The Elk Mountain pilot., 1920-12-30

been exposed, everyone of the frame
up witnesses discredited, every pro-.
ceeding of the prosecution irregular
The special commissions to investi-
gate appointed at Washington, the
judges who sat at the trials, and
finally the witnesses of the prosecu-
tion themselves, proclaim or admit
the farce and ask for new trial.
And yet the President of the United
States and the Governor of California,
who have authority to act, leave
these victims wearing out their lives
in prison, while they sit by practical
ly as apologists for frame-ups within
the court and lynch law unrebuked in
the open day.
The only justification that has been
made for lynch law has been on the
ground of the failure of the courts
and the standard illustration always
is the "Vigilantes of the early days
of San Francisco" 1t must be said
that if lynch law is ever justified it
was justified then, and may be justi-
fed now, but then or now solely be-
cause of the failure of the public au-
thorities to enforce the laws. But
why lynch others without trial, with
out defense and leave the corrupt Of
ficials undisturbed? If there is any
excuse whatever for lynch law, the
victim should be the officer of the
/ 1ax xryb of fha 1aHo IF
the law. 1t is misguided frenzy only
which lynch anyone without court or
jury because of the faults of the
court and jury, while failing to lynch
either the court or the jury.
But in this country it is not nee
essary to lynch governor, United
States senator or prosecuting at
torney who has supported or particle
pated in proceedings framed up. on
the innocent under the forms of law.
or who has supported lynching In
defiance of the law, In many states
the recall has been provided. In all
states men who do these things are
subject to removal by the regular
processes of the law through the reg
ular elections. The American Legion
of Kansas has expelled a member for
leading a mob. The citizens of Kan
sas have retired to distinguished and
deserved obscurity a sheriff and
county attorney who turned over the
official power of their offices to the
uses of a mob, and two judges are
about to go to a recall election in
San Francisco. There is a demand
that the higher-ups in all this shall
be named and punished. In every IN
stance the higher-up is profiteer.
This is true from the landlords of
vile resorts up to the Chambers OF
Commerce.
1t is time the Chambers of Com
merce clear their garments. What do
these bodies have to say of their law
less record from Centralia in Wash
ington to Great Bend in Kansas, from
election riots in \ Minnesota to the
kidnapping outrages in Arizona, from
the car barns in Denver to the hang
mans tree in Santa Rosa? Back of
all of these were either the timber
trust, the flour trust, the steel trust.
the copper trust, the street car trust
of the vice trust, and all acting
through the Chambers of>Commerce.
American citizens have the power
to establish responsible govern
ment, government responsible to
themselves, not to the profiteers, and
in that way only to make an end Of
framed-up prosecutions and of mob
law executions. To consent that
either shall be permitted because the
victim is loathsome character is to
throw down every safeguard now set
up to guard the lives of anyone
against the wrath, the prejudice and
the political intrigue of the agents
of .profiteers temporarily in power.