The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1917-07-06
WHAT THE SOUTHERN PRESS
SAYS OF THE EAST ST. LOUIS
MURDERS.

Below we are printing a few of the
many scathing rebukes from southern
white papers on the East st. Louis
affair. To say that the East st.
Louis barbarities outherod Herod
would be but feeble expression. The
crimes of the outlaws we trust will
be fully INVESTIGATED and punishment
melted out to the perpetrators is our
ardent wish and desire.
Wholesale, Brutal Murder.
The mobbing of Negroes in East
St. Louis on a wholesale scale is q
blot upon the name of Illinois greater
than any which that state has re-
ceived from such occurrences since
the Negro immigration started.
The heartless burning of the Negro
districts, the shooting down of the
helpless inhabitants of the flaming
houses when they attempted to
escape, stand more culpable than any
lynching ever held. The cremation
and shooting of living beings by the
score in East st. Louis was terrible
in magnitude as well as in execution.
Having been warned by lesser out
breaks in that very spot before, the
authorities charged with the enforce
ment of the law have the blood Of
the murdered men and women upon
their hands. They should have pro-
vided protection if the mob spirit
could not otherwise be put down.
This Illinois mob was not endeav-
oring to punish offenders. Anybody
that was black was their prey. Three
Negroes were trying to escape from
a building which had been fired with
the hope of cremating them alive. The
mob saw them trying to get away,
hanged one to a telegraph pole and
shot the two others, leaving their
bodies to the flames; and the crime
for which they died was trying to
get out of the blazing building
Scores of dead and millions of dol
lars in property destroyed are the
net results of this mob madness.
Under the Springfield decision by
the Illinois supreme court, the county
in which East st. Louis is situated
will have to pay the monetary dam
ages, but there can be no adequate
damages paid for the hundred lives
lost, the hundreds of injuries infiict-
ed, or for the irremovable stain on
the good name of state which has
had a glorious part in our later his
tory. Lincolns birthday is observed
in Illinois by parades and much ora
tory, but on any one of the other 364
DAYS of the year Lincoln is liable to
be forgotten, while mobs rage
through the streets of Illinois cities
and Stay and impoverish the descen-
dants of the race that honors Lincoln
as their liberator.
The south has been blamed by
northern papers for isolated lynch
ings, but never has there been the
wholesale murder of innocent blacks
as witnessed in Illinois. The Chicago
Tribune, which has been so rancid in
its editorials upon the lynchings of
individuals in the south, after helm
Gus crimes, will find itself peculiarly
situated in commenting upon the riot
GUS mobbing of innocent Negroes in
its own state.
From the south there will go out
only pity and sorrow for the helpless
Negroes who left their homes here
to go up against such treatment as
this in their search for better employ
ment That they were deluded even
from the beginning by those who per
suaded them to leave the south is
only too true, but now to this is add
ed murder on the wholesale. From
the bottom of our hearts we are sorry
for you, poor children of the south
Perhaps, also, the certain northern
brothers" of the Negro who petitioned
President Wilson to act on the lynch
ing of the Negro at Memphis will
also petition him to act on the car
hage in Illinois.
aps!-Tennessean and Ameri
! can.