The new age., 1906-11-03
SOLDIERS AS INFoRMERs.

give up the soldiers who were mixed
I'D in the Brownsville fracas some
time ago they would all be dishonor-
ably discharged from the army OF the
United States. The troopers are want
ed by the civil authorities OF Texas.
It may be that the President has
right in law to issue such an order
through the War Department and to
execute it. in the event that the sol
diers refused to betray their comrades,
if. indeed, they know who are the
guilty ones. if guilty there are any;
we are not informed on the question
of law in the case, but we doubt If
there is any such law. However this
may be, up to latest accounts, the
soldiers have refused to comply witt
the order, if they are able to do so,
which is an open question, and the
troops had not been dishonorably dis
charged.
When President Roosevelt made his
Southern tour some months ago, on
two occasions he laid stress upon the
Importance of colored people helping
the officers of the law to run down al
leged criminals of their race; and
now when a case in point has come
under his authority he seeks to en-
force what should be in every instance
the voluntary act Of the individual or
individuals. 1t may be that the mem
bers of the troops not concerned in
the fracas have no information as to
the identity of their comrades, or
if they have that it came to them in
the usual course of camp gossip.
The theory has gained ground of
late, that it is the business of the
whole Afro-American people to turn
out in a given locality and help the
officers of the law hunt down alleged
criminals about whom they know moth
ing and with whose criminal acts they
have no sort of sympathy. This de-
mand upon the colored people that
they should do police duty without
warrant in or of law is not made upon
any other people in the country, and
is engaged in on large scale by no
other people in the country, except
the Southern white people, who have
by usurpation of the authority and
function of the police and the courts
in most criminal causes brought the
entire system of criminal procedure
into contempt throughout all of the
Southern States. This irresponsible
conduct of the citizens, in disregard
and contempt of the police and the
courts, began soon after the War of
the Rebellion and eliminated in the
overthrow of the regular State gov
ernments and the establishment of a
series of corrupt and vicious oligar-
chies in which a considerable element
of the citizenship has no standing
whatever in the estimation of the po-
| lice or in the administration of the
courts. Individuals take criminal mat
ters into their hands as often as they
please, and the police and the courts
rarely interfere with them. They are
considered to be a police force and
courts all unto themselves.
1t is high time that the doctrine be
preached from the housetops that the
police and the courts should be left to
protect the life and property of the
citizen and to hunt down and convict
violators of the law, and that private
citizens should be made to attend to
their own business. The belief that
the mob is superior to the police and
the courts is gaining ground all over
the country, and will lead to serious
consequences at no distant day if
period shall not be put to it. 1t is tc
be regretted that President Roosevelt
has allowed himself to get drawn into
the matter in such wise as to seem tC
encourage the individual citizen to in
, terfere in the work Of the police an(
the courts.-The Age.
George w. Chatters, an ex-slave
has been nominated for congress il