The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-28

A statement issued by the Ma
tional Office of the International
Labor Defense shows how Solicitor
Carpenter, of Gastonia, N. c., and
attorney Jake Newell helped hush
up the lynching of Willie McDaniels,
a Negro farm worker, near Char
lotte on the night of June 20, 1929.
The statement of the LID. fol-
lows:
Lynch law is the greatest means
by which the white capitalists keep
the Negro masses down. 1t is also
used against white workers, indus
trial and agricultural, as shown by
recent events (lynching and burning
of white boys in Texas, Arkansas,
ETC., mobs and bossmen murders in
Gastonia and Marion). The bosses
will attempt to use it increasingly
against white and Negro workers
unless the united strength Of the
Negro and white workers puts
stop to it, 1t also is one of the
means by which the Negro and
white workers are kept divided. The
relentless struggle against lynchings
and race oppression is major part
of the struggle of the International
Labor Defense in the South.
( AS part of the fight against lynch
law in the South, the LID. calls the
attention of all workers, black and
white, and all friends of the labor
movement, to the infamous lynching
of Willie McDaniels, Negro farm
worker near Charlotte, on the night
of June 20, 1929,
Willie McDaniels was lynched,
the LID. is firmly convinced by the
evidence which it has accumulated
and which the county authorities
have suppressed, by mob of rich
exploiting farmers, led by Willie
McDaniels' boss, Nell Grier. The
lynching report spread about the
city, and the county authorities" in
an attempt to hush up the crime
planned a nice investigation under
the leadership of Attorney Jake
Newell and Solicitor Carpenter. A
majority Of the Negro tenants who
were living on the Grier farm at
the time of the lynching were ar
rested and held in Charlotte Jail I'M
der the guise of "giving them pro-
lection" Negro witnesses of the
crime were threatened with death.
The lynchers were not punished.
They went scot free without any
court even going through the mo-
lions Of some farcial trial.
Today, six months later, the
guilty parties have not been pun
ished for the murder of this Negro
farm worker On the other hand,
every effort has been made to hush
the matter up, although many of the
details are common knowledge in
Charlotte. Solicitor Carpenter, who,
according to witnesses, was in the
mob of bossmen who flogged the
white workers and organizers, Wells,
Saylors and Lell, played his part in
covering up this lynching by his ar
rests. Today, six months later, it
is only the international Labor De-
Tense that dares and performs its
duty to point out that the lynchers
were covered up rather than pun
ished by the authorities. The LID.
openly states that the responsibility
for this crime rests on the capital
list farmer, Grier, his accomplices
and the authorities who suppressed
the evidence on this. The LID. has
authoritative documentary evidence
to prove to the hilt every one of its
statements.
The International Labor Defense
declares that the lynching of Willie
McDaniels is but special part OF
Southern capitalist class terrorism
against the workers and poor farm
ers. Just as the murderers of Ella
May, a member of the National Tex
tile Workers Union, and the strike
breaking deputies of Mcdowell
county who murdered six Marion
workers, were never punished by the
bosses courts, SO the lynchers OF
Willie McDaniels never have been
nor ever will be punished by capt.
talist court. Bosses courts and
bosses judges, like Barnhill, will
never convict lynchers and MUIR
derers Of workers, Negro or white.
They will protect them and acquit
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