Reaching the Limit

Title

Reaching the Limit

Source Type

Newspapers

Publisher

Deadwood Pioneer-Times

Publication Place

Deadwood, SD

Publication Date

REACHING THE LIMIT. A North Carolina Judge, in charging a Grand Jury the other day, went into the subject of mob law and lynching and denounced the prevailing practices in many sections of the South in scathing terms. He carried the argument commonly advanced in justification of summary methods to its logical conclusion when he declared that, "if this thing is permitted to go on, then 100 or 200 bad men can get together and lynch a good man, just as good men can lynch a bad man." His concluding words were: "Where is the limit?" The manifest answer is: "In a race war." The authorities of Elmore county, Alabama, appear determined to stamp out lynching in that locality before this limit is reached. Reference has already been made to the case of a lyncher who had been found guilty, at Wetumpka, in that county, of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. The Elmore county officials, working in commendable harmony, and apparently sustained by public opinion, have kept up the good work until four members of the mob which lynched the negro Robert White have been sent to prison for terms varying from ten years to life. A noteworthy feature of this action is the fact that the punishment inflicted upon the culprits is fixed by the jury, and their severity is a satisfactory indication of the state of public sentiment in that section.