The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1903-08-12
PROTECTION FOR
WOMEN ON PLANTATIONS.
Jude speer Says State Should be
PoIiced---System of Criminal
Law Imperfect.

AClaOGa aug. Oil tio - 0aCO n SAi-
cultural Society today in the interval
directly after the presidents address
Mr.. Whitehead of Jackson county
offered a motion that Judge Emory
Speer who was present ass visitor be
requested to address the convention.
The motion was announced unanim-
ously carried by the president. The
judge arose and humorously said that
Mr.. Whitehead must expect him to
have the same facility of speech that
he had some twenty-five years ago
when he was the counsel for that
gentleman in the courts of jackson
county who sometimes was on the
wrong side of the versus. He regretted
his inability to address the convention
on any agricultural topic.
One remark made by the president
in his valuable address suggested a
thought he believed to be most i'm
portant to the people. That was the
fact that so many young farmers of
fine character and ability we're leaving
their farms and repairing to the cities.
Was not this he said ascribable to
the fear of such men for the safety Of
their wives and the women of their
families? Was it not true that the most
anxious thought of southern men
should be addressed to Improvements
in the administration of law which
would result in the protection of our
loved ones? Considering the vital in
terests at stake were we not the most
careless people anywhere in the arrest
and legal trial of offenders and did not
this produce the frequent temperance
of that "nlany-headed monster the
mob?'
What provision did we have in
Georgia for the detection and arrest Of
criminals One sheriff for county and
an occasional bailif was wholly made
quate. A crime Of a revolving char
acter would occur. Having no arrest
ING officers to rely upon the people
would rise in their might and run down
the criminal and the lynching would
result
He believed that legislation should
provide for a rural police, men not un-
like the Texas Rangers whose duty it
would be-to at once take the trail of
the criminal and pursue him until he
was arrested and brought to trial con-
formally to law.
The judges themselves were paid the
most ridiculous and inadequate
salaries. The result was most pre-
judicial to the proper enforcement of
the law. It was sign of hopefulness
that the senate had passed a bill in
creasing the salary Of judges of the
superior court to So, 600 and of the su-
preme court to s., 900.
This would secure men of great force
of character and high ability to pre-
side in these most important tribunals
There should be a longer term Of ser
vice accorded to judges. They should
be made independent to these consider
ations which prey upon the mind as a
result Of frequently recurring elections.
Every farmer in Georgia who feels
that his family needs the protection of
the law should support these measures.
All felt that necessity. There were
doubtless many men present who had
made provision for the protection of
their families while they attended this
convention. The terrible danger TO
unprotected women living in the coun-
try was violently affecting not only
their own lives, making them nervous
and wretched, but was most seriously
affecting the character of the rising
generation, increasing the intensity of
race hatreds among the youth of both
races with the most alarming portents
for the future.
Nor were these crimes chargeable to
the great body of the negro. They
were usually committed by tramp ne
groes who lived lives of the most
loathsome and degraded character al
most Invariably men of one type the
descendants of the vilest Of the Afri-
can tribes.
In many respects we were in a more
unfortunate condition than were our
forefathers when on the frontiers of
civilization. They were confronting
the ferocious savages. They could tell
that the Indian was an enemy, but
among multitudes Of law-respecting
and kindly negroes the beastly and
desperate savage could not be identif-
ed IN advance. Delays in the admin
istration of justice in the trial OF such
cases we're the certain precursors of
mob law and yet our system of judicial
trials seem to be carefully designed to
occasion delay and new trials.
The dumb act which makes it error
for Judge to intimate what has or
has not been proven was the most
fruitful cause for new trials mistrials
and the delay of final sentence. Only a
day or two ago a learned Judge in
had felt obliged to order a
in an important criminal case
because he had as he thought incauti-
ously said in the presence Of the jury
that receipt for money paid was high
evidence of payment, and said Judge
Speer: If should draw pistol from
my pocket now and shoot the president
of this society where he sits and the
judge of your superior court should
say on the trial the shot was fred in
the chapel in this county it would be
under the law reversible error which
would cause new trial. The judges
of the superior courts should be given
the power to sum up the evidence to
aid but not to control the jury as was
the practice at common law and is
now the practice in the courts of the