ilitia withdrew, left the Negro
to his fate and he was promptly lynched. The business men realized the
blow to the town's were given light sentences, the highest being one of
twelve financial interests, called the mayor home, the grand jury
indicted and prosecuted the ringleaders of the mob. They months in State
prison. The day he arrived at the penitentiary, he was pardoned by the
governor of the State.
The only other real attempt made by the authorities to protect a prisoner
of the law, and which was more successful, was that of Gov. McKinley, of
Ohio, who sent the militia to Washington Courthouse, O., in October, 1894,
and five men were killed and twenty wounded in maintaining the principle
that the law must be upheld.
In South Carolina, in April, 1893, Gov. Tillman aided the mob by yielding
up to be killed, a prisoner of the law, who had voluntarily placed himself
under the Governor's protection. Public sentiment by its representatives
has encouraged Lynch Law, and upon the revolution of this sentiment we
must depend for its abolition.
Therefore, we demand a fair trial by law for those accused of crime, and
punishment by law after honest conviction. No maudlin sympathy for
criminals is solicited, but we do ask that the law shall punish all alike.
We earnestly desire those that control the forces which make public
sentiment to join with us in the demand. Surely the humanitarian spirit of
this country which reaches out to denounce the treatment of the Russian
Jews, the Armenian Christians, the laboring poor of Europe, the Siberian
exiles and the native women of India--will not longer refuse to lift its
voice on this subject. If it were known that the cannibals or the savage
Indians had burned three human beings alive in the past two years, the
whole of Christendom would be roused, to devise ways and means to put a
stop to it. Can you remain silent and inactive when such things are done
in our own community and country? Is your duty to humanity in the United
States less binding?
What can you do, reader, to prevent lynching, to thwart anarchy and
promote law and order throughout our land?
1st. You can help disseminate the facts contained in this book by bringing
them to the knowledge of every one with whom you come in contact, to the
end that public sentiment may be revolutionized. Let the facts speak for
themselves, with you as a medium.
2d. You can be instrumental in having churches, missionary societies,
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