he resists the law.
They are not, as both the mob and
the public are but too apt to imagine
simply number Of men each engaged
in resisting the law. Their organized
act changes not the degree but the
kind Of crime of which they are
guilty. What was mere resistance OF
the law in the individual is rebellion
and riot in the case Of an organized
body.
For the suppression of such riot,
rebellion and treason, the law has
summary means and vests in the
hands Of its officers summary power.
The first necessity is to crush the re-
sistance of those who defy the law,
and the use of means is judged not by
what is afterward known but by what
then appears necessary
Wherever such an organized body
Of men resisting the law is met by an
officer of the law it is his duty to dis
perse 1t and to use force sufficient to
make this dispersion complete, so
that this body OF men, at least, will
never again defy the government
against which they have rebclled
But beyond this misconceptlon Of
the condition and far more furious
is the attitude of the Monitor and
papers of that ilk in representing the
sheriff of Luzerne county and his
deputies as "murderers, " and the
rioters who were killed while resist
Ing the law as American freemen
massacred because they were exercls-
inc their rights as frecmen on the
public highway, Every such news
paper, whether It's impulse be anarch-
istic, or political, or weakly senti-
mental, is engaged in deadly work
No vollcy fired by the officers of the
law into an ignorant and turbulent
crowd, organized for law-breaking
and refusing to dispcrsc when com
manded to do so in the name Of the
law, can be 50 deadly in its effect as
this iusilladc aimed by shameless or
foolish journals at a sheriff who
understood that his duty was to dis
perse the mob, not to allow the mob
to dispense his posse and to bring the
law into contempt.
This coddling of the mob, this sys-
tematic invention Of facts to excite
sympathy for the victims of their own
misdeeds, this bestowal Of the honors
Of martyrdom upon rioters killed in
the act of riot, this inversion of the
right relations between the repre-
sentative OF law and the man who de-
lies the law, is a dangerous and MUIR
derous enterprise that will breed fur
Their mischief and cost more blood.
The shameless newspapers of sensa-
ton and anarchy will persist in glori-
iying riot, in making heroes OF the
mob, and in melting the ignorant to
violence and thus Turing them on to
death, The foolish or weakly senti-
mental journals will continue to per-
form their part OF the deadly work
until healthy public sentiment
makes itself heard concerning their
criminal participation.
The admissions of the leading silver