Move to Punish Duluth Lynchers.
Type of event: Lynchings
Location: Duluth; St. Louis County; Minnesota; United States
Citation:
New York Times, June 17, 1920, page 3.
“Move to Punish Duluth Lynchers”
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Move To Punish Duluth
Lynchers.
Rigid Inquiry Is Planned as City
Come to Order and Troops Control.
Women Aid
Authorities.
Thirteen Negroes Held After
Triple Hanging–Similar Attack Followed
Circus at South Bend.
Special to The New York Times.
DULUTH, Minn., June 16 – This little city at the head
of the Lakes, lacking the excuse of the “hot blooded” South, and
appalled by the frenzy which took hold of its leading citizens last night. Is
tonight trying to read just itself and come to the realization that the
ringleaders of the mob which hanged three Negroes on its principal thoroughfare
must be punished.
Duluth is normal again, after a day
of revelry which ended in tragedy for it was revelry that brought about the
lynching and set the city in turmoil.
“No one
thought they would do it,” say the witnesses to the
hanging.
The crowd which “attended” the
hanging bee was like a crowd attending a carnival. Giggling boys and girls
looked skyward today where the bodies of the Negroes swung during the hours
before daylight. The police, restored to authority by the mob itself after the
purpose of the lynch law “court” had been accomplished, cut down the
bodies at dawn.
There will be no further disorder, and
the lynchers will allow the law to take its course in the cases of three other
Negroes whom the mob let go and those since held in connection with the crime
against a seventeen-years-old girl which caused the midnight
hanging.
Ten Negroes arrested in Virginia, Minn., and
hidden in a farmhouse near the city were brought to Duluth today and placed in
the city jail. Two companies of State troops escorted the automobiles
containing the prisoners, but no one offered resistance to the officers of the
law.
While the city was returning to its normal state
the wheels of justice were in motion. Sixty warrants were sworn out against the
Negroes still to be tried.
None of the Lynchers Arrested.
No arrests have been made of any one alleged to have
participated in the lynching, but an investigation, backed by the judges of the
courts and other citizens, is under way.
Officials
said tonight that the investigation would be slow, because of the attitude of
the citizens.
“It is impossible to get even an
official to sign a warrant,” said William Murnian, Commissioner of Public
Safety. “Those who say they are willing to sign were not witnesses, but
citizens who were at home and in bed.”
The
Judges of the District Court, who propose to site the affair to the bottom are
handicapped by public sentiment. An extra session of the Grand Jury has been
called for tomorrow morning, and those who declare the city must redeem itself
are busy seeking witnesses who will go before the jury. These are hard to
find.
It was stated that the hanging would be
investigated, but that the jury would go further and make a general inquiry into
the Police Department.
Citizens say that all day long
yesterday, while the Negroes were being held in the city jail and certain
trouble was brewing, no attempt was made to remove the prisoners for places of
safety. One jurist declared that for two hours before the lynching an
automobile with a rope tied to it paraded Superior Street, where the hanging
took place, in quest of recruits to “attend a lynching at the police
station.”
District Judge W. A. Cant, who is
leading the minority in the demand for punishment of the mob leaders, was one
who made an appeal to the crowd while the frenzy was at its height. Two
Catholic priests joined him, but the three were pushed aside by the mob with
cries of ”Get out of the way!” “Lynch the black
snakes!”
Judge Bert Fesler, an another part of
the crowd, asked citizens to assist him in stopping the hanging, and, although a
few responded, most of them would do nothing. All were bent on
“getting” the Negroes.
That the Police
Department was inadequate to handle the situation was the assertion of
Commissioner of Safety Murnain. It was only because Murnain issued strict
orders that no firearms were to be used by the police that bloodshed was
averted. It was realized that the first shot would have been followed by an
attack on the police insignificant in numbers compared with the mob of 5,000
which stormed the jail and filled the adjoining streets.
Police Called to Account.
As it was twelve of the police were injured by flying stones
and bricks. Police Sergeant Oscar Olson was the only officer roughly handled.
He strove to the last to protect the blacks and finally was carried fighting out
of the jail and backed into the crowd, where he was placed under a
guard.
John Murphy, Chief of Police, who was out of
the city, returning from Virginia with the other Negroes arrested called his
assistants on the carpet today to lay the blame for inactivity while the mob was
gathering.
The blood lust of the mob was evidently
satisfied when the last of the three Negroes had been strung up, for the
unmasked rioters disappeared as if by magic.
Today all
lips are sealed. If among the thousands of citizens who are going about their
daily work there are those who pulled the ropes around the necks of the Negroes,
no one is the wiser. The mob is keeping its own counsel.
Women Urge Punishment.
Women of Duluth joined civic organizations today in the
effort to punish the mob leaders. The Kiwanis Club adopted the following
resolutions.
“The Kiwanis Club, in common with
all right-thinking people, deplores the shocking outrage perpetrated in out city
on the night of June 14 by six men, but even more deplorable, shameful and
barbarous was the hideous crime committed on June 15 by lawless mob of men who
make our city their home.
“Duluth has been
disgraced before the world, and every decent citizens has been made to hand his
head in shame. They have outraged civilization, humiliated and disgraced their
city and made themselves loathsome
criminals.
“The Kiwanis Club denounces every
person who participated in the crime of the mob and pledges its unanimous
support to the officials who will strive to bring the stern justice every person
connected with the crime.”
Tonight the County
Jail, where the Negro prisoners are being held, is guarded by a tank company
from Fort Snelling. Home Guards are on duty in other parts of the city, armed
with machine guns and with orders to shoot to kill should any further trouble
start.
The young girl who was attacked by the Negroes
is in a serious condition, but is expected to
recover.
Chief of Police Murphy added to the sensation
of the day by declaring that his investigation at Virginia, Minn., where the
circus which brought the doomed Negroes to Duluth played today proved that
McGhie, the first Negro hanged here, was innocent.
The
three other Negroes, whom the lynchers turned back to the authorities, are
Lonnie Williams, John Thomas and Henry Richardson. All are said to have come
from Southern plantations before being employed by the traveling circus, known
as the Robinson Shows.
A score of automobiles carrying
members of last night’s mob had scoured the country all the way to
Virginia from Duluth in an effort to seize other Negro employes of the circus
who might have taken part in the attack on the girl here.
Attacked a Girl at South Bend.
SOUTH BEND, Ind., June 16 Negores employed by the same circus
as the three who were lynched in Duluth last night, following an attack on a
white girl, attempted to assault Helen Penrod of South Bend when the show as in
this city on June 7.
The assailants of the South Bend
girl escaped, being hidden by companions, the police said here
today.
The National Association for Advancement of
Colored People yesterday telegraphed to Governor Burnquist of Minnesota its
commendation on his actions in sending State troops to Duluth, where the three
Negroes were lynched.
Governor Burnquist who is also
President of the St. Paul Branch of the Association, has been one of the staunch
supporters of its work. The national organization offered him the aid of its
328 branches and membership of 100,000 to help in running down the lynchers.
The association’s telegram, signed by James Woldon Johnson, its Field
Secretary, said in part.
“Prompt apprehension
said rigorous punishment of lynchers of Negroes and violators of the law of the
State of Minnesota will have a wholesome and salutary effect throughout the
nation. As Governor of State and President of St. Paul Branch of National
Association for Advancement of Colored People may we urge you to use every power
at your command to prevent further disorder and arrest lynchers? Commend action
in sending troops. Advise us if we can be of assistance. Can furnish staff
investigators if needed.”