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Maryk.id Gets a Nationa! Ad
The Free tetate of Maryland has duly and officially acted on the matter of the Negro lynched on Jan. 4 in Salisbury Courthouse Square after he had killed his white employer. One hundred and twenty witnesses were solemnly heard by the grand jury investigating the case; 70 of them testified in one day. In view of this latter rather considerable number, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that the grand jury reported: "We find that there is absolutely no evidence that can remotely connect anyone with the instigation or perpetration of the murder."
So commonplace has a finding of this nature become, after a grand jury session on a lynching, that it would be hardly worth comment if the state were not Maryland, and if Governor Ritchie and State's Attorney Bailey had not been so emphatic in their declarations that everything possible would be done to bring the lynchers to court. One wonders whether the examination of more than a hundred witnesses in a three-day session would give opportunity for quite the detailed investigation that might be required. It is worth noting, also, that our highly esteemed neighbor, the Baltimore Sun, had no editorial comment whatever to make on the grand jury findings.
After a lynching has taken place, a regular routine of indignant protest and do-nothing investigation has grown up. Maryland has dutifully followed the routine.—The Nation.
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