The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-08-14
A Monstrous Crime-The Law or The
Mobc

Mob?
AS the details Of the event at Sails
bury Monday night are unfolded, the
greater appears the enormity of the
crime there and then committed.
Memory does not recall another time
IN North Carolina when defendants
were taken out Of the hands Of a
court in which they were being tried
and visited with death. The apology
offered for some ~lynchings is that so
many murderers escape conviction
that the people have lost confidence
in the courts. No such excuse can be
offered in this instance. These de-
PENDANTS were without friends or in
fiuence TO help them TO defeat justice.
The people Of Rowan know we'll the
Judge who was sitting on the case
they had voted for him a number Of
times; they had heard him as solicit
tor prosecuting criminals; their votes
and helped him TO that Office and 10
eueyate him to the bench; they know
that he is able and upright. The So
licitOr has prosecuted in their courts
for more than four years. His asso-
ciates in this case are their own fell
low-citizens, members Of the Sails
bury bar, and their case had been
most carefully prepared. The jurors
are their fellOw-ccuntrymen, presum-
ably intelligent men and regardful Of
their oath. What possible chance of
escape from death, if guilty, had these
defendants? No Truthful man will
claim that there vas one in ten thou
sand. No prompting Of the murder,
other than pure w~antOnness, can be
conceived. Apology or excuse for it
there is none. Our state may be tax
ed with lawlessness, with contempt
for law and authority, with barbarism,
and we must be dumb. We stand
naked before our To this
extent the affair is the concern of
US all, for the great public, contem-
plating and recoiling from the re-
cital, will remember not Salisbury not
Rowan county, but North Carolina.
We wish there were a peg upon which
to hang an excuse for the crime but
there is not. We wish it could be
said that the defendants were guilty
but the evidence against them was
SO shadowy that they could not have
been convicted; hat they were SO
rich and powerful that their influ-
ence could have paralyZed the arm of
Justice, but not 50; that il they had
been convicted it vas certain that
they would have been %pardoned, but
no; hat if convicted their friends
would have rescued them between
conviction and execution day; but
that will not do. The fact stands out
and is ~indisputable that but for the
xxy1rl1 of W. roDh fhnco rnrronc ~
such of them as were guilty, would
have died at the hands Of the law
within thirty days. The demands of
justice would have been fulfilled and
no man would have imbued felonious
hands in their blood. Everybody
knows this. Then why the lynching
except the predominance of the Grim
inal instinct in those who made the
mob? No subterfuge will cover the
case. Il is an instance Of wholly I'M
1%ustifable blood guiltness. If Lord
Pembroke had lived to this day he
might have said of this tragedy as
he did of the doing to death of the
young Prince Arthur:
"All murders passed, do stand ex-
cused in this"
It is not our business to undertake
70 place the responsibility for it, if
any one failed of his duty. Governor
Glenn is being criticised on account
of it. 1t is but fair to say that he is
not guilty. He cannot order out
troops, except upon call, for occasions
OF. this kind. But 1t was a time for
troops and for troops who would
shoot to sOme purpose. There is a
man in command of those at Sails
bury now who would have averted
the lynching Monday night by the
adoption of the simple method which
would have converted the purpose of
the members Of the mob to take the
lives of the prisoners into a purpose
to save their own. This they would
have done by flight. Fifteen or more
years ago a mob threated the Jail at
Birmingham, Ala, with intent to
lynch a prisoner. The sheriff repeat
eddy warned it, but it would not heed.
He old it his deputies would shoot
unless it dispersed, but it would not
dispense. The deputies did shoot and
sixteen of the a~ssaulting party fell
dead. There was nc lynching. Very
dreadful it was, to be sure; but des-
perate diseases demand desperate
remedies.
Nobody cared anything for the ne
groes ~lynched at Salisbury. Nobody
cares if they are dead. But for the
moment the majesty of the law was
by chance incarnated in them. Ex-
cept incidentally it vas not a ques-
ton as TO whether or not they should
live, but a question as to whether the
law or the mob should reign in Ro-
wan. This is of all the gravest ques-
ton now before the country, espe-
cially before the South, specifically
before North Carolina. Shall we have
the courts or the mob mete out JUS
tice for us? If the latter, then is an