Governor Ritchie's Clipping File on Lynching
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Governor Ritchie's Clipping File on Lynching
msa_s1048_1_and_10-0391

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ating process that has been in progress for years." A threat has been made to summons Mr. Mencken before the coroner's jury, but the jury seems loath to meet, j Boycott Of Baltimore As a result the Baltimore'Sunpapers have served as fuel for bonfires and a retalitory boycott on Baltimore merchandise has been put into effect throughout the Eastern Shore counties. When the suggestion is made that such procedure smacks of trying to convict Mencken instead of the members of the mob and that a boycott on business for an editor's opinions is childish, Salisbury citizens express the opinion that, "we know what, we are doing," remark about Philadelphia being "a better and more accessable trade center" and declare "maybe it will all blow over if they will let us mind our own business." There have been statements that the Eastern Shore is ashamed of the lynching and mob spirit prevailing there. This writer found no outward shame, but rather a pride in what they prefer to call "our recent demonstration." Quiet, Orderly Affair The recurrent expression in Salisbury is: "It was a quiet, orderly affair. Not a shot was fired." The lynching took place under powerful electric lights in the heart of the town, but everyone this writer talked to either "couldn't see a thing but that Negro," or was "so excited" he didn't "recognize a soul." Two other stock phrases were encountered in the town. They were: "There is no race feeling here, the feeling is against the Sunpapers and outside interference." "We do not approve of lynching at all times, but our town is one hundred per cent, together on this demonstration and we want to be left alone." Cites Series Of Crimes Levin C. Bailey, State's Attorney for Wicomico county, told the Tribune reporter that the lynching of Williams was the culmination of a series of atrocious crimes along the Eastern Shore. He discussed the Yuel Lee case, in which a Negro was accused of having murdered a family of four, and the George Davis case, in which a Negro was accused of attempted attack on a white woman. These two crimes served to revive the mob spirit along the Shore. Yuel Lee, known locally as Orphan Jones, was captured soon after a chicken farmer named Green Davis, his wife and two daughters, were found murdered in a farmhouse near Berlin, Md., on October 12. Lee is said to have confessed the crime and later, after Bernard Ades, International Labor Defense lawyer, was sent to his rescue, declared he had signed the confession "without my glasses" and promptly denied any part in the crime. Beat Lawyer And Woman A Snow Hill (Md.) mob made three attempts to capture Lee, but failed and finally compromised by beating Lawyer Ades and a woman companion. After a second beating the lawyer ¦*-** to>«m anH was said to have prom-