The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-09-09
JUDGE ADAMS SPEECH.

From The Columbus News we take
the following:
The August term of the supreme
court convened in the court house
here Monday morning at II O'Clock, His
Honor Judge Spencer 3. Adams presid-
ling.
His honor's charge to the jury, We
will do him the justice to say, was the
best (being the only political speech
we ever heard delivered from the
bench. We have been reporting court
proceedings here for about six years
and in that time a number of judges
have been here whose political aftilia-
tions differed from ours, but we have
had no occasion to refer to any of
them ir uncOmplimentary terms. We
regret the necessity for doing SO now.
But when a man clothed with the jul
dicial ermine takes advantage Of a
position on the bench to abuse and to
villify as good peoples as there are in
the state and to mix his partisan ran
cor with his Instructions of the law,
we think it our duty as a faithful
~chronicler of events, to publish the
fact.
The first point of his political speech
was to pay his respects to folks who
were boing up and dow the country
abusing people about the way they
cast their ballots" This came under
the head of "intimidating voters" and
was evidently intended for the demo-
cratic speakers who are now
ing the state, as neither of the other
political parties have begun their can
vaSs yet.
His second political point was in the
nature of a defense of the last legis-
lature, saying that if it had lone moth
ing else but pass the law in regard to
nnohn10Inrnonf hU nI1h1in HfinarC cd.
ministrators, executors, ETC., which he
was then discussing, it would have
been worth all it cost to the state.
He reached the climax, however,
when he came to discuss fornication
n adultery. He said that mine
times out of ten if you will chase
down the fellows who are going about
will find them sleeping with a negro
woman" When we consider that
numbers of as good people as there
are in the state are "going about stir
ring up race prejudice as he would
doubtless call it, his statement be-
comes a most sweeping v~illiication,
n one which cannot be properly
characterized in temperate language.
And he aid this with a kind of a re
member the Maine" expression on his
countenance which seemed to indicate
his regret hat there was not a law
by which democratic speakers and pa
pers could be stopped from telling the
people Of the foothold which negro SUI
premacy had obtained under the pres
ent administration.
And this was not all. Proceeding to
the question of rape, he argued to
the jury that it was a lesser offenSe
than seduction, because the only diff
ference was, he said, hat one was
committed by force and the other by
fraud. 1t required some courage for
the former. He illustrated his position
by saying he a rather his purse was
ception. We may not be surprised
that assaults upon white women by
brutes-the lowest crime in the eyes
of the law as we'll as of men to which
it is possible for human d~epravity to
descend-are so alarmingly on the
increase when a judge on the bench
attempts to minimize it's Nervousness
n 1SueS to a grand jury that il is
less a crime than one for which the
most extreme penalty is a term in the
pe~nitentiary.
We are informed thai Judge Adams
never practiced law. and was simply
clerk of the court of CaSwell county
when he was called into our mon
partisan judiciary"
His honor received just a few days
g from the republicans of his dis
trict a denomination for the position he
now holds, and this was, perhaps, his
opening campaign speech.