Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1900-03-30
SYMPATHY FOR GOVERNOR TYLER.

Our poor Governor for whom our
sympathies on this occasion aredeeply
aroused, has been abused within the
State and without, as seldom falls to
the lot of any official. The abuse
grows out of the fact that a negro
murderer, and his white companion
had been arrested and were in the
Greensville county Jail, the negro
freshly ~bespotted with the blood of
two victims. A furious mob was about
the building determined to lynch the
negro at least. The Governor was
telegrapbed for troops, and he sent
them in good time. and up to this
point his actions were commendable,
but after doing the right thing for
once at the right time, he departed his
critics state, from the course which
would naturally have suggested itself
and withdrew the military and turned
the prisoners over to the mob, and of
course the mob didn't do a thing for
them. The white men hung the negro
and the negroes hung the white man.
The negro, Walter Cotton, was an
outlaw, and we have no hesitancy il
saying that he should have been killed
by anybody at any time, and any
where, just as any wild beast. The
white man got into bad company and
like old dog Tray, suffered for his sins.
But the Governor should not be de-
nounced as he has been, he did the
best he. could. This was a big gues-
ton, it required nerve and determine
stion, and Judgment to handle it. The
Governor may be long on nerve and
determination, but he has always been
short on judgment. Yet when one
acts promptly, as the Governor did in
this case, likewise in all cases, con-
scientiously, and with the best light
before him though the light may be
and usually is of the talIow. dip varie-
ty, why should we complain? We
must recollect that he is our Governor,
the Governor OF Virginia, and we are
in duty bound to defend him, under
all ordinary circumstances, and espec-
tally under extraordinary clrcumstan-
ces such as this. Old Hickory Jack
son, ''by the Powers" would have
taken the prisoners and brought them
to Richmond, OF he would have safe
guarded the jail if all the people in
that section chose to snuff out their
lives in attempts to take them from
his soldiers, and assumed the response
bility. Our Governor unloaded the
responsibility on the Judge and Sher-
if. BY this act we at once perceive a
marked difference between him and
Old Hickory in this and other respects.
Few but our Governor would have
touched the load and then laid the
burden down SO quickly. Few would
said it was the other fellow. Approach
er in Richmond has likened this act to
that of Pontius PLATE when he wash
ed his hands of a great crime. We
cannot subscribe to this criticism,
because in the former case the victim
was a "just man. eve in the eyes OF
the judge. In the present case the
man was a self confessed, and a con-
demned multi-murderer. The Cover
nor has smarted so keenly under the
many anathemas hurled at him, and
has tried as best he could with excuse
and twaddle to disarm criticism that
he has invoked our commisse1a alton.
We are sorry of course that it ever
fell to his lot to handle questions so far
beyond him and we are sorry the State
rests upon shoulders, to support which
there is no vertebrae.