Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1901-08-30
INNOCENT MEN KILLED
By TIE ACTION or 4 II
81 TAGE MOB.
We Give q Detail Account of an Eve
Witness and a Former Respect
able Citizen of this State
WhOse Statement will be
Accepted Without a
Question of the
Terrible Crime.

Terrible Crime.
In the early afternoon of the
18th of August young lady was
assaulted and killed in the sub
urbs of Pierce City, Mo. Her
murder was brutal in the extreme
and aroused the feelings of the
community to high pitch of ex-
citement. 1t is generally suppos-
ed that the murderer was a color
ed man, although the only proof
to that effect is that colored man
was seen in the vecinity about an
hour before the crime was COM
mitted. Soon after the body was
discovered b1oodhounds were put
on the track of the murderer and
they followed a trail to one Of the
Negro cabins. There issno doubt
but that Negro was in the Vi
cinity of the place where the
murder was committed, as before
stated; but whether he was the
one who committed the crime or
only passed that way is not
known. 1t is known that the
man who occupied the cabin to
which the bloodhounds followed
the trail is not the guilty party.
During the day, and especially
during the afternoon and evening,
a large crowd gathered on the
streets of Pierce City for the
avowed purpose of lynching any
Negro against whom suspicion
might point.
Monday evening about 9 o'clock
/ arrived in Pierce City, as l left
the depot I saw upon the street,
about half block, a large crowd,
and as I took second look saw
that they were pulling Negro
up by rope and were hanging
him to the balcony of one of the
principal hotels in the town. AS
soon as he was hanged the mob
opened fire on him with all of the
weapons available.
Immediately after the firing
ceased the mob procured oil and
set fire to all of the cabins, some
seven or eight in number, and
while the fire burned the crowd
watched for escaping Negroes.
I saw several escape from the
rear of the burning homes, and
it was sight for the gods to
behold to see the brave members
of the mob armed with state guns
firing at women and children as
they fled from their burning
homes. It really, however, could
not make a man proud of his
American citizenship, or the state
of Missouri, or of the fair land of
the south. For the crime of one
man a whole community was out
ragged, men murdered women and
children rendered homeless, and
those who survived to leave town
and dispose of their property as
best they might, The man who
committed the crime should be
punished to the full extent of the
law, but his crime, horrible
though it was, appears to me
even less than the deliberate and
ferocious action of the human
wolves who composed the mob.
With all the outrages which
were committed in Pierce City on
that evening the guilty man es-
capped. No one pretends to be-
lieve that the man who was hung
was guilty. When the mob
questioned him he said that he
did not know who committed the
crime, but the leader insisted that
he did and wouldn't tell; there
fore, they decided to hang him.
1t was further admitted that no
Negro then in town was sus-
pected of the murder, but the de-
sire of the mob was for bloodshed.
More than one-half of the drunk