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most widespread, necessary and beneficent of
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FOR THE RECORD
We are so accustomed to find accuracy joined with enlightenment in the editorial pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle- that it was a source of more than ordinary chagrin to find the Eagle's comment on the lynching at Salisbury last week distorted by a number of glaring errors of fact.
The Eagle charged Governor Ritchie with "flat refusal of protection to a Baltimore Negro lawyer, counsel for a Negro accused of murder in the Eastern Shore area." It also declared that no one remotely expected "any action by the Governor that will lead to the punishment of the lynchers." Aside from the fact that the Baltimore lawyer involved in the case was a white man and not a Negro, as the Eagle asserts, these inaccuracies reflect in particular on Governor Ritchie and in general on the State of Maryland, which has four times elected the Governor to its 1-ighest office. In the interest of accuracy and of fair play, it is in order to point out the errors upon which the accusations are based.
In making its charges the Eagle was evidently relying largely on the Governor's original statement of November 5, in which he deferred protection to Yuel Lee" and to his counsel, Bernard Ades, on the ground that it was not then necessary. Subsequent developments have, however, entirely caused the Governor to change his position, as the following chronology of events will show.
November 18—Governor IUtchie ordered out two companies of the Maryland National Guard and twenty-five State policemen to escort Lee and Ades to Cambridge and to maintain order during the trial, which was later postponed.
November 27—Attorney-General Lane, who has been working in close collaboration with the Governor, entered before the Circuit Court at Snow Hill a firm petition to have the Lee case transferred to another jurisdiction as a matter of constitutional right.
November 30—Governor Ritchie addressed a letter to the Circuit Court pointing out the necessity of protecting Ades and Lee and indicating that he intended to discharge his own responsibility in the matter regardless of the court's action.
December 5—Governor Ritchie ordered the Attorney-General to prosecute the members of the Salisbury mob which had lynched the Negro, Matthew Williams. At the same time he announced that he would maintain order at the trial of Yuel Lee whether the court requested protection or not.
This later record speaks for itself. It reveals the Governor and the legal officers acting under" his direction in vigorous opposition to mob violence and in stanch defense of the orderly processes of criminal jurisprudence. It is a record requiring no apology from the Governor or from the people who elected him to office.
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