The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1909-11-17
SENT TO JAIL
FOR CONTEMPT
Supreme Court Decides Ten
nessee Lynching Case.
SHORT SENTENCES GIVEN

Sheriff and Assistants Who Failed to
| Guard Negro Prisoners After High.
! est Tribunal Had Ordered Stay of
Execution Must Serve From Sixty to
Ninety Days-case Unique in the
! History Of the Country.
Washington, Nov. 16.-The supreme
! court of the United States announced
the following sentences for contempt
OF court in the cases of the men
/ charged with conspiracy in the lynch
Ing OF the negro, Ed Johnson, on
March 10, 1906, at Chattanooga, Tenn,
while the prisoner was under stay of
execution granted by the supreme
court:
Sheriff James F. Ship, ninety days
imprisonment; Deputy Sheriff Jere-
niah Gibson. sixty days; Luther Will
Jams, ninety days; Patrick Nolan,
ninety days; Henry Padgett, sixty
! days; William Mayse, sixty days.
All the defendants were in court
when sentence was pronounced, hav-
| ing arrived In charge of deputy mar
| shals.
Chief Justice Fuller, who pro-
! nounced the sentences, designated the
! United States jail in the District of
Columbia as the place Of imprison-
! ment. Attorneys for the prisoners be-
fore the bar asked that on account of
the difference in climate the federal
| prison at Atlanta, Ca, be substituted
| for the District Jail. To this Attorney
General Wickersham objected, saying
that Atlanta prison was for long term
| prisoners and that the local jail was
much more suited for the present pur-
pose.
Second Case of Its Kind.
! This was the second time in the
history of the supreme court of the
! United States that that body had i'm
I posed a sentence upon citizens held
[ guilty Of disregarding its mandates.
| The previous occasion was in another
generation.
Heading the little group of six men
found guilty of contempt, as they took
their places before the black robed
| Justices, was Captain Joseph H. Shipp,
the sheriff in Chattanooga, Tenn,
when he offended the court. His tall,
straight figure, his scanned face and
his gray streaked beard told of his
long service in the army of the Con-
federacy.
Bowed down under his seventy-six
years, jeremiah Gibson, the jailer,
stood with him. With bedimmed eyes
he looked upon the long white locks OF
the chief justice, himself seventy-six
| years of age, who would soon pro-
nounce sentence upon him, perhaps
send him to prison. He and Captain
6h1pp had been found guilty of failing
to protect negro, waiting to be
hanged on a charge of a heinous
crime against white woman, after
the supreme court of the United States
had stayed his execution.
Luther Williams, Nick Nolan, Henry
Padgett and William Mayes, residents
of Chattanooga, found guilty of par
ticipation in the lynching of Ed John
son, formed the rest of the group.
Practically Without Precedent.
The proceedings we're practically
without precedent. In 1875, John
Chiles a business man Of Texas, was
in connection with dealings in Texas
Indemnity bonds. contrary to an order
Of the supreme court. He was fined
$3.50. But that instance lacked the in
terest of the present case. In it were
involved no race question. no lynching,
no interference with state jurisdic-
ton; only the majesty of the law as
interpreted by the highest court of
the land.
The present case originated in the
courts decision in March, 1906, to con-
slider the appeal Of Johnson from
verdict of the Tennessee courts, hold
ing him guilty and sentencing him to
be hanged on charge of assault. The
night after the determination of the
supreme court to review the proceed
ings was wired to Chattanooga mob
stormed the Jail, took the prisoner out
and lynched him.
After the lynching the department
OF justice brought complaint against
twenty-seven men alleged to have par.
ticipated in the Jail attack and lynch.
ing. Among them were the prisoners
at bar the complaint against the other
eighteen being dismissed.
MICH LIQUOR Destroyed