The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1924-02-08
MARION "EvE. POST"
DEPLORES FALSE
PUBLICITY OF new
YORK DAILY PRESS
xxx

t. IUnN UAIlI TnlOO
-. -.--.'.' XXX
Southern Illinois Daily, In Reply to
New York Publications Story of
Williamson County Raids, Says At
titude of Big Newspapers Retards
Enforcement of Law
XXX
Marion, Ill.-The Marion (nl)
Evening Post, issue of January "a,
takes exception to a story appearing
recently in The Freeman, New York
publication of the Williamson county
raids, and incidentally scores the pol
icy OF the metropolitan press as re-
CARDS the enforcement of law. The
article appearing in the Post reads
as follows:
Whenever a publication outside
Williamson county runs short of
something to fill up, they hunt up
some glaring lie on Williamson coun-
ty and publish it. Among all the
glaring falsehoods published about
Williamson county, this one from a
New York publication, The Freeman
Of January %, certainly takes the
prize for misinformation and lies:
"'The public authorities of Will
Hanson county, Illinois, were recent
ly compelled to ask that regiments of
the National Guard of the state be
sent in to protect the population from
persistent outbreaks of violence in
stituted under the leadership of Off
GERS Of Federal prohibition forces.
For over a fortnight Williamson
county had endured reign of terror,
with armed bands of Ku Klux Klans-
men and unlabeled hooligans, enroll
ed as prohibitionists deputies, shoot
ing up suspected premises, driving
people from their homes, assaulting
citizens on the streets and if the re-
ports are to be believed, themselves
indulging in arson and robbery. The
armament of these riotous cork-hunt-
ers included machine guns, and they
were led by a notorious man-hller
who seems to have had his authority
from Washington direct. This ele-
walton of the Khan to the position of
an official fascist organization, char
tered to shoot law and order into a
community, is highly interesting
and novel political development. APP
parently the normal processes of
blackmail and violence incidental to
the enforcement" of the prohibition
law are to be REINFORCED by the bru-
talities Of Ku Klux Kluxism.'
"The reign of terror referred to
above existed only in the magma
ton of the sheriff and the law break
ers whose business was being inter
fered with The rest of the article
is so nlaliciously false that a denial
is not necessary. Every citizen of
the county, whether law-abiding or
lawless, knows the above is untrue in
every particular. Decent citizens
cannot conceive why publication de-
voted to telling the truth should
make such charges without investi-
cation; why they should take the
word of lawless persons who are suf-
fering the penalty for their acts, as
against those who are endeavoring
to clean out the place of iniquity and
make the county a decent place in
which to live. Such publications are
really obstructionists to law and or
der and encourage the lawless in
their efforts to break down the Con-
stitution and overthrow the laws of
the land. The publisher of The
Freeman may have been sincere, but
the fact that he published such state
ments as the above without investi-
cation would lead one to doubt his
sincerity"