The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1913-03-19
LEADS IN crime
EIGHT HUNDRED MURDERS In A
SINGLE COUNTY

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DURING THE PAST YEAR
The Awful Record Of Jefferson Coun-
ty in Alabama, Which Leads All
Counties in the World in the Num-
Der of Murders and Other Crimes
of All Finds.
Jefferson county, Alabama, Is the
greatest crime center in the world.
The county does not pride itself on
this fact, however. Neither does the
| city Of Birmingham in which crime
centers. The people of the county
and the citizens of Birmingham, 9th
er than those who drift into the dis
trict from the outside, are remark
ably law-abiding, high-minded and
| sensitive about criminal records. If
they knew how to do it they would
rid themselves of the criminal popu-
lation which includes 10000 ex-con-
victs living in Birmingham alone.
But they do not know how to rid
themselves of this population, and
face a record of two murders day
for the past year. The causes which
brought about this remarkable re-
cord are discussed in the following
article, the facts having been obtain
ed from county officials, prominent
Birmingham business men, and en-
ployers Of labor:
Astounded at last by the official
revelations of widespread crime in
Jefferson county, citizens are de-
manding that extraordinary measures
be taken to curb the carnival of mur-
der which has made the county the
past year the most criminal section
in the whole world. With an aver
age of over murder day for the
past IA months, Jefferson county
stands unique.
In no great city of the world is
life held so cheap as in this blood
stained county; not in the whole of
the United Kingdom, the city of Lon
don included, were there as many
slayings as in this prosperous coal
and iron cucnty; in no equal section
of territory in the whole world have
men and women been slain so ruth
lessly, so uselessly, so wantonly as in
that rich county of slightly over 200,-
900 inhabitants.
| On the surface, this remarkably
criminal county presents the acme of
industrial success; underneath the
surface are rotten cesspools Of vice,
diabolical murder traps, and dark
pits of crime. The average citizen
of Birmingham is law-abiding, high
ly moral, and deeply impressed with
the industrial success Of the steel
metropolis of the South.
| The average citizen is so deeply
interested in furthering the indus
trial prosperity of Jefferson county
that he pays little or no attention to
law-enforcement, being content to let
the vice situation handle itself as
best it may. Taking advantage of
the "easy" attitude of citizens and
of the inability Of the cor ~ officials
to prosecute effectivel ), trans
gressors of the law, Bir-li. ham and
it's surrounding towns, such as Bes-
semer, for instance, are overrun with
crooks of the first water, hundreds
of whom have been driven from 9TH
er cities by vigilaat police officials.
The Birmingham district is a
dumping ground for the criminal
scum of this and other nations. Ne
groes by no means are the predomi-
nant criminals, although the greatest
number of murders is committed by
men of the black race. Where capi-
tai crimes are reckoned by the hun
dreds yearly in a small district, min
or crimes are counted by the thou
sands, many of the capital crimes be-
ing a direct result of minor crimes.
In this crime-racSed community,
Therefore, minor infractions OF the
law are without end. No man is safe
off the well-lighted streets at night
The gun and the black jack work
overtime in the Birmingham district.
| Mere figures are uninteresting.
The coroner reported nearly 700 kill
ings in the county last year, and he
reported only the cases he viewed.
There were scores Of murders in the
county never recorded by the coron-
er. One of the chief causes of the as
founding murder crop is the wide
practice OF carrying concealed wea-
pons. In the mining camps, in the
steel works, in the pig iron estab-
lishments, in the dark wards OF the
cities, men carry guns tucked away
in their trousers. John Smith takes
one into a saloon because he knows
| Herbert Jones has gun on him and
gun would be handy to have in case
of an argument.
The foreigners, Italians, Slavs,
Hungarians, Russians, and Greeks,
working in the mines and in the in
dustrial plants, carry guns when
| they start forth to spend their hard
erned dollars in the inevitable bar
rooms They are prone to enter into
heated arguments, which often re-
suit in "self-defense" slayings. The
foreigners fight among themselves,
the negroes among themselves, for it
is unlawful for the races to mix in
the saloons of this district.
| Contributing to the murder causes
( are gambling dens, negro dope
dents, cheap dance halls, poolrooms
where the light-hngered fraternity
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