LYNCHINGS CONTINUE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 312, 30 November 1933, Page 7

LYNCHINGS CONTINUE.

UNREST IN AMERICA,

A WORDY CONTROVERSY.

NEW YORK, Nov. 29. St. Joseph, Missouri, is apparently taking to heart Governor Rolph’s comments on lynching. A mob to-night stormed the local gaol, took Lloyd Warner, a 19-year-old negro youth charged with attacking a white woman, and hanged him to a nearby tree. Early in the evening the State Governor, Mr Parkes, called out the militia, but they were slow in mobilising. A Government tank they were using was attacked by the mob and put out of commission by' stones. Finally the sheriff gave the prisoner to the mob, who promptly hanged him. They then 1 poured petrol on the body and burned it. As an aftermath to the disturbances in Maryland a mob invaded the cemetery, disinterred the body of the negro lynching victim, and hacked off, the head. Some members of the mob said they would ship the head to Governor Ritchie as a “souvenir.” During the riots the mob continually shouted that tliey r would never vote for Governor Ritchie again. but would vote for Governor Rolph if he ran for the Presidency. The press is divided on Governor Rolph’s statement. Some of the more sensational journals approve it by implication, while the more conservative and representatives ones denounce i-t heartily. The "New York Evening Post leader to-day praises the decisive action of Governor Ritchie as “in sharp contrast 'to Governor Rolph’s blatant alignment of liimself with men who have brought disgrace on their State.” The New York Herald-Tribune terms Governor Rolph’s statement as the “foolish remark of a cheap politician.” It contends that the example set by' the fine police work of the California authorities in solving the Hart crime lias been completely nullified. The editors of the Harvard 'University undergraduate newspaper, Crimson praised Governor Rolph in a leader to-day. The article declared: — “Thurmond and Holmes were too guilty to be accorded the delightful _ interlude called American criminal justice. The mob is sick of a system that convicts 299 out of 300 law-abiding citizens for violating the automobile traffic regulations and then refuses to convict 79 out of 80 persons accused of murder.” Clerical bodies throughout the nation are making strong representations against Governor Rolph, with a few exceptions, notably that of Dr Henry Darlington, Rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York, who telegraphed Governor Rolph his congratulations. Dr Darlington explained that lie meant to commend the change from public indifference to visible expression. Kidnapping must be stopped. Clarence Darrow, whose brilliant legal defence of Loeb and Leopold a decade ago for a similar offence to the Hart murder saved them from the death penalty, commented: “I do not approve of capital punishment, which is merely legal lynching, so I can only condemn illegal lynching.”