The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1923-01-20
ARKANSAS COURT
RUSHED men To
DEATH SENTENCE
Morefield Storey Files Brief With
Y. s. Supreme Court on Arkan-
sas Riot Cases
Two HUNDRED MURDERED
Citizens Of Helena Manufactured Evi
denee to Convict Riot Victims,
10 Charge

Citizens of Helena Manufactured Evil
denee to Convict Riot Victims,
Moorefield Storey, former president
of the American Bar association and
now president of the National As
scociation and now president Of the
National Association for the Ad-
vancement of Colored People, on
Tuesday, January 9, appeared before
the United States Supreme Court to
argue appeals in behalf of colored
poems condemned to death in connec-
ton with the Arkansas riots in 1919.
In the course of the brief appealing
against sentence of death imposed
upon FIVE of the colored men, sensa-
tional charges are made involving the
Courts of the State of Arkansas;
newspapers; leading citizens; Rotary
Club; Robert L. Kitchens Post,
American Legion and other organi-
cations of Helena, Arkansas; all of
whom are charged with having tried
to railroad the colored men to death,
torture being employed to make the
prisoners testify falsely, mob
hysteria dominating their trial which
is, alleged to have taken place in less
than an hour.
The cases arose out of an attempt
by colored farmers to organize and
obtain legal redress against peonage
or debt slavery under the share crop
ping system prevalent in Arkansas.
The colored men were accused of a
"plot to massacre whites" and, &C.
cording to the brief, "a large number
of white men armed themselves and
rushed to the scene of the trouble and
to adjacent regions and began the in
discriminate hunting, shooting and
killing of colored men.
eve have distinct evidence" says
the brief, "that all colored men at
that time were in danger of their
lives, and that two hundred or three
hundred men were killed.-There can
he no question that the citizens of
Helena were determined that these
men should be- convicted, and that
they manufactured the evidence for
the purpose; and for the court GAR
kansas Supreme Court) to say that
they cannot assume that they neces-
sarily did not have a fair trial shows
clearly that the Supreme Court of
Arkansas was itself Influenced by the
same feeling that Influenced the
leaders of society throughout the
region where these tragedies &C.
Cured"
The brief further recites that the
conduct Of the case against the con-
victed men constitutes a series OF
outrages ethan which it is hard to
imagine worse"
Testimony is cited of H. F. Smiddy
and T. X. ones, the former deputy
sheriff of Phillips County, Kansas
the latter a specialagen for the Mis-
souri, Pacific Railroad, both white
who were members of the sheriff S
posse and swore that the white man.
for whose murder the men were con-
victed, was killed by members Of the
posse, and that colored men had
nothing to do with the murder. They
further swore that they personally
whipped the prisoners with straps
studded with metal, put strangling
drugs in their nostrils and forced the
victims to sit in an electric chair to
force testimony in the manner desired
by the mob.
The summary of the conditions
under which the Arkansas trials were
conducted is as follows in the brief
"We have the whole community
inf1amed against the defendants, pre-
pared themselves to Lynch them, only
refraining from so doing because they
are assured by leading citizens that
the trial should accomplish the same
purposes, a condition of things where
no man who was on that jury and had
ventured to vote for acquittal or delay
could have lived in Phillips County,
according to the testimony of one of
the men who engaged in the business
of manufacturing evidence for the
State. We have false statements
printed in the newspapers; we have
society substantially organized to
convict these people; and more than
that, we have witnesses deliberately
terriorized and forced on pain of
death or torture to give false testi-
mony. We have the testimony of the
witnesses themselves that they were
so terrorized and that their testimony
was false. We have the testimony of
the men who inflicted the torture; we
have a mass of evidence which shows,
if evidence can show anything, that
the defendants never had fair trial
and in fact that they are innocent.
As to some of them there is no evi-
dence as to any act or word except
that they were with gang of men
assembled to all. purposes for self
defense"
Among the organizations named as
fomenting the state Of feeling in
which the men were convicted are
Richard L. Kitchens Post, American
Legion, the Helena Rotary Club,
Lions Club of Helena, and the Com
mittee of Seven appointed at the
time of the riots by the Governor of
Arkansas.
Associated with Mr.. Moorield
Storey before the Supreme Court, is
Mr.. Scipio A. Jones of Little Rock,
Arkansas. Mr.. Jones has been in
charge of the cases from their in
ception. . ese
The prisoners in whose behalf ap-
peal is being made were first SEN
fenced to death in 1919, their cases
passing through four State and
Federal Courts. The men have been
twice sentenced to death and the date
Of their execution has been fixed on
five occasions. Twelve men in all
were sentenced to death and 81 re-
ceived prison sentences carving from
a few wears to life The defence ~