RACIAL ENMITY IN U.S.A.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18619, 15 July 1930, Page 9

RACIAL ENMITY IN U.S.A.

Negro Families Punished. REPRISAL FOR CRIME AGAINST WHITES. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received July 14, 9.20 p.m.) VANCOUVER, July 14. A message from Erick (Oklahoma) states that twenty-five negroes and their families were driven out of town with scant belongLngs, at short notice, by a mob numbering hundreds, as a reprisal for a criminal attack and the slaying of a white married woman by a negro, in her employ, at a farm at Shamrock, in Texas. SAVING AMERICAN HONOUR. DEFEAT BY JUDGE LYNCH. Martin Maryland was in the dock at Montgomery, charged with a crime against a white woman. A jury of white men faced him. Outside and in the courtroom were stationed soldiers sent there by the Governor of Alabama to see that justice was done, that lynch law was not invoked. All the protection the Stare could provide was given to the Negro.

So Martin Maryland had the chance to establish his innocence to the satisfaction of judge, jury and prosecutor. It was a plain case of mistaken identity, and the solicitor announced that he could not conscientiously ask for conviction. The jury promptly brought in a verdict of acquittal, and Martin Maryland went forth a free man.

The State had, perhaps, saved a life, and, certainly, it had saved its honour.

And two Alabama papers were glad that justice was administered, that Martin Maryland lives, and that Judge Lynch had no opportunity to press for private vengeance, which, in this case, would have been wreaked against an innocent man.

“The hapless victim of circumstances," observes the “Montgomery Advertiser,” "had a close call, but not a closer call than the honour of the State. It is greatly to the credit of the State that this man was given adequate protection and the ordinary guarantees of a fair trial so metriculously enforced in this case.” There is nothing to brag about lu the acquittal, observes the “Birmingham Age-Herald.” For, ‘after all. the doing of justice under the law should be so much a matter of course that the mere colour of the defendant would not figure in the adjudication. But that is a principle which is sometimes upheld with difficulty. |md it is the fact that in this particular case it was maintained so strikingly that Alabamians find something to stir and stiffen them in their devotion to fairplay and a square deal for Negroes in and outside the court-room. So, in having a judge and a solicitor of this calibre, Montgomery County was enabled to prove that the law can be administered without discrimination. The only fly in the ointment is that justice was done under the protection of armed militiamen. That argues that we have considerable ground to cover before we shall have freed ourselves of the ugly shadow of lynch law. And until that time comes, our gratification in the splendid triumph of legal equality at Montgomery must be sobered by a 6ense of frustration. Unless ana until we are sure that no alien force can thrust itself into our courts and enforcement of law, we must remain conscious of a yawning gap in our

life. Thoughtful Southerners have reason to feel that a bridge is being rapidly erected over this chasm. But they will wait until passageway over it is the only path, before they are ready to rejoice in the redemption of this section from the blood lust of the mob.”