Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1934-12-28
Governors Strong
Action Stops
Tennessee Mob
By ]. Winston Harrington
Tin the Chicago Defender)

Shelbyv1lle, Tenn, Dec. 2S.-AIs
quiet again on the Tennessee bat
tie line, but it will be a long time
before the people of this town will
feel the same. Troops patrol the
streets, their bayonets exposed and
their pieces loaded. On every cor
ner, small knots of people stand
around talking in subdued tones.
Everyone is discussing the events
of Wednesday night and Thursday
when ten persons were wounded by
state troopers, three fatally, while
trying to storm the Shelbyville
county courthouse to lynch e. K.
Harris.
The whole thing was so surpris-
ing that mob-minded white people
of this town can't understand it.
They can't understand why the
soldiers actually fired on them with
machine guns and stuck bayonets
into them as they rushed the court
house for the third time on We'd
nesday. They had been in mobs be-
fore and such thing had been I'M
heard of in Tennessee. Hadn't
they snatched a 15-year-old boy
from the steps of courthouse near
Nashville earlier that year after he
. had been freed on a rape charge
and lynched him?
Ignored Troops
OF course, the mob knew the
troops were there presumably to
see that Harris was not lynched
while his trial was in progress, but
troops had been called out before
without seriously interfering with
a proposed lynching. It didn't mat
ter that Harris had not been guilty
of attacking the woman who &C.
cused him. That was unimportant
What was important was that he
had been arrested and charged with
the crime. What was more i'm
portant was that it is near Christ
mas time, and Shelbyville citizens
wanted to celebrate the birth of
Christ by lynching a fellowman.
And SO they went out, drank all the
corn liquor they could get, got
"crazy drunk" and started back to
"get" 20-year-old Harris who had
been held in jail at Nashville for
three months charged with attack
ing young woman of Shelbyville.
The trial was in progress, the
jury had been selected and the
prosecuting attorney was stating
his case when the first attack oc-
Cured. Less than 200 state troops
on the scene repulsed this on
slaught by using tear gas. The
mob, composed of men, women, and
children, and led by an unemployed
house painter, retired, drank some
more liquor, and came forth again.
The second time the troops halted
them. By this time the mob was
getting worried, but not worried
enough to realize that at last
court Of justice was going to get
chance to try man in Tennessee.
The liquor was giving the mob
bists courage.
They came again, and on the
third drive, the troops opened fire.
Machine gun bullets sprayed over
the heads of the mob, then came
down onto the crowd as the
lynchers advanced. Raleigh Ed
wards fell, bullet in his head and
a bayonet wound in his stomach.
Pat Lawes and Gilbert Freeman
also fell with bullets in their
stomachs. Both died in the hospi-
tai. Several others, rushed to the
hospital, are still in serious condi-
ton.
When it finally dawned upon the
liquor-sodden defenders of white
superiority that the troops, acting
under orders of Governor Hill Nc
Allister meant business, they re-