The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-23

.srv dime a. citlzsn risss up and appeaias for the law, some man says some nn- gro has committed an unmentionAhle crime. and. therefore. the Gacredness of All law must be cast to the wind.
 People in Alabama who have not taken the trouble to Keep pace with events. will be startled to be told that in the last ten years over one hundred citizens of Alabama have been taken ' by mobs from sheriffs and iails and murdered. Yet such b the case. Such is our bloody record. And yet over two- thirds of those people were not guilty of crime which will not mention. because of fair listeners in the gallery.
 Some years ago. down in Butter County. a tax collector was murdered. A mob went to the jail and tosk, two white men out and In fa&rant com terfpt of law and the court hung them up in front of the Court House door tast the. judge of an Alabama court. when he went In to deal out its justice. must be informed by the swinging bod les. how little people rocked of law or courts sH4
 We all recognize what I might call s'justifiable humanity when e crirn- inal is caught red handed In the act, with tNe screams of his victims stiil vibratihg in the air. that wise and good men may be moved to acts of iawiess vengeance. But when a pris- oner Is once in the hands of the law. 1t should be taught all men that the prisoner. like the ark of the covenant is sacred,s and that the profane hand with touches either. will be pafsied.
 Why Is 1t of all men on earth, who Al. l~>~ of Al CTS. that standard of honor must be all others. and that he should
 take no risk. Mir. President, the minister of the gospel who. would. fail to see the vefiest stranger. much less one of his congre- gation. who is stricken with deadly disease. because of personal fear, would be outlawed and sceurged for all time. We see locomotive engineers every day standing by the throttle and risking their lives to save their passengers. We have seen captains of ships standing on the bridge, that the women and children might be saved, and going down to death in the waters. What policeman would be allowed to wear his uniform five minutes if he refused to make an arrest, at the risk Of loss of fife? What man would have re- spect for the Alabama State troops, no matter what the odds. if they allowed a mob to take a prisoner from them2 Such standard as Is claimed for sheriffs has no recognition in any laws of honor.
 may be pardoned for saying 1t. q cow- ardly standard of duty.
 Now. Mir. President, ob3ectton Is made to the word neglect" Neglect about what? A mans life, the dignity of the law. the honor of the State. When q man is guilty of neglect at all. as to such a matter, he should be re- moved. Mob violence is . thing which grows by what 1t feeds on. Here and there searching the public records, are cases which all men admit is an ex- cusable execution, outside of the forms of law. In some communities this spirit has grown and grown until in some cases the smallest thief Is shot down in the jail. Who does not re- member some years. ago in Ptckens County when three or four prisoners, one of them a woman, were shot down in jatI though the charge was larceny. From that day to this mo- officer or grand fury or. power of any kind has ever been able to find out who did 1t, or willing to declare the names Of the criminals. We see lynchings almost every week not for the one crime, but for any crime. Some man is suspeoted 0R burning a house, and the honor of the State and the peace of the County Is invaded. 4 lawless mob leads the suspect out to death. And 50 1t goes on from bad to worse. In all these cases the guilty go unwhipt of justice. Let us not deceive ourselves. Two thirds of the executions CT prisoners by mobs are due to one of two things, either the cowardice Of the Sherift- and l don't think there have been many cases of .cowardice--or to q will- ingness for the mob to succeed. from the false conviction that Sheriff in fighting for them is fighting not for the law but for some worthless pris- oner. In county after county, every body but the grand jury knows who did the deed. Case after case of this sort has hapnened and continues to happen and nobody ever brought to the bar Of Justice. There is no prosecution. No strong voice even condemns It. we owe it to ourselves, we owe It 10 our children, we owe 1t to our God, 10 put stop to this base indifference to mur- der. and making excuses for men who will not risk anything for the preser. vation of human life and the honor or the State. We have laws enough. Let ,,T put a provision in the Constitution that will execute them. That is what the Committee means. If the gentle man. asks me if am unwilling to trust the people of the County. tell him frankly yes, because the people or the county never find out who commits these crimes. We don't wish the mop and it's friends to murder the law. No- body knows who Is in the moo when the. authorities investigate It. 1et is known to everybody else but the ot- Sicera of the law and the grand jury.
 MT. Oates-Let me ask if a prisoner has not been taken from the Sherlrf right in Montgomery, in broad open daylight, and shot to death by g moo. and if the Governor did not oKrer all the reward he could offer and yet no- hodv was apprehended and no grand jury ever found out who did itF
 Mir. Jones-I think there are two cases of that sort instead of one though in one case the prisoner was taken from the police. One prisoner was brought in from West Point and Wnhe the military were forming under or dars off the Circuit Judge to protect him by some hocus pocus the mob found out before the iIdge. when this man would arrive within three miles of the city and they took him and hung him before inc military possee could reach him, and the police made no resistance worthy of the name.
 MT. Fitts-They Jagged the train at a road crossing.
 MT. Jones-Day before yesterday read of somebody accused of burning a house. 4 mob formed, citizen ls murdered and nobody knows or cares