The record-union., 1897-06-08
THE URBANA CASE AGAIN.

Mrs. Gaumer, the unhappy victim of
the lust of the negro Mitchell, who was
lynched at Urbana, Ohio, has come
out in a sloppy and gushy card to the
public, in which she invokes the bless
ings of heaven and the saints upon all
who have been sympathetic with her
and declares that those who fell be-
fore the bullets of the militia, died in
a holy cause defending the purity of
their homes. their mothers and sisters.
She declares that they should be looked
upon as heroes who spilled their blood
for the noblest of causes.
tits very unfortunate that Mrs Gaumer
was permitted by her friends to publish
this card. For her sufferings and dis
grace, of course, there is world of sym
pathy. It would be less than human
not to condole with her, and offer her
sympathetic expression of sorrow for
her woe. She is wretched woman,
whose life has been stained beyond
hope. Her family has been plunged into
the very depth of wretchedness and she
herself will probably never recover the
tone of her life.
But was it womanly, was it modest,
was 1t in the Christian spirit with which
she assumes to be blessed that she
should rush into print to parade her
woes and glorify law breaking? Granted
bo
it was so awful as to make severest
punishment mild, nevertheless it re-
mains that the laws of Ohio of which
State Mrs. Gaumer is citizen, have
fixed the penalty for such crime at
twenty years of Imprisonment, and that
the same laws make the hanging of
the miserable wretch who was guilty of
the crime, murder and punish it with
death.
Here, then, we have a bold, defiant and
gushing appeal to passion, the spirit of
vengeance and to hot blood, calculated
to stir other men in other communities
to take up the office of the law, usurp
its functions and establish for however
brief a period the reign of disorder and
murder. For it is simply impossible
for any community to approve and ap-
plaud lynch law, with safety to itself,
and without injury to society, more far
reaching in its effects than most peo-
pie pause to measure.
The officers in charge of the prisoner
Mitchell were elected to that office.
They had been sworn and commissioned
to discharge the duty of protecting him
from the mob, as much as if they had
been selected specially for that and no
other official duty. Had they not re-
sisted, had they given over the wretch
to the mob, they would have been
guilty of murder and that stigma would
have attached to them instantly. The
very people who still in anger drive the
Sheriff into hiding would have hissed
him upon the highway had he thrown
open the Jail doors and told the mob to
do it's work as it pleased.
The militiamen who responded to the
aid of the Sheriff, obeyed the highest
promptings of loyalty to their State,
their oaths and their duties. Had they
refused, they would have deserved and
have had the scorn of men and would
have found no sympathizers if whipped
naked through the ranks of their COM
rades. They fired upon the mob because
it was their duty to obey commands,
and those commands emanated from the
laws of the State of Ohio, made by the
people of that sovereign State.
Had they disobeyed what security
would the citizens of Urbana feel in
their company of the National Guard
as protection to their rights.
lives and property when assailed
by lawlessness? If the militia
company now condemned, abused
and lampooned had refused to
stand by the Sheriff, even to firing up
on the mob of citizens Of their own
community, no possible reliance could
be placed upon them to do duty in de-
fense of the people, when the time of