The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1932-04-22
LOCALIZED Lynching
Through the Dyer Bill
By ELIZABETH LAWSON

On the morning of December 6,
1881, a Negro worker by the
name of Matthew Williams, an
employee in the Crate and Basket
factory in Salisbury, Mr., stepped
into the office of his employer,
Daniel ]. Elliott. He had come to
protest against 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 Will
Iliams, wounding him severely.
Williams defended himself. In
the scuffle, Daniel Elliott was
killed. 81,
A few hours lateEs tDss-incit-
ed lynch-mOb gath whom fore the
Peninsular Generthe near twhere
Williams lay hould take. With Of
big businessmen hlaplcd this Ne
gro worker from his bed and drag
ged him TO the courthouse square.
There they mutilated him, poured
over him 90 gallons of gasoline,
and, while whiskey bottles passed
from mouth to mouth, they burned
his body to a crisp.
Having previously cut off Will
Hams fingers and toes, they now
invaded the Negro section of Sal
isbury, screaming curses and
threats. On the porches of Negro
homes, they threw portions of Will
liams' body, inviting the workers
to make niger sandwiches of
them" Behind them they trailed
the charred corpse.
19S1-Year of Lynch Law
This particularly brutal lynch
ing came at the end of a year in
which 70 lynchings were recorded
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 workers and farmers.
The record of KNOWN lynchings
for 1882 begins early, with the
mob-murder on January 10 of two
Negro workers in Greenbrier
County, West Va. In the few
months of the year that have al
ready passed, the lynchers of Ne
groes have taken a 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 Par
ty, the League of Struggle for
Negro Rights, the International
Labor Defense and other working
calss organizations, white and Ne
gro workers have begun a 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 fed
eral anti-lynching bill. A drive
has been started by such organi-
cations as the National Associa-
ton for the Advancement of Col
ored People, and the Women's
Stop-Lynching League, for 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 Negro
masses. They hope to divert the
fury on the Negro and white work
ers against lynching, away from
the paths of organization, mass
protest and revolutionary strug-
gle. They hope to revive and
strengthen the illusions of the
masses that the capitalist courts
are fair and impartial 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 a new
and sharp instrument for use a.
gainst the Negro and white mass
es in their growing struggles a.
galnst wage-cuts, oppression and
lynching.
Dyer Bill Is Weapon of Lynchers
For not only would the Dyer
bill, if it became law, NOT stop
the lynching of Negro workers ana
farmers; it would, on the contrary.
be weapon in the hands of the
bosses, by means of which they
could the more easily arrest and
lynch Negro workers and share
troopers.
The takers, by promoting the
Dyer bill as means of stopping
lynchingS, are urging the Negro
workers and farmers to place
their reliance for protection al
gainst 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 an ordin-
airy occurrence, as in the case of |
Matthew WiI1iannS %bo,.