The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-04-01
BY ELIZABETH LAWSON

IN the morning Of December 6, 1881, Negro
worker by the name Of Matthew Williams,
an employee in the Crate and Basket factory
in Salisbury, Nd, stepped into the office Of his
employer Daniel J. Elliott. He had come to
protest against d further cut in his meager pay
Of is cents an hour.
There was an argument. jim Elliott, the son
of the factory owner pulled a gun and shot
Williams, wounding him severely. Williams de-
Tended himself In the Scuffle, Daniel Elliott
was killed.
A few hours later a boSs-incited lynct-mob
gathered before the Peninsular General Hos
ptaI where Williams lay dying. The mob of big
businessmen pulled this Negro worker from his
bed and dragged him to the courthouse square.
There they mutilated him. poured over him 40
gallons of gasoline, and. while whiskey bottles
passed from mouth to mouth, they burned his
body to crisp.
Having previously cut OFF Williams fingers
and toes, they now invaded the Negro section
Of Salisbury, screaming curses and threats. On
the porches Of Negro homes, they threw por-
lions of williams body inviting the workers TO
make niger sandwiches of them" Behind them
they trailed the charred corpse.
1931-Year of Lynch Law
This particularly brutal lynching came at the
end OF a year in which 79 lynchings were re-
corded in the white boss press That many
more than this number were hushed up by the
local papers, is beyond question. 1881 was a
year OF rising lynch law against the Negro work.
ers and farmers. The record of known lynch
ings Tor 1882 begins early, with the mob-murder
OH January 10 of two Negro workers in Green
brier County West Virginia. In the few months
of the year that have already passed, the lynch
ers of Negroes have taken huge toll.
The Workers Fight Back
But fighting back against this wave Of terror
and lynching, is the rising tide of struggle of
Negro and white workers. Under the leadership
Of the Communist Party, the League Of Struggle
for Negro Rights, the International Labor De-
tense and other workng-class organizations
white and Negro workers have begun joint
struggle against lynching. In mortal dread Of
this common fight of the toilers, the Negro and
white takers are resorting TO every means to
draw these workers away from the program Of
struggle.
The latest move OF these takers is the revival
Of the campaign for the Dyer bill-the so-called
federal anCi-lynching bill drive has been
started by such organizations as the National
Association for the Advancement Of Colored
People, and the Women's Stop-Lynching League,
fer two million signatures for the Dyer bill.
BY agitating for the Dyer BILL the takers hope
to achieve three gains in their war on the Ne
gro masses They hope to divert the fury of
the Negro and white workers against lynching,
away from the paths of organization, mass pro-
test and revolutionary struggle. They hope to
revive and strengthen the illusions of the mas
SeS that the capitalist courts are fair and impair
tial bodies set up to protect the interests of all.
And finally, they hope by means Of the Dyer
Bill to place in the hands of the white bosses
new and sharp instruments for use against the
Negro and white masses in their growing strug
oy,J
Dyer Bill Is Weapon OF Lynehers
For not only would the Dyer bill, it became
law, not stop the lynching of Negro workers and
farmers; it would, on the contrary, be q weapon
in the hands Of the bosses, by means Of which
they could the more easily arrest and lynch Ne
gro workers and Share-croppers
The takers, by promoting the Dyer bill as
mesns Of stopping lynching, are urging the Ne
gro workers and farmers to place their reliance
for protection against the boss lynchers, in the
machinery Of the bosses state. Yet, this very
state machinery is an instrument in the hands
Of the lyncherS Where police, sheriffs and other
state officials are not actually part and parcel
of the lynch mob-and this is ordinary oc
currence, as in the case of Matthew Williams
they combine to protect and whitewash the
lynchers. The recent brazen whitewaSh Of Will
lams' lynchers in Salisbury is a case in point,
After three months in which state and local Of
ficials stubbornly refused to set up a special
machinery for investigation. they finally formed
a grand jury of the countys biggest business
nen-the same type of men who had led the
lynching After three days Of secret sessions,
which it spent listening to the testimony" Of
over 100 hand picked witnesses the, jury return
ed a report that 1t could find no one remotely
connected with the lynching." The bra2enness
of the whtewash is the more apparent when we
remember that the crowd that lynched Williams
was unmasked, that it made no effort at con-
cealment, that its leaders walked to the very
door Of the hospital where this worker lay dy
ing and there talked at length with hospital
officials, that it rubbed elbows with the local
Grief of police and other local and county Of
ficers.
An Indictment against the lynchers OF Ne
groes, by a coroner's jury other official body,
is a very rare occurrence When it does occur,
it seldom results in the inflicton Of even the
lnildest penalty.
Boss Courts Are Lynch Courts
This same court machinery is also the means
OF the legal lynching Of Negroes and white
workers as in the now famous case Of the nine
Scottsboro boys-a case which ras ripped the
mask of impartiality from the courts and re-
Vealed them as open and brazen accomplices of
the 1ynchers
That under the rule of the Bosses a so-called
anti-lynching bill along the lines of the Dyer
bill is dead letter against the lynchers Of Ne
groes is proved by the recent events in Green
brier County West Virginia, where two Negro
sgorkers we're openly lynched on January 10.