Evening star., 1922-03-10
PEOPLE PROTEST NEGRO
DYING FOR CRIME
White FOLKS PLANNED
(Continued from First Page.)

where oratory is taken into the sys-
tenn with mothers milk.
Three respites have been given the
condemned man, but unless the gov
ernor intervenes again. Rouse will go
to the electric chair during the week
Of March rs.
Equality Of Injustice"
At the outset Of the agitation to
save Rouse Gov. Morrison was obdu-
rate, holding that the demand was
not, as it purported to be. for an
Equality Of justice" but for equality
of injustice" The governor believes
in capital punishment. He conceded
that all three persons involved in
Rouse's crime deserved the death PEN
atty, and appeared determined to see
that the one to whom the court had
allotted that sentence was made to
suffer it.
But he granted respite for thirty
days. Then the letters urging COM
mutation really began to come in.
This was at the New Year, for Rouse
was to have died January 3. A few
days before the new time limit had
expired the governor granted a sec
ond respite, and then at the end Of
February granted third. Now he is
giving serious consideration to the
pleas for amelioration.
The crime for which Rouse was
convicted was naturally a sordid one
The persons involved were of no
consequence. There was nothing
colorful in the case. One night while
VIII Whitley lay sleeping in his barn
close range. At first he said four
strange white men had compelled
him to shoot toward" the body of
another white man the quartet al
ready had killed. OF course. no one
believed the aged negro's stumbling.
to come out. Sarah Whitley. wife Of
the murdered man. was in love with
Tom Hays. Whitley was in the way.
Old Wright Rouse had local repu-
tation as 'conjure doctor" That
probably accounts for his employ
kill the husband. Wright can't CON
jure." He says so himself. But he
could and did treat rheumatic"
cramps" and "sich like" being some
what Of herb. or. "yarb," healer:
The trial was held in the superior
Twelve white men on the jury re-
turned a verdict of murder in the
first degree against the negro and
second degree as to Sarah Whitley
and Tom Hays-one of the few times
on record that negro was ever
given precedence over white folks in
Greene county.
Couple Get Thirty Years
The court was able to give the
white woman and the white man
only the maximum penalty Of thirty
years In prison. There was nothing
for the negro save death in the elec-
trio chair. Sentence was imposed and
the date for electrocution set.
Unquestionably it was Mrs. Whit
ley's sex which saved her, and in
directly saved Hays. No woman has
ever yet sat in North Carolina's death
chair. 1t is said none ever will. One
recent years--also for the murder Of
her husband--but she was commuted
to life imprisonment by q governor
who offered no other reason than that
she had been a girl once and was still
feminine.
Before Rouse could be brought to
the state prison, sentiment for the
Communication of his sentence began
to manifest itself, and recently the
governor has been fairly inundated.
1t was Gov. Morrison. who last
week was defeated in his efforts to
SSCuEo lA0 SAtI AuiStOAA AIoIA Sdudud
Of a negro said to have been impli-
Gated in the Norlina riots. After a
somewhat heated correspondence
with the State Department at Wash
ington Gov. Morrison refused to
send witnesses to Canada for a pre-
liminary hearing on the ground that
it was not in keeping with the dig
nifty Of a sovereign American state
to be compelled to appear before a
foreign magistrate.
One Of the possibly mitigating
circumstances in the Rouse case is
the fact that although the negro
was promised $500 for his crime, he
never got cent.
Copyright. 1927