Hide Article Text (OCR)
Whenever the mob takes the law into its own hands, there is a large ele ment of chance that a mistake will be made. It is true that courts and juries sometimes make mistakes, but under the orderly process of law the chanee of error are minimized; under mob law they are maximized. And when the blunder of lynching an in nocent person has been made it is irre parable. The family of the victim may (possibly) secure a verdict for damages in a sum of money, but that doesn’t help the victim of the mob, and it doesn’t wipe out the reeking, drip ping bloody record. Nor does it reha bilitate respect for the law that has been brought into contempt. A case in point is that of the negro Will Fair, who has escaped lynching in Spartanburg by the skin of his teeth and through the moral and phy sical stramina by Sheriff White. On August 18 a crime was alleged to have been committed. Fair, who chanced to be in the neighborhood of the scene, was suspected, accused and thrown into jail. A mob stormed the jail, and even used dynamite to get at the sus pect. Had the mob been successful in getting hold of the man he would have been killed in the most ruthless man ner. Nothing on earth could have saved him from the wild fury of the irresponsible mob. But brave Sheriff White held back the mob and spirited his prisoner away to safety. Last week the accused Fair was brought to trial before a jury of white me. There was not one scintilla of evi dence to connect him with the crime of which he was charged. There was no evidence that any crime had been committed. As a matter of course the man was acquitted and given his liber t y what a narrow margin was a terrible crime escaped. It is enough to make one shudder to think of it. No man’s life is safe where mob rule gets a foothold. Once respect for law is broken down—and lynchings have that effect—any man may be mobbed and killed upon mere accusatio without the slightest basis of truth. If negroes are permitted to be lynched upon accusation, the time will not be long before white men will suffer the same fate upon similar compliant; and following white men, women will fall victims to mobs. Lynching is bar barous. We are not (yet) barbarians.
Newspaper Details
Georgetown Times
Georgetown, South Carolina, US
Wed, Sep 24, 1913
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
