Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-06-29
The Travesty In Aiken.

About year ago Abram Surasky, a
jew and peddler, was killed in the
yard OF Lee Green, a young white man
living in the Hawthorne section of Aiken
county. Surasky was shot down and
then his head cloven with an axe. The
body of the dead peddler was loaded
into his cart and the horse turned into
the Highway. Several days later the de-
composing remains of the peddler were
found in the woods, still lying in the
cart. The wheel tracks we're traced to
Green's yard and bloody axe found.
Green fled.
At that time circumstautial story was
told of the manner in which Surasky was
murdered. 1t was said that he was car
rying sack of meal into the house
when Green shot him down with a shot
gun, finishing him with the axe. Rob-
berry was the motive assigned. Then
Green put tho bloody body into the cart
and drove the horse down the road. at
tempting to obliterate the wheel tracks.
Green escaped. The whole country was
stirred and the sheriff took the field
with posse. One night Lee Green was
surrounded in an outhouse on his
fathers place. Resistance was useless
and he surrendered. 1t was the consen-
sus OF opinion everywhere that this MUIR
derer fully merited death for his crime,
0iitne % uhproVokcu, 80 COWardIy;
committed with such passonless delib-
Grafton and with execrable intent as to
make humanity shudder. Red handed,
the murderer fled and when, after hue
and cry, he was taken, the criminal,
overwhelmed with his guilt, was dumb.
Last week Lee Green was tried for his
life in Aiken. After being locked up for
IL hours the jury returned verdict of
mot guilty." and so condoned the horri-
Bile crime committed against the peace
and dignity of South Carolina and
against the laws of God and man. -tyag
1t happened that Lee Green had a wife
and this man who in the night time
dragged the bloody body of his victim
into cart and drove the horse away
this man who obliterated the wheel
tracks; this man who, when the fingers
of the dead man pointed to him as the
guilty one, fled from justice and became
an outlaw, being taken prisoner at tho
points of pistols-that man went on the
stand and swore that he killed Surasky
because the Jew was attempting to as
sault his wife,
That utter!v absurd plea furnished the
basis for an excuse for acquittal. With
the evidence of circumstances, the evi-
dence OF the manslayer's own guilty acts,
the jury accepted this straw thrown out
by the one whose neck was in the halter!
They pretended to believe that Surasky,
member of the most law. abiding,
peace loving people on earth, was guilty
of a horrible crime; they pretended to
believe that one of the race most re-
markable for virtue and self. control, had
surrendered to passion and was playing
tho part of the savage brute!
1t is damnable that justice, righteous
ness and decency in South Carolina
should be impotent to defend themselves
and the honor of the State against such
outrages. The blood of that butchered
Isrealite, who in humbleness and peace
was bearing the burden of his race, cried
out for justice. And now at the outrag-
eous denial of that justice, the manhood
and the womanhood of South Carolina
rebels-rebels against the disgraceful
failure of the law, rebels against the
ignominy brought upon the common
wealth, rebels against the accursed as
tendency of vice over virtue in the jury
box.-The State, June 27t