The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-07-10
Shall Murder "Blow Over"
From the New York World

From the New York World.
 In a strip coal mine at Herrin, Ill, June 21, number of mine guards, miners and office
 men were closely beleagured by strikers. They
 surrendered under the supposed protection of
 white flag. More than a score of them-we
 do not even know how many-were butchered in cold blood. Those more fortunate found
 themselves, badly injured, in neighborlnG hos
 pitals.
 Thus far the record is simply that of q sud
 den deed of mad mob violence for which there were unfortunate precedents and still un-
 fortunate provocatives Frank Harrington,
 state president of the miners union, promptly denounced the outrage, deporing the fact that it put the striking miners in "disrepute in the public mind," where their grievances had pre-. viously armed them with general sympathy The week that followed betrayed the weak ness of great state, whose population ex- ceeds that of many independent nations, in the face of an unforeseen outbreak of ba~ barism The sheriff. who was out of town on murder day, after receiving warning to be absent "get bumped off, failed to call for troops. He seemed to think that with the mine wrecked and the operating company de- feated in battle, the incident was closed The governor, a man of putty, a practical politi- cian had power to discipline and replace the sheriff He did nothing of the sort; toward restoring order he did nothing further than mobilize troops without sending them to the blood-stained field. So far as he was con- cerned, the murderers-most of them known s in the community-walked the street as vic- { tors, fearing nothing.
 The second week took the Herrin murder } into federal notice. Representative Edward E. Denison, from the district including Will } liamson county, apologized for the crime oa < the floor of the House, citing mitigating cir ] cumstances' for one of the most brutal mur- ders of the day. And July 4, at his old l home in Marion, O.. the President of the United States in fitting terms expressed his abhorrence of condition where passion regned, law stood in contempt and freedom was denied. He did not cite Herrn by name ! but had it in mind when he said that ''gov- ernments cannot tolerate any class or group \ domination through force."
 That is true. Yet government has tolerated it. The Herrin murder has been noted in Con gress It has been condemned from the B White House But no constructive action IS proposed to cleanse the SIdln WHICH lI WouAa x leave upon the republic is nothing were done to vindicate law and visit justice upon the mur- derers.
 There is precedent in the Mafia riots in New Orleans and similar cases since for the statement that the federal department of jus 3 tice cannot override the power of a state in { it's administration of justice. But foreign f.s- tions whose citizens may have suffered in Her. E rin would have according to well recognized rulings of our state department a valid claim for satisfaction from Washington for the q relatives of the injured and the dead. Suen satisfaction would include both an expression \ of the nations regret and material compensa- tion; but it would leave justice in an appalling a crime tagging after apologies.
 \ In West Virginia, where coal operators ruled in Logan county as absolutely and 1s ruthlessly as the miners mob ruled in Will < Hanson county, Illinois, the Senate undertook an investigation with results which illumined 5 the situation and gave the state at least a chance to redeem itself Unless some bet 1 ter method be proposed, Congress can do the same for Illinois, An inquiry might shame 8 the state into action.
 4 The one thing that cannot be tolerated is ! the comfortable theory that mob murder of appalling cruelty, defiant challenge to the a nation, is a thing to blow over and be for
 5 gotten.