The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1903-08-12


EDITOR REGIsTER:-The news
papers of the country are giving a
great deal of publicity to an articls
written by Gov. Durbin of Indi-
ana. in regard to mob violence.
/ have just read in the CHARLES
TON DAILY GAZETTE an article
clipped from Chicago paper
in which Gov. Durbin is quoted as
saying, mo government can en-
dure with the court and the mob
seeking to exercise identical
functions. Either the supremacy
of the law must be established
beyond question or free rein must
be given to the fury of riotous as
semblages engaged in trampling
all law into the dust. Anarchy
and constitutional government
may not thrive within the same
geographical limits"
1t seems to constant reader of
the newspapers. that the above
comes with very bad grace. to say
the least, from the Governor of
Indiana Suppose that any other
Citizen of Indiana than the gov
ernor, should undertake to protect
the fugitives from Justice from the
state of Kentucky and not being
armed with Executive power, as
he is, should use armed force for
the purpose, would not he, and
those associated with him be a
mobf No doubt of that. Or to
be more specific, suppose this
Citizen of Indiana. not the COVER
nor, should decide in his OVID
mind, that ex. Governor Taylor
and ex-Secretary of State Finley
who are fugitives from Justice from
Kentucky. are not guilty of the
crime with which they are charg-
ed, and should undertake to pro-
tect them from the Kentucky Of
ficers, and to do so. should gather
around him such armed assistance
as he might be able to gather, the
governor would have no hesitancy
in pronouncing the assemblage a
mob and if accessory, would use
the entire power of the state to
take the said Taylor and Finley
from their protector and deliver
them to the proper officers.
: If this latter assemblage is q
mob engaged in trampling law in
the dust, which of course it is,
why, in the name of reason and
justice, are not Governor Durbin
and those associated with him, a
mob engaged in trampling all
Kentucky Law in the dust?
"Is it not as much the act of an
Anarchist and subversion of the
principles of constitutional gov
eminent" to protect criminal
from trial and punishment if
found guilty, as is the act of mob
infiicting summary punishment on
q known criminal? Are not both
acts violations of the principles of
constitutional government If
one of them constitutes Anarchy,
why does not the other come un-
der the same category lis not the
spirit of Anarchy as rife in Cover
nor Durbin in protecting men,
indicted for the highest crimes
known to our statute books, as in
the leader OF the mob that Iynohes
a murderer Does the Governor
imagine that because he is clothed
with little "brief authority that
he is above the law, or that a
violation by himself of the princi-
Piles of constitutional government
should be called by any other name
than that which he applies to the
Same violations by others2 The
fact in both these acts may
be Anarchy or neither may be
which is most probably correct.
But what 1 want to make clear
Is that; that simply violating the
law does not constitute an act of
Anarchy. No more in the mob
than in the individual. The spirit
which animates the act together
with what is sought to be accom-
plished is what constitutes An
archy. If the violating of law
constituted Anarchy we would
have, Republican Anarchists,
Democratic Anarchists, Socialist
Anarchists. Prohibitionists An
archists, Co., which every body
knows is simply absurd and CON-
tradiction of terms. Governor
Durbin should place himself right