The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-05
Mir. London Discusses Crime in
 Jefferson County
A BAD STATE OF AFFAIRS
Extracts From Address Delivered By Mr. London In 1oo2-PubIc Senti- ment In Favor of Justice
 Now Demanded.

discusses in the following letter ceftaAh existing evils in this community To the Editor of The Age-Herald.
 The Shugart trial is valuable chiefly for the reason that it has served to call attention to the lamentabe condition we are in here. The conditions are not new for they have been known of all men for years. but as in the past so 1t is now that the general public attention is always diverted from what most concerns them by some appeal to its prejudlces which unfortunately are easily aroused.
 In March, 1902, read a paper before the B mai Birth at the Temple Emanuel in which called attention to few of the then existing evils. and used the fol- lowing language:
 Take the streets of Birmingham filled with poor creatures generally guilty of the smallest misdemeanors and sentenced to work on the public streets in shackles, so as to increase the amount of revenue from crime and brutalize our children. The official figures, as printed in the daily papers here, show that more than
  ham during the past year, a number so shockingly large as to attract attention, and inquiry developed the fact that this iniquitous system had yielded in that period over S250o0 in money to the city treasury. and created permanent nurse ry of crime.
 'Thds may be good business, but I do not think SO The injury done directly to the community in the insecurity we suffer Is much greater and the loss we suffer in the eyes of people living away from here is easily greater than the s25,000 of blood money that we get from this source. There are today hundreds of poor and friendless whites and negroes in the penitentiary and in the coal mines and hired out to indi- viduals and corporations, who are in practical slavery for tn epurpose of earn ing fees for officers in the various court houses of the state and to pay usur1ous interest to purchasers of claims against the fine and forfeiture fund
 T might if I desired go on indefinitely with these instances of cruel wrong and injustice, done under the protection and in the name of law, but for present pur- poses need not and hence do not go into the nauseating details further.
 T will not appeal for the poor and fraendleSs that we have pledged ourselves to protect-I will not ask your condemna- ton of the officers who see your gambling laws openly violated. and fill the jadls and penhtentiar1es with poor and friend less negroes who shoot craps in order to make fees, because 1t is an open secret that any man in Alabama. provided he have money and influence enough, and be not a negro may with impunity violate any criminal statute. even to the extent of numbering his neighbor.
 And. still we say we are civilized and boast of our heritage and of our laws"
 The facts in the Shugart case are not as bad us others where there have been aoquittals. As I learn them rom the pa- pers, the facts undisputed are about as follows: Roland Shugart, ordinarily a quiet. peaceable young man. got drunk. went into bairoom armed with a pis- tol. and Banholzer. harmless peaceable citizen, wholly unacquainted with Shu- gart entering the door of the barroom, is shot and killed by Shugart. There was no difficulty or disturbance, and the men did not even know each other Judge Greene instructed the jury that drunken- ress could only be considered for the pur- pose of mitigating the offense below mur- der in the first degree. The jury retired and acquitted Shugart promptly, and the foreman is quoted as saying There was no evidence on which to convict him"
 It would appear that the Jury lists need revision.
 Not the Worst Case.
 But as have said, this is by no means the worst case we have had recently. Cases have occurred where the party tried was shown, to have malice, and further to have gone to the house of the deceased and there killed his victim, and yet there was no evidenSe on which to convict
 Cruel, brutal, inexcusable murders of regroes do not even excite public com ment. much less conviction. and we have thus had our sense of justice blunted until it is almost destroyed. and then won- der that things can be so.
 In the paper I referred to, I used the following language, which I wish now 10 repeat and emphasize:
 Whether a given person receives his dues, which he cannot demand by reason of his poverty or condition. may not seem to concern us who are better situated, and so we are content to sit in silence until our personal rights are inrrlnged. But is 1t true that we have not suffered direct personal loss?
 Tt is manifest that we have carried our own, the white peoples. interest too far. Nothing else seems to have con- cerned us. and by the inevitable law we are reaping our reward"
 Not New Ideas.
 These are not new ideas. MT. Jefferson makes equality of freedom and justice the foundations of his philosophy. The truth of the proposition has been demonstrated ty all history, and .when our people are better educated they will learn and ap- preciate that if justice is to be majn- tained and administered 1t can only be dor.e where 1t is administered equally. /1 certainly hope that the Rev. Mr. Ewing will succeed in inducing the minis ters to take the matter up and arouse a public sentiment in favor of justice. If matters progress much farther, it requires TO prophet to fortell another mob such as Cincinnati had here in our own town.
 ALEX T. LONDON.
 Birmingham. July 1. 1904
 
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