Governor Ritchie's Clipping File on Lynching
msa_s1048_1_and_10-0627

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Governor Ritchie's Clipping File on Lynching
msa_s1048_1_and_10-0627

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"Through the window I saw them start toward the Courthouse, half carrying and half dragging the man." It was related that a Negro workman passing along the sidewalk beside the hospital saw the mob with its victim coming toward him and broke into , flight, leading the procession until it disappeared from the sight of those at the hospital. Developed Spontaneously Holland said that the authorities had no indication that a lynching was planned and that his investigation during the night produced evidences chat the mob developed spontaneously, when a small knot of men near the Courthouse, apparently discussing the murder of Mr. Elliott, a box manufacturer and lumber dealer, suddenly raised the cry "Let's lynch Williams!" They started toward the hospital, ¦where the man had been taken after his arrest for treatment to a self-inflicted bullent wound in his chest and .another wound in his head from a shot fired by the son of Mr. Elliott. Along the short march to the hospital the leaders were joined by groilps that ran from stores, from offices and from dwellings. Chief Holland said he followed the mob after it left the hospital and found Williams hanging from a tree, his head swathed in bandages and his white hospital gown flapping in the night wind. "There was no use for me to try to arrest anybody," Holland said, "because I was outnumbered too much. There were too many of them for one man to handle." Suspended 20 Minutes He reported to the State's Attorney that Williams was suspended from the tree for twenty minutes, after his body riad been raised and lowered at the end of the rope several times. The man, apparently dead, was then lowered, and the crowd, which then numbered about 2,000, marched away behind a group that was carrying the body toward the Negro section. On the way, the leaders stopped at the garage of the Red Star Bus Line and from a watchman demanded gasoline. The watchman protested that the pumps and tanks were locked and he could not open them, but this statement was met by a threat to break the locks. He then opened the pumps and the mob filled buckets and marched on to a vacant lot on a hill above the sec- with which the man was hanged. A nurse in the Negro ward pleaded with the six men who came in for Williams not to take him, according to the superintendent, Miss Helen Wise. Chestertown Case Up Monday, Delay Held Unnecessary [Special Dispatch to The Evening Sun] Chestertown, Dec. 5—Stephen R. Collins, State's Attorney for Kent county, said here today that the preliminary hearing in the case of George Davis, colored man indicted for an attempted attack on a white woman, will not be postponed as the result of the Salisbury lynching last night. The hearing is scheduled for Monday. Davis, however, will be kept at the City Jail in Baltimore during the hearing, the State's Attorney said. The hearing is merely to hear pleas as to the place and time of the trial, and there is no reason for removing Davis from Baltimore. The young colored man was taken to Baltimore some days ago after a Chestertown mob tried to find him and lynch him. It has been indicated that a change of venue plea will be entertained when the court convenes Monday. There is a great possibility, it was said, that the case will be moved to Elkton for trial. Davis will be represented by R. Hynson Rogers, appointed as defense counsel by the Circuit Court. Davis declined the offer made by Bernard Ades, attorney in the Lee murder case, to act as counsel for him also.