Huntsville has had its share of lynchings in the past. Within twenty years seven Negroes and one white man had been the victims of mobs in Madison County. The best citizens knew what a lynching meant; they knew how the mob began, and what invariably followed its excesses, and they wanted no more such horrors. But this revolt was not wholly moral. With awakening industrial ambition the people realised that disorder had a tendency to frighten away capital, stop immigration, and retard development generally. Good business demands good order. This feeling has been expressed in various forms and through many channels. It existed in Statesboro, but it was by no means as vigorous as in this manufacturing city of Huntsville. We find, for instance, Congressman Richardson of Alabama, a citizen of Huntsville, saying in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives:
“Why, Mr. Chairman, we have more reason in the South to observe the law and do what is right than any other section of this Union.”
The Atlanta Constitution presents the same view in vigorous language:
Aside entirely from the consideration of the evil effects of the mob spirit in breeding general disrespect for the law, and aside from the question of the inevitable brutalising effect of lynching upon those who are spectators—and the effect goes even further—the practical question arises: Can we at the South afford it?
Is there any use blinding ourselves to the fact, patent to everybody, that it is this sort of thing that has kept hundreds of thousands of desirable immigrants from coming to the Southern states?
Story of a Bold Judge
When the murderer of the peddler Waldrop was arrested, therefore, the thoughtful and progressive people of the city—the kind who are creating the New South—took immediate steps to prevent mob disturbance. The city was fortunate in having an able, energetic young man as its circuit judge—a judge, the son of a judge, who saw his duty clearly, and who was not afraid to act, even though it might ruin his immediate political future, as, indeed, it did. Rare qualities in these days! The murder was committed Tuesday, September 6th, the Negro was arrested Wednesday, Judge Speake impanelled a special grand jury without waiting a moment, and that very afternoon, within six hours after the Negro’s arrest and within twenty hours after the crime was committed, the Negro was formally indicted. Arrangements were then made to call a special trial jury within a week, in the hope that the prospect of immediate punishment would prevent the gathering of a mob.
A Record of Homicide as a Cause of Lynching
But, unfortunately, we find here in Madison County not only a history of lynching—a habit, it may be called—but there existed the same disregard for the sacredness of human life which is the common characteristic of most lynching communities, South or North. I made a careful examination of the records of the county. In the five years preceding this lynching, no fewer than thirty-three murder and homicide cases were tried in the courts, besides eight murderers indicted, but not arrested. This is the record of a single county of about forty thousand people. Notwithstanding this record of crime, there had not been a legal hanging in the county, even of a Negro, for nineteen years. It was a fact—well known to everybody in the county—that it was next to impossible to convict a white man for killing. Murderers employed good lawyers, they appealed their cases, they brought political friendships to bear, and the relationships between the old families were so far extended that they reached even into the jury room. As a consequence, nearly every white murderer went free. Only a short time before the lynching, Fred Stevens a white man, who shot a white man in a quarrel over a bucket of water, was let out with a fine of $50, costs, and thirty days in jail. This for a killing. And the attorney for Stevens actually went into court afterward and asked to have the costs cut down.
Negroes who committed homicide, though more vigorously punished than white murderers, yet frequently escaped with five or ten years in the penitentiary—especially if they had money or a few white friends. All this had induced a contempt of the courts of justice—a fear that, after all, through the delays and technicalities of the law and the compassion of the jury, the murderer of Waldrop would not be punished as he deserved. This was the substance of the reasoning I heard repeatedly: “That Negro, Maples, ought to have been hanged; we were not sure the jury would hang him; we hanged him to protect ourselves.”