Letters: Oct. 27, 1930

Lynching Enumeration Sirs:

I note in TIME for Oct. 6 that you list the lynching of Willie Kirkland, on Sept. 25 at Thomasville, Ga., as the sixteenth lynching of 1930.

According to our records, copy of which is enclosed, this lynching was the twenty-first of the year. Since Kirkland was lynched there have been two additional ones—Lacy Mitchell, on Sept. 27, also at Thomasville, Ga., shot to death by a masked and robed band for testifying against two white men who were charged with rape upon a colored woman; and on Oct.1, John Willie Clark was lynched at Cartersville, Ga., charged with the murder of the Chief of Police.

The Cartersville, Ga., lynching makes the twenty-third authenticated lynching of the year.

There are five additional cases of which investigation has not yet been completed. . . .

This recrudescence in lynching, which has taken eleven victims more than were killed during all of 1929, is, we are certain you will agree, an appalling one. We trust that TIME, with its usual careful attention to details, will make such inquiry as it wishes into the facts. . . .

WALTER WHITE Acting Secretary

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

New York City

The N. A. A. C. P. list:

Name Date Place Manner of Lynching

Name Date Place Manner of Lynching

1. Jimmy Irvine (Levine) Feb. 1 Ocilla, Ga. Beaten to death

2. J. H. Wilkins Apr. 5 Locust Grove, Ga. Beaten to death 3. Dave Harris Apr. 23 Gunnison, Miss. Shot

4. Allen Green Apr. 24 Walhalla, S. C. Shot

5. John Hodaz (white) Apr. 27 Plant City, Fla. Hanged &Shot

6. George Hughes May 9 Sherman, Tex. Burned (in jail)

7. George Johnson May 16 Honey Grove, Tex. Shot (body burned)

8. Henry Argo May 31 Chickasha, Okla. Shot

9. Bill Roan June 18 Bryan, Tex. Shot

10. Dan Jenkins June 21 Union, S. C. Shot

11. Jack Robertson June 28 Round Rock, Tex. Shot

12. Esau Robertson July 4 Emelle, Ala. Hanged

13. S. S. Mincey July 22 Mount Vernon, Ga. Beaten to death

14. Thomas Shipp Aug. 7 Marion, Ind. Hanged &Shot

15. Abraham Smith Aug.7 Marion, Ind. Hanged & Shot

16. Oliver Moore Aug. 19 Tarboro, N.C. Hanged & Shot

17. George Grant Sept. 8 Darien,Ga. Shot

18. Pig Lockett Sept. 10 Scooba, Miss. Hanged

19. Holly Hite Sept. 10 Scooba, Miss. Hanged

20. M. C. Whitley Sept.12 Rhyne, Ga. Shot

21. William Kirkland Sept. 25 Thomasville, Ga. Hanged

22. Lacy Mitchell Sept. 27 Thomasville, Ga. Shot

23. John Willie Clark Oct. 1 Cartersville, Ga. Hanged

Of the above 23 listed by N. A. A. C. P., TIME recognizes 18 as lynchings. Beginning with Willie Kirkland as TIME’S sixteenth, John Willie Clark made seventeen (TIME, Oct. 13) and Bill Roan (No. 9 on above list) must be added, making 18. Bill Roan, accused of rape of a white woman, was seized and shot by what newsmen first reported as a sheriff’s posse. Later investigation showed that the killers had not been legally deputized, were therefore lynchers.

N. A. A. C. P. is no doubt conservative. TIME is more conservative. In enumerating lynchings TIME differentiates between premeditated mob murders in which the Law is cowed, and spontaneous racial murders by individuals which, as crimes of passion, approximate any ordinary murder elsewhere. The five cases which TIME does not include in its strictly-lynching list are:

J. H. Wilkins (No. 2), Pullman porter, was found dead near the railroad track between Atlanta & Macon. Obviously he had been removed from his train, murdered, but evidence of a lynching mob was lacking.

Jack Robertson (No.11) quarreled with a white man over wages, shot him. White spectators shot Robertson down in his tracks as he was trying to escape.

S. S. Mincey (No. 13), local G. O. Politician, was kidnaped, beaten by a masked mob. He died the next day from concussion of the brain.

M. C. Whitley (No. 20) is unknown at Rhyne, Ga. On the day before at Rhine, Ga., a mob seized M. C. Wylie, accused of rape, shot him thrice, failed to kill him. He is now recovering in jail at Eastman, Ga.

Lacy Mitchell (No. 22) was a witness against two white men accused of raping a Negro woman. He was shot to death by four men, friends of the two defendants, who were arrested, charged with his murder.

Tuskegee Institute to date lists 21 lynchings. Of those listed by N. A. A.C.P., omits Nos. 2 & 20 (see above).

—Ed.

Guilty Dummies Sirs: As a TIME subscriber, and a cover-to-cover reader, I want to enter protest against the last paragraph of your interesting and vivid report and description of the goodwill tour of 1,000 businessmen, 20 mi. at sea off Norfolk, Va., which appeared in your issue of Sept. 22, p. 41.

You say—”Orations over, the dummies were (Continued on p. 8) lynched . . . while 1,000 businessmen cheered this notable method of doing away with depression.” Crime, and especially that of lynching, is rapidly increasing in this Country, and is causing a great deal of thought and worry to patriotic citizens, and more directly to those whose duty it is to suppress it and to enforce the law. TIME goes into many homes and is read by many many people of all ages and classes. Who can measure the bad psychological effect this paragraph of yours will have on the young mind and upon the minds of the ignorant and unthinking masses—that portion of the population so much given to violating the law? I can hardly imagine 1,000 businessmen, good and true, and the Governor of Virginia, onetime law professor in one of the oldest universities in the country, participating in the lynching of even dummies, and thereby, in a way, approving the rapidly increasing crime of mob violence.

Old Man Depression, Old Lady Pessimism, and their daughter Miss Fortune are bad and undesirable characters, and my protest is not against the little business drama in which they were gotten rid of, and in which the Virginia governor played a stellar role, but against your calling the manner of their riddance a lynching.

Now as a matter of fact, were these dummies lynched? You report the Governor as saying to them. . . . “You have been found guilty of subterfuge and as undesirable aliens. . . .” This implies that they had had a fair trial and had been found guilty. Why call it a lynching? Perhaps I am a bit hypercritical in this matter; if so, it is because I hate to see my iavorite periodical publish anything that tends to have a bad psychological effect upon the ignorant, the moron, and the unthinking masses.

R. T. HAMILTON Dallas, Tex.

Subscriber-Dr. Hamilton need have no fear. TIME’S psychological effect upon the ignorant, the moron, the unthinking masses is practically nil.—ED.

Cold-blooded Fiends of Hell

Sirs: . . . One Warwick M. Tompkins tells of the wanton destruction of 17 whales in 17 shots from the bow of the boat Wander Bird of which he signs himself “Master.” Whether or not this story of the wanton destruction of these 17 whales is romance or reality, I am not able to say, but it fully illustrates the wanton cold-blooded cowardly inhuman heartless and soulless manner in which man has ever destroyed without provocation the creatures God created for man’s benefit.

The buffalo, the elk, the deer, the bear, the beautiful and harmless passenger pigeon have all been ruthlessly slaughtered by these cold-blooded fiends of hell who called themselves men and “sportsmen” like Mr. Boat-Master Thompson himself and his no less gusty companions. Shame on” such men and shame on a so-called civilization that produces them.*0. D. HILL

Kendalia, W. Va.

Per Troy Ounce

Sirs:

As a subscriber to your journal since its beginning, I wish for the first time to take exception to a statement made in the Oct. 6 issue on p. 51 under the caption, “Gold Report.”

You give the price of gold as $20.67183462 per five ounces. This is certainly a bad mistake since the price of gold is $20.67-plus per troy ounce and this of course is for pure gold. The settling price for gold by smelters is frequently considerably less due to the fact that pure gold does not exist in nature. . . .

H. A. WAGNER President

American Association of Engineers

Chicago, Ill.

Fosdicks

Sirs: “Pop” Frank S. Fosdick benign, sage, well-loved father of Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick—”Timalysed” in your issue of Oct. 6, was for years (28) principal of Hasten Park High School {Continued on p. 12) in Buffalo. He showed many an adolescent striveling the way to learn, to live, to attain. . . . Never was “Pop” Fosdick, Superintendent of the Buffalo Schools, as you state erroneously on p. 71. N. B. I believe his father held the office of Superintendent of Schools for a time.

Thousands in Buffalo, and wherever Masten graduates are, are glad he was their principal, not a more distant superintendent.

Masten Park is now the Fosdick-Masten High School of Buffalo in memory of this remarkable father at whose feet thousands of youngsters sat, inspired, as now do thousands at the feet of his remarkable son.

IRVIN H. HIMMELE

Buffalo, N. Y.

TIME erred. Dr. Fosdick’s father’s father was onetime Superintendent of Schools in Buffalo.—ED.

Two Jurists

Sirs:

On p. 17 of your Oct. 6 issue you build for me a reputation based on the record of Hon. Wallace McCamant of Portland, Ore. I know that both he and I would feel more comfortable resting on our own foundations.

KENNETH MACKINTOSH

Washington, D. C.

Kenneth Mackintosh was born in Seattle in 1875, graduated from Stanford University in the same class (’95) with Herbert Clark Hoover. In 1918 he was named as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Washington, became its chief justice in 1927. An active Republican, he was nominated for the Senate in 1928, was defeated by Democratic Senator Clarence C. Dill. In 1929 he resigned from the bench to accept appointment by President Hoover as a National Law Enforcement Commissioner.

Wallace McCamant was born at Hollidaysburg, Pa. in 1867, graduated from Lafayette College, removed to Portland, Ore. where he practiced law. For 23 years he served as master in chancery for the U. S. District Court. For 17 months he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Oregon. An active Republican, he attended as a delegate the National Conventions of 1896, 1900, 1920. At the last he began a political feud with Senator Hiram Johnson by nominating Calvin Coolidge for the Vice Presidency. In 1925 President Coolidge nominated him for the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Senate refused to confirm the nomination.

These two were inextricably confused by TIME when reporting Law Enforcement Commissioner Mackintosh’s plea that the Commission “go to the guts of this whole Prohibition Question.” TIME, having reprimanded its National Affairs Editor, gladly returns each Jurist to his own foundation, with apologies.—ED.

Again, Wilshire

Sirs:

Referring to Wilshire Boulevard of Los Angeles, mentioned by a correspondent in TIME of Sept. 29 issue, p. 12, can any citizen of that (Continued on p. 53)

(Continued from p. 12)

city explain why this magnificent thoroughfare is as barren as a desert of trees, shrubbery, flowers or grass? With these embellishments Wilshire Boulevard would be without a rival among the capitals of the world. Is it the lack of water for irrigation purposes from which Los Angeles suffers that prevents greenery? In my admiration of this wonderful Boulevard I have often wondered why this absence of parking.

AUGUST FAST

Denver, Col.

Oregon’s Hawley

Sirs:

Will TIME be good enough to give us a brief history of the record and activities of W. C. Hawley, Congressman from the 1st Oregon district?

A. M. DALRYMPLE W. W. CAIRNESS FRANK C. FERGUSON S. B. MILLS W. F. BROWN.

Salem, Ore.

The record of Representative Willis Chatman Hawley of Oregon is as follows:

Born: near Monroe, Ore., May 5, 1864.

Start in life: schoolteacher.

Career: His parents went West by the Oregon Trail, hewed out a farm near Monroe. Aged 15, he chopped wood for a professorial neighbor who read him the Congressional Record, fired him with an ambition to sit in the House of Representatives. That ambition guided his early life. Graduated by Willamette University at Salem, Ore. (1884), he taught school, went on chautauqua circuits, made political friends. Aged 21, he married Anna M. Geisendorfer who bore him two sons, one daughter. (His son Cecil (“Stu”), chief road man for Texas Co., last summer set a New York-Los Angeles round trip automobile record of 141 hrs. in a Buick.) He served as president of Oregon State Normal School (1888-91), president of Willamette University (1893—1902). Studying law on the side, he was admitted to the bar in 1894. By 1906 he had sufficiently cultivated his district to get himself elected to Congress where he has served continuously ever since.

In Congress: Seniority of service (23 years) has advanced him to the Republican chairmanship of the potent House Ways & Means Committee where all tax and tariff legislation originate. Though his position is outranked only by those of the Speaker, the Majority Floor Leader, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, he does not exercise an influence on the House equal to his high rank. In committee younger members like New Jersey’s Bacharach supply the real driving force.

He voted for: Tax Reduction (1922, 1924, 1927, 1929), Boulder Dam (1928), Farm Relief (1929), the Jones (“Five & Ten”) law, Reapportionment (1929), Tariff (1929, 1930).

He voted against: Farm Relief (1928).

He votes Dry, drinks Dry.

As chairman of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, he has a supervisory power over the Treasury’s large tax refunds.

Occasionally in a volley of statistics he defends these refunds against Democratic attack.

The only famed legislation that bears his name is the 1930 Tariff Act (“Hawley-Smoot”) of which he is proud.

In appearance he is heavyset, heavy-jowled, almost bald. He lumbers when he walks. His dress is plain, neat. No orator, he speaks cautiously and without humor. His political motto: “Don’t rock the boat.” Out of Congress: He lives frugally at the Woodley Apartments in Washington, avoids society. He is uneasy among strangers, has few close friends. His hobby: solitaire. He smokes inexpensive cigars, is a devout Methodist, rides to the Capitol on the street car. He holds a part-time paid position on the national council of the Woodmen of the World. Each year he saves some of his $10,000 Congressional salary.

Impartial House observers rate him thus: a steady-going unimaginative partisan plodder, thoroughly conservative in his fiscal policies.

An experienced industrious legislator, an expert in government economics he lacks the personality to be a leader with bold initiative.—ED.

*They are not men but soulless monsters in human form.