The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-09-24
MR. RryEs ON LAwLEssNEss.

AIR. RIVES ON LAWLESSNESS
Editor Dawson News: My text
for this article is found in the third
chapter of the prophecy Of Micah
the whole of the chapter-and some
of the readers of my articles will not
be harmed should the reading of the
text induce them to a more familiar
acquaintance with the history Of the
most wonderful people of the world,
the Jews, and Jehoyah's predictions
concerning them, and His dealings
with them, as well as His promulga-
ton of civilization through them.
Lawlessness seems to permeate
Georgia, and not only Georgia, but
the whole of the nation. Albany
jeers at Dawson for allowing her
clerk of court to whip woman, and
as clerk of court to help draw the
grand and traverse juries that will
try him as a malefactor for breaking
the law, though she conceals the
sheer under the pretense of viola
lions of the prohibition law, as evil
denced by the number of revenue
licenses issued in Terrell. Dawson
returns the sheer by reminding AL
bany of her being wide open town
and her Indignation meeting to help
herself to continue a wide open
town; and Cuthbert, in her self
righteousness, laughs at both, but al
lows young hoodlums to go unwhipp-
ed who ran an unoffending boy out
of town by rotten-egging him and
shooting a hack full OF holes in which
he was riding.
And in each place the law-break-
ers, and apologists for broken law,
belong to "the first and most promi-
nent people of the place"
With Paul l could do some brag-
ging. He said Doth any man
boast, then l more, a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, circumcised the eighth day,
of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe
of Benjamon as touching the law
blameless, as believing the law a
Pharisee" But because on the pa
ternal side one ancestor helped wrest
the Magma Charter from King John,
and on the maternal one persisted at
Bartholomew. and later one was
flayed alive in Walton county, this
state, because he would not swear
allegiance to George III, gives me no
rights under the law save those to
which my own character and parts
entitle me, but renders me thous-
and fold under obligations to keep
the law, than is my neighbor who
does not know his fathers name and
dares not claim his mother for fear
of disgracing her by bringing to the
notice of the world the shame of his
birth.
Personally, | think some laws are
wrong, but as a sworn juror l have
nothing to do with the rights or
wrongs of the law, but merely to
present and find verdicts according
to the law of the land, for when one
law is violated with impunity, by
men sworn to execute law, it renders
all law of easy violation. For Judge
Speer l have not the feeling of broth
erly kindness enjoined in the Cos
pels, nor do admire him for stretch
ing the law SO that the United States
courts can invade state rights, but
he has done more than any other
judge in Georgia to enforce law, and
did not go beyond his rights when he
drew grand and petit Jurors to indict
city men from the country counties
in his district. And the state judges
have the same right to move cases
from one county to another, where
convictions are impossible because
of vested interests in the wrong do
ing or to select, through jury COM
missioners, men who will find bills
and convict. But because they have
no life tenure on their offices and
are dependent on the within of the
popular will, and remember the same
mob who on Tuesday cried, "Hosan-
na," and on Friday cried, Cruelty"
and human nature has not chang
ed-they are very solicitous lest by
removing an impotent jury commits
sion and appointing one who will
measure up they make their re-elec-
ton impossible; therefore, it is re-
freshing to see a man of Judge
Parks caliber on the bench, and it
becomes the duty of every law-lov-
ing man in Georgia to uphold his
hand. ANDREW P. RIVES.
Cuthbert, Ga, Sept. 81, 1912.