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COUNTY GRAND JURYTO START INVESTIGATION OF MURDERS AND COMMUNISTS
In Charge To Tribunal Judge Bailey Instructs Jurors To Make
Sweeping Inquiry Into Elliott Murder, Lynching And
Communistic Agitation
REVIEWS "INTERFERENCE" AND "FALSE ACCUSATION" OF COMMUNISTS WHICH PRECEDED TWO CRIMES
List Of 102 Witnesses Summoned To Give Testimony Tomorrow;
Attorney General Lane To Assist State's Attorney
Bailey In Conducting Probe
The Wicomico county grand jury was instructed today to make a sweeping investigation into the murder of Daniel J. Elliott, prominent lumber manufacturer here on December 4, the lynching of Mathew Williams, negro, the confessed slayer of Mr. Elliott, and the activities of communist organizations which preceded these two crimes.
State's Attorney Levin C. Bailey handed Sheriff G. Murray Phillips a list of 102 witnesses, whose testimony is to be heard by the jury in making its investigations. The summons are returnable at 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
Attorney Gerleral William Preston Lane, who has co-operated with the county prosecutor in conducting a quiet investigation, will come to Salisbury to assist in placing the results of the probe before the grand jurors.
In a lengthy charge that consumed more than a half hour, Judge Joseph L. Bailey brtought Ithe two crimes and the communistic activities on the lower Eastern Shore to the attention of the grand jury. The jurist spoke'meditatively as though weighing his words well before speaking.
He reviewed the sequence of events which aroused the Shore following the mus-dc* of the fo«r members ** th« Green Davis family in adjacent Wor-cested county and the activities of the representatives of the International Labor Defense. While not referring to the communist organization by name, he spoke of "an organization with headquarters outside of this state, but with a branch with members in this state and recalled statements of the organization's members that the public officials were seeking to "legally lynch an innocent man charged with the crime of committing these four murders".
"To tne sting of foreign interference and I might say to the sting of false accusation the people not only of Worcester county but throughout this entire action of the state became much disturbed," Judge Bailey as-sertet.
It was during this turmoil, the jur-isit recalled, that Williams murdered the Salisbury manufacturer and was himself murde |
