The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-06-09

What are the masked ruffians, riding
abroad by night to terrorize peaceful
citizens and to reDress free men-put-
ting upon the planting of crops the
embargo of threatened assassination
Imenacing judges and juries with death
or worse than death, submission TO the
edicts of the bravo and the mob-if
they be not the emanation of that DO
ilticai philosophy whose cornerstone
is class hatred, and whose weapons are
the language, and, IL need be, the torch
OF the incendiary? And at whose bid
dlng have these sinister elements ar
rayed themselves against the public
liberty and individual security, and the
fair, good name of the commonwealth,
II not at the bidding of an ever-increas-
ing body of professional Office seekers
and office-holders. striving by organiza-
ton TO bring TO the support of their
schemes of ACKNOWLEDGEMENT the re-
enforcement of the party discipline and
spirit with their WORKOUT labels 10 mis-
lead and infiame and their shibboleths
destitute alike of sense and truth, to
play upon the credulity of the ignorant
and unthinking, to prey upon the fears
of the tinlid?
That is all very well, but it evinces
far more of passion and prejudice than
of anything else.
But the day following that on which
the article from which the above is
taken appeared. there was an article
in the Courier-Journal on the lynching
at Urbana. 1t was entitled: "Ohio and
Her Spy Glasses" 1t was, in part, as
follows:
The iynching of the negro Mitchell, at
Urbana,. O., is another of many proofs
that mob law is confined to no section
OF the country, Notwithstanding the
pharisaic sermons which Ohio is ac-
cuStolned to preach against such vio-
lence in the south.
The crime for which Mitchell was
hanged was the one which has pro-
voked most of the lynchings in the
south-the assault by negro upon a
white woman. 1t aroused the same
passions in Ohio that it arouses in
Mississippi. Infuriated white men
stormed the Jail, and after some of
them had been shot to death by the
guards, the troops ordered out by the
governor to maintain the peace and
protect the prisoner were ordered away
by the mayor, who thus virtually placed
himself at the head of the mob. All
obstruction thus removed, the lynchers
quickly secured possession of the ne
gro. and, after nearly beating, kicking
and tramDling the life out of him.
hanged him in the sight of the entire
town.
Years ago the Courier Journal pre-
scented a truthful picture of Ohio SO en-
crossed in contemplating lawlessness in
the south through her Mortified tele
scope that she was unable to see the
similar lawlessness at her own feet. The
picture seems as truthful today as it
was then.
1t is true that lawlesSness is confined
to no section of the country, and it is
to be regretted that it is true, for if it
were it could be more readily slammed
out. But why did not the Courier
Journal find the same explanation for
mob violence and lynching in Ohio that
it found for tall-gate raids in Ken
lucky? If that explanation is anpli-
cable to lawlessness south of the Ohio,
why isn't it applicable to lawlessness
north of it? Isn't it just possible that
the Courier-J ourral, in its exhortaefon
to Kentuclians to save Kentucky from
free silver, has been preaching one OF
those ''pharisaic sermons which Ohio is
accustomed TO preach" against the
south on certain occasions?
1t is really too bad for the reputation
Of the Courier-Journal as a political
that the article on the Ur-
bana lynching should have folio .yed so
close upon the heels Of the one explain
ing the cause of the toll-gate raids in
Kentucky.