The Glenwood post., 1911-07-15
A. J. DICKSON, Editor and Proprietor
Saturday, July is, 1911.
WHO IS TO BLAME

Last Monday evening at Palisade
band of armed men, thoroughly dis
guised marched up the main street OF
the town and served warning on three
men, SAID to be in the bootlegging bus
mess, that they must leave town within
ten days and never come back or theN
must suffer the consequences Two OF
the men, Ferguson Brothers, are sa'o
to have been parties to recent assault
on the mayor of the town who inter
fered with some of their unlawful
bootlegging maneuvers.
The Fergusons claim to know some
of the men who made up the band OF
night riders and they have appealed to
the town board for protection whlcn
has been promised them. We think
this protection is all right for every
town should support law and order for
that is the basis of our civilization,
but it was certainly nervy on the part
of the Fergusons to ask it. When
citizen of this great republic invokes
the strong arm of the law he should
come with clean hands, and this, from
all accounts, the warned men have neg
lected to do. For many months they
have elected to take the law into their
own hands and now they are deserving
of no sympathy whatever if they are
paid back in their own coin.
Down at Rocky Ford a few days ago
Sheriff Potter strengthened his force
of deputies and then called on the gov
ernor for an assignment of militia tn
protect from the hands of an excited
mob cringing negro who had shot and
killed town official who tried to put
him under arrest And the sheriff and
the governor were right in throwing
the safeguards of the law around this
negro who is probably murderer.
The law is supreme and the law
should be enforced and the negro
should be guaranteed trial under due
process of law. But this act, however
citement and without time in which to
reflect on the consequences and, If any
difference, the negro is more entitled
to sympathy, should anything befaA
him at the hands of mob, than are
the Palisade bootleggers who have
calmly, defantly and premiditatedly
planned to set at naught the laws OF
the state and the expressed wish OF
the voters of the community in which
they live and have then,' in spite CT
many protests. executed their devilish
plans.
The Post does not uphold mob vlo-
lence. 1t is a form of lawlessness that
we cannot favor but we II bet year 5
subscription against hole in a dough
nut that the severest condemnation
against the action of last Monday
night will come from the willy nilly,
namby pamby, spineless citizens of
that town who have tolerated and
condoned ten fold worse form of
lawlessness that that which the So
called mob was guilty of, whereas If
they had possessed just a little back
bone and had stood out for what they
knew to be right there would have
been not even a shadow of excuse for
the disgraceful event of last Monday
night.
We don't pretend to possess the
knowledge of which Mr. Ferguson
boasts when he says he knows the per
sonnel of the mob. We haven't the
faintest idea as to the identy of i
single person mixed up in the affair
or even accused of completely in it,
but we will undertake to say that this
bunch of protestants against law
breakers, call it mob if you will,
would never have been called into ex-
istence had the citizens who now con-
denim their act and the officials of the
town been citizens and officials with
backbones and with red blood in their
veins determined to uphold the law at
any cost.
lhey nave temporlZeu VIII iaWiess'
ness and crime to a certain extent un-
til some of the citizens, evidently
waiting for the officials to do their
duty and protect the community have
taken the law into their own hands
and determined that they will fight
the devil with fire since, according to
their notions, the end justifes the
means.