The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-02-27
BY Elsa Bloch.


Negroes, charged with crime, to whom
state officials, "at great expense ana
trouble" had given protection from
the waiting mobs.
On February 1, the newspapers re-
ported that Edward Harris, a Negro
of Lexington, Kentucky, was to be
brought into court on the charge OF
having murdered a man and his Two
children, and assaulted the wife"
The papers detailed elaborate plans
being made by state officials to PRO
tect Harris from attack" Cavalry,
machine gun squadrons, and tank
company were to guard the court
house to prevent mobs from breaking
in and Selling the prisoner.
The next day the papers told of the
use of "tear-gas bombs to rout the
mobs at Harris trial" On February
3. screaming headlines announced that
the jury in the Harris case, having
"deIiberated sixteen minutes" brought
in verdict of guilty" and death
sentence.
From Georgetown, Delaware, week
later, came the news that "tear-gas
bombs were used to rout the mob
storming the trial of Negro" and
that while this was going on the jury
sentenced the "attacker of a twelve
year-old girl" to death.
WITHIN the sixty-one years that
w have passed since the close of the
civil war, thousands of lynchings have
taken place These the newspapers
have reported, briefly, and with more
or less indifference. Only few weeks
ago, newspaper readers learned Of
lynching party which had hit on the
refinement of broadcasting by radio
the screams Of its victim. This report
aroused little comment in the capital
list press. And it has also happened
that Negroes accused of crime have
thru luck escaped lynching. And no
headlines announced these events.
DUT now suddenly, newspapers are
- filed with the bravery" and "de-
termination" of state officials who
prevent lynchings or attacks on Ne
groes brought to trial." Why?
Because there is pending in con-
gress a bilE-the Dyer bill-which
makes a gesture of putting upon the
federal government the responsibility
for punishment of lynching. All the
exaggerated stories of how law-abid-
ing officials prevented the lynching of
two Negroes, all the bloated reports of
protection from the mob" which a
kind state has given to two of its
colored citizens (while proceeding to
sentence the same colored citizens to
death in 16 minute trials) are nothing
more than an attempt finally to kill
the anti-lynching bill which has been
in congress committees ever since
1921.
WHAT was the character of the
w trial accorded the two Negroes
Harris was arrested on one day; on
the next he had been convicted
was on his way to the gallows. There
was no longdrawn-out trial, such
is accorded wealthy men ia cities ~
Chicago, there were no psychiatrists
to prove the "insanity' 81
there were no witnesses for the de-
tense. No man of Harris own rae
was allowed on the jury. Harris ha0
a perfunctory trial, the jury "deliber-
ated" for sixteen minutes, and the
sentence was death.
OERvILE capitalist Negro" news
~ papers, altho they customarily
protest against lynching, are silenced
by this trial" Intellectually chloro-
formed with the superstition Of legal
ism, some boot-licking Negro editors
are overcome by the fact that the vic
tins 'had trial"
Let us say openly what everybody
with any intellectual courage knows to
be true-that such trial was another
form of lynching. Except that the
torture of the stake was lacking, there