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INQUEST SEEKS INSTIGATORS OF SHORE MURDERS
Judge Charges Jury To Sift Case That Result- , ed In Lynching
"FOREIGN" INFLUENCE IN CASE ALLEGED
Jurist Tacitly Lays Blame On Activities Of Communist Groups
lBj/ the Associated Press]
Salisbury, Md., March 14—Instructions to investigate not only the lynching of Matthew Williams, but to conduct a sweeping inquiry into events which led to the murder of Daniel J. Elliott, for which the colored man was lynched, were contained in the instructions of Judge Joseph L. Bailey to the grand jury today.
Judge Bailey, in giving his instructions, tacitly laid the blame for the murder and the subsequent lynching on the activities of Communist organizations throughout the Eastern Shore. The j urist did not name the International Labor Defense League, but his remarks were so conclusive that his designation of that organization was unnecessary.
The grand jury, charged with the investigation of the lynching, was organized with A. Percy White, former member of the House of Delegates from Wicomico county, as its chairman.
Hits Outside Interference
Judge Bailey, in charging the jury, declared that an inquiry into the "interference of outside organizations in this section of the State" demanded attention.
Williams was lynched by a mob of some 2,000 persons in the Courthouse green here the night of December 4 for the murder of his employer, Daniel J. Elliott, lumberman. The colored man was dragged from his bed in the Salisbury General Hospital a few hours after the murder.
The colored man at the time was suffering from two wounds, one self-inflicted and the other given him by Elliott's son, who saw him fleeing from the scene of the crime.
Speaks 35 Minutes
Judge Bailey, in his thirty-five-minute address to the jury, declared that "the interference of outside organizations in another case, and the subsequent delays in another criminal case, led to the inciting of mob spirit. False accusations were made against authorities of the Eastern Shore not only here but in counties further removed."
The jurist told the grand jury to investigate conditions in the sections affected, the murder of Elliott and the activity of Communist organizations in the district. It previously had been charged, without official sanction, that Communist organizations had held meetings on the Shore, at which speakers incited their hearers to action against what they termed "oppression." Accusations Stirred People
The Shore, Judge Bailey said, was "aroused" over these unjust accusations and "highly disturbed" over delay and "interference" in criminal action in "another case."
The murder of the Berlin family of Green K. Davis by a colored man, Orphan Jones, alias Euel Lee, was tacitly referred to by the jurist, although he did not mention it by name.
He declared that the delay wrought in the Lee-Davis case by the "outside organization" was to blame for the high feeling in Wicomico county which led to the lynching.
Bernard Ades, Baltimore attorney for the league, led the defense of Lee, and, with two companions, was beaten by a Snow Hill crowd and ordered to leave the Eastern Shore. He succeeded in having the case taken to the Court of Appeals on a change of venue petition and defended the colored man at his trial at Towson, at which he was convicted and sentenced to death. An appeal was taken.
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