The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-17
SOME COMMENTS ON BELLE WILLIE

! VILE. I It is really interesting to note the com l ments of the Northern newspapers on the
 recent brutal lynching at Belleville, H.,
 and readers of The Advertiser will doubt
 less enjoy reading some of them. The
 Minneapolis Journal says:
 All the best people in Beleville Ill. | were present Saturday at the lynching | or a negro. Women attended with their
 children; and small boys, from points of | auNantaBeouS view. announced to the | mob the progress of events as the lead | CTS slowly hammered down doors between | themselves and the wretched negro 1 Nothing was done to stay the mob: except
 unfortunately had the effect of infiamins l the mob's blood for passion. The negro l was burned after he had been stunned
 ana choked. The. crowd is described as 1 very orderly and chiefly composed of 1 spectators, the actual lynching being done ! by about fifteen unmssked men, but the l dispatch adds that there will be no ar
 rests because the murderers cannot be
 identified. All this is not in Kishnef or
 In the Philippines or in Africa, but in the great, populous and powerful State of l Illinois It Is up to the State authorities
 to force an investigation of this dreadful
 business, and assert the laws rightful
 monopoly of public justice.
 l The Chicago Tribune has this as part
 of severe editorial:
 It may indeed be impossible to inpanel l Tn the county jury which will indict men guilty of last Saturdays murder. If that De the case the community intensi- nes the disgrace 1t has inflicted upon itseif: Apparently the reputable citi- zens" of Belleyille do not repent of or regret the crime committed in their city. Citizens who must have recognized some of those who belonged to the mob have solemnly asserted that they can identify nobody. The Mayor says the blame of the lynching rests upon the negro who was lynched. He admits he asked the officers not to defend the negro with their weapons. He says he did not wish to sec innocent blood flow on account or l, the guilty Illty wretch in the jail" If ed 1t would have been that of men who were seeking to murder man who was In the custody of the officers of the law.
 The New York Times says:
 None of the customary excuses is avail able to explain tho lynching of q negro by mob of 2.000 persons near Bellevilie H.. on Saturday night. Illinois is a Northern State; the crime of which the mobs victim was accused was not com mitted against a woman, The negro was !n jail, charged with attempting to kill ore of the county officials. The latter was not dead; in fact he may recover. There was no reason why the prosecution of his assailant should not have followed lne ordinary course-or only one reason. The prisoner was negro. On this &C., a?unt he was set upon in his cell and almost beaten to death. then dragged mo the street in dying condition, hang cd to a telegraph pole, his body cut with knives and riddled with bullets and fir ally burned. The apologists for the lawiess band which committed this out- daRlQra 9r teach the negroes of the vicinity a les son.
 The Hartford (Conn) Times declares that the details of that awful affair show a spirit of savagery, and a toiera- ton of it by so-cailed respectable citi- zens which together surpass anything that is reported from Russia" and adds:
 What are we coming to in this coun- try, when there is so little respect for law as Is disclosed in this horrible af- fair in Belleville? Think of it-scores of well-dressed women looking on to see a poor human being roasted. mutilated, and cruelty tortured! The accounts show that the Mayor of the city helped along the disgusting work, and did what he could to prevent the murderers and those who applauded them from being made angry" There was no mob and noth- ing that usually goes by the name of excitement, merely the purpose and de- sire of an Illinois community to see a human being with a black skin killed in the most painful and shocking manner. There has never been anything to match the atrocity of this affair in any South ern State. In some of the Southern States lynching is now severely and cour- ageously punished. The authorities of Illinois say they will do nothing what ever to punish fifteen notorious murder CTS.
 These are fair samples of the com ments which the press all over the North has made on disgraceful and altogether inexcusable affair, and we have noticed that there has been a notable absence of comparisons in all of them. For once in their history the Northern editors speak of lynching without referring to the South. or to Southern savagery." They condemn the act and the actors, as we'll as the officials who made no attempt to interfere, but make no comparisons
 We have little habit of using the "Tu quoqe" style of argument. but in some respects the affair at Belleville had less of excuse for tiff lynching can be ex- cused-than any affair of the kind that has taken place in this section When a negro outrages a white woman in the South. he is pretty apt to be put to deatfl, and sometimes one is lynched for kill ing or even attempting to kill a white man. In almost every case however. the work is done at night, or the actors are disguised. as if they were ashamed of their work and desired to avoid rec cgnition. But in this Belleville case there was nothing, except the victims color, 70 incite an uprising of the people. The negro had shot a white man, under cir cumstances not different from thousands If other hoGlicides in all parts of the
 ountry. So far as we have noticed the
 ircumstances and details, there was no i,ore reason for lynching the negro than there is for lynching any man who shoots mother In a quarrel. The offender was ,romptly arrested ana 1t Is to be pre- sumed that he would have been tried and punished. yet he was lynched
 Another notable feature in connection with the affair was the thoroughly open and matter-of-fact way in which it was done. Not only was there no effort at concealment. but the best citizens mingled with the mob, while hundreds of others,