The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1925-01-29
WHERE ANARCHY AND PASSION RULE.

WHERE. ANARCHY AND PASSION RULE.
Glenn Young and Ora Thomas and two more
of their henchmen died with their boots on at
"Bloody Herrin" on Saturday night. with
complete defiance to law and with hundreos
of citizens on the streets waiting to. see the
''show' the oats flashed forth the fire and the
blood was spilled out on the ground. Herrln
had expected the show and 1t got It. Hefrn
hadn't reeked in blood for couple of months
and things were getting irksome about the
blot on civilization in the country. The shoot
ing was not at least unexpected All day long
Herrin had been waiting for the guns to belch
forth fire and the dead wagon had been walt
ing for the call Herrin knew that the shoot
ing was coming, the officers at Herr1n knew
that men were walking the streets with easy
TRIGGERS sticking from the holsters strapped
about them, they were aware OF the TACT thaC
bullying hip pockets held cold steel as we'll as
illicit liquor and that the mixture was going to
spell murder and anarchy.
They knew that men with hatred in their
hearts were abroad ready to take the law into
their own hands and shoot out their differences
on the Main street of an American city. Ihey
knew all of these things and yet not one step
was taken to prevent the shooting. Possibly
Herrin needed new baptism Of blood and the
officials and the town people were anxious to
be in at the baptising.
The officials of the state of Illinois sworn
to protect human life were evidently very care
less of life in Herrin. They probably knew
that twenty times as many men had been kill
ed in the rule of anarchy at Herrin as had been
killed in the Spanish American war, but. men
down at Herrin vote and it might bea loss OF
political prestige for any set of state officials
to interfere with their Saturday night diver
sions
Tt doesn't matter bit whether Young was
in the right or Thomas was in the wrong.
These men deliberately defied the laws OF the
state and the nation. They took the govern
ment into their own hands and they met death.
Possibly all of them got just what they de-
served.
For years Herrln fact1onalsts have been
writing their defiance in blood, putting in the
comas with knife thrust and shooting in the
periods with automatics and state and federal
governments have stood idly and let the de-
fiance and the killing go on.
Martial law might have saved the lives of
four men and martial law properly and intelli-
gently directed would have disarmed Herrin
years ago and made it impossible to get an
automatic or gat into that town. But Herrin
didn't want the guns off the hips Herrin
evidently wanted to be .'bloody" just about so
often and the officials of illinois, like lot of
other officials, decided that people are ZEN
titled to the kind of government they want
Herrin is down in Illinois and quite aways
from Kenosha, but the very things which aided
in the development of the conditions at Herrin
are present right here in Kenosha. People
who want to be rated as good people con-
tinue to support the bootlegger and the maud
lin sentiment of giving him sympathy. Courts
forget to be stern in the administration of
justice. Repeated violations of the law are
going on and the men who violate the law pay
a fine and get right out to continue their de-
fiance.
Passions for money secured in the sale of
illicit liquor continue to develope and that
other passion which rebels against continued
laxity of the law also continues to burn strong
err It's only going to take little time to
bring the same conditions as exist in Herrin
into lot of other places in the United States
The only answer is the stiffening of the back
of the courts, the stiffening of the backs of
people who want to be considered good citizens,
the insistent demand from the people that the
state and national government give to the en-
forcement of the law the power which should
be behind it, that men who are honest be put
in charge of the enforcement of the law, and
that men who violate the law be punished with
adequate punishment no matter what their
station in life may be-.
The public conscience can be best awakened
by pricking it with the pin of adequate law
enforcement. There will be more ''bloody'
Herrins in this country if the men sworn to
enforce the laws do not come to more clearly
recognize just what their oaths of office mean.
MUSIC AS A CIVIC ASSET.
Kenosha people who happened to be e1isten-