Smyrna times., 1903-07-08

The Philadelphia Press in discuss.
ing the recent assault on Miss Bishop
and the lynching of White, advocates
Rural Police and says:-Delaware has
had lawless lynching mob in the
past week because Delaware-like
other States-has neglected its duty
20 keep the peace. This is where law
lessness began. The country road is
not safe to women in many parts of
the country. This was true in Della
ware. 1t is true in many counties in
this State, nOticeably along our great
railroad lines, though not through
their fault.
The human wolf is always abroad.
sometimes he is a negro and some
times a white man. In either case our
States make no provision to defend
the highway against him. Ofenses
like that for which this man was lynch
ed are rare in the sequestered unbuilt
roads every city has, because its high
ways are patrolled by police.
Women in the countryside and on
the country highway have a right to
the same protection as their sisters in
the city. A mounted rural police
should network rural highways. 1t
should be paid by the State, through
tax on property, an impost most of
which the cities would pay. IfDel.
aware had taxed its corporations and
city property, with fair relative tax on
farms, to provide a rural police and
keep the roads safe this crime wOuld
{ :-----27sss'gt6 6ec=s5Hmitted. 1t is be-
cause the State leaves its rural high
ways lawless and undefended against
the human wolf the lawless mob takes |
the law into its own h<nds. Make the |
roads safe to women by State rural
police which relieves the countryside
OF the hideOus horror which now over
shadows 1t for all lo1eV women and
lynching would disappear.
QTr States neglect this duty. They
neglect another. This particular hu-
man wolf had served term for this
offence. No man ought to leave State
prison after conviction for this Of
fence or its attempt until the prison
surgeon had made it impossible to re-
peat the offence or attempt. The wav
TO prevent lawlessness in the mob is
to prevent lawlessness in the criminal.
Begin there and the mob will never be
heard from.
Our laws instead let these things
drift. The roads are not safe for lack
OF a rural police. A human wolf like
this man, twice convicted for lawless
violence and once for similar crime.
was turned loose, unmarked and un-
corrected, to return to his crime.
Perll to It's women no community will
long endure without outbreak; but the
remedy for this lawless peril is not
more lawlessness, but more law.
Our States, most of all States like
Delaware and Pennsylvania, across
which the imbruted of both colors
wander as tramps, vagrants and semi /
criminals, need rural mounted police Z
patrolling the country highway. If :
the States keep the peace, the mob q
will, too. The States need also :
sharper edge and heavier hand for
the tramp and vagrant. A man of this !
class and habit convicted of violent ;
'rime should be kept under watch all :
lis life. If his crime be of this char a
'cter, or even if it be ATTEMPTED. he =
should never be left to repeat it. This g
policy, persisted in, would end lynch h
ng by removing its cause. Nothing &
Else Will. A rural police which round \
d up tramps and vagrants at sight n
would soon rid our country roads and !,
anes Of the terror and horror that now
'roods over them for women, and ont
II this terror and horror, when crimes p
'ome, mObs grow.
------
IHE eyes of all nations has been t.
81 n