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CHURCHMEN BAR LYNCHING REPORT
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Federal Council Declines to Publish Professor's Criticism of Eastern Shore Life
Salisbury, Md., March 11—The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America has withdrawn from publication the report of an investigation of a lynching here on December 4, prepared by Professor Broadus Mitchell, of Johns Hopkins University.
A communication from Samuel M. Cavert, General Secretary of the Council, says:
"As a result of counsel given us by friends of the Federal Council, we have not published Professor Mitchell's report in our weekly 'Information Service.' These friends have advised us that in view of misunderstandings created by discussion, the printing of the report in one of our own organs migh occasion still further misunderstanding by making it erroneously appear that Professor Mitchell's findings have been adopted as expressing the official judgments of the Federal Council, although the full text of the report had originally been scheduled to appear in the Federal Council's publication during the week of February 1."
Many educators, clergymen and civic officials of the Eastern Shore have strongly protested Professor Mitchell's report when it was released in January. The objections were chiefly to a section of the report which referred to the Eastern Shore as "backward in its mental and spiritual development."
The report followed an inquiry into the conditions surrounding the lynching of Matthew Williams, colored, after he had killed his employer and attempted to kill himself. He was taken by a mob from the Salisbury Hospital, hanged and burned at the courthouse.
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