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LEAGUE ifl APPEAL TOGOVr RITCHIE
Officials Of The 'International La bor Defense League Have Declai ed They Will Appeal To The Governor For Further Investiga ticn Of The Lynching Of Matthew Williams.
Salisbury Mar. 19 '(#>)-—Officials of the International Labor Defense League declared today they would appeal to Governor Kitchie for further invest igation of the lynching of Matthew Williams, negro, in Salisbury last December.
The League officials said they would demand an investigation into .the death of Jacob Conquest, negro patient in the hospital ward from which Williams was taken and lynched and the disappearance of Ku'_is Jernigan another negro who was in the ward.
The second demand which the League said would be made to the governor was the impaneling of a "new jury of white and negro workers and poor farmers to investigate" certain county Wicomico officials who Louis Berger, Secretary of the Baltimore Branch of the League asserted were in the lynching mob
Williams was lynched a short time after he had slain his employer, Daniel J. Elliott, wealthy Salisbury lumberman. The Wicomico County grand jury yesterday completed a four-day inquiry into the lynching with a report that it could not place blame for the mob action.
Conquest and Jerigan were on the original list of 102 witnesses called by state's attorney Levin C. Bailey of Wicomico county and attorney gen eral W. Preston Lane, Jr., who assisted in the lynching inquiry at the request of Governor Ritchie.
Both of the negroes were ill n the ward of the Pennsula General Hospital where Williams was taken after he had wounded himself following the killing of Elliott. Conquest later died and Jernigan whose home was in Con necticut, could not be located in time to appear befoe the jury.
State's Attorney Bailey said during the jury inquest that any person having irr'ormaton \n regard to the lyn-cHtig would be welcomed before the body, and that the investigation was as thorough as several months of intensive inquiry could make it. He said before tho jury reported that in-less indictments were found by it. the inquiry would be officially closed unless a.-ditional information was uncovered.
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