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MAKEUP OF GRAND JURY IS AH ACKED
International Labor Defense
League Attacks Jury—No
Negroes On It
BALTIMORE, March 16 (&).—The International Labor Defense League today sent to Judge Joseph L. Bailey, presiding jurist in the circuit court for Wicomico county, a telegram attacking the make up of the grand jury which went into session in Salisbury yesterday because it does not include negroes in its membership and assailing the jury as "seeking to protect the murderers of Matthew Williams."
The jury has been charged by Judge Bailey to investigate the lynching ot Williams, a negro laborer, who killed his employer in Salisbury last December. The telegram sent to Judge Bailey was signed by Louis Berger, secretary of the International Labor Defense League and said:
"Prominent citizens lynched Matthew Williams December 4. Judges and the entire Shore aristocracy gave repeated encouragement to mobs. These very same citizens now sit on the grand jury to investigate the lynching. Your remarks to the grand jury about the international labor defense justify our belief that the Shore mob leaders will be well covered, with you investigating our organization instead. The International Labor Defense regards an investigating body without negroes and poor farmers on it as a lynch jury, seeking to protect the murderers of Matthew Williams. We demand that a committee of negroes and white workers be permitted to investigate the lynching and also investigate the grand jury to learn whether any of its members were part of the lynch mob leaders."
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