Six Dead Men

Herrin--last week, six more men were killed there.

P: Two years ago, in June, 21 non-union miners were massacred by strikers at a coal mine near the town.

P: Last January, the Ku Klux Klan, which had obtained a foothold in that region, began a series of prohibition raids that almost brought on more riots. Glenn Young, the Klan leader, walked the strets with two guns openly strapped at his waist. Troops were called in to halt violence. Young was arrested a month later; when the troops had been withdrawn, a brush occurred in which one man was killed and several were wounded. Again troops, again court proceedings; then city elections, charges and counter charges, arrests and trials.

P: In May, 1924, Young and his wife were fired on while driving in his automobile. Both were wounded. Next day, a man named Skelcher, believed to have taken part in the armed fusilade against Young was shot to death, riddled with 30 bullets while riding in an automobile. Continuous trials of Klansmen and anti-Klansmen added to the tension.

P: The wounded Young's case came up last week. He was in Atlanta and pleaded ill-health. The court forfeited his bail and Klansmen who signed his bonds for $24,000 had to pay.

P: One morning during the trial of several men accused of killing Skelcher's father, a Klansman testified that he did not believe the accused were guilty, and the case was dismissed. Later the same day, the Sheriff and two deputies walked into the J. H. Smith Garage, said to be Klan headquarters, to seize a car said to have been used in the attack on Skelcher. Dewey Newbolt, a Klansman, was sitting within, four guns strapped to his waist. Everybody opened fire. Before the firing was over, six were dead and five wounded. More troops.

John Smith, owner of the garage, later swore out warrants and had the sheriff and two of his surviving deputies arrested charged with causing the fight, thirty-two other warrants for murder were also sworn.

How can such things happen in a civilized state like Illinois? Those who know Illinois by the rolling farm lands and the occasional placid town of its northern part are not equipped to judge the Southern part -- "Egypt", as it is known because of the city of Cairo at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Egypt is full of little hills and eminences, wooded overhead, peopled with rattlesnakes on the ground, honeycombed with mines beneath. Nearly everyone carries a revolver or automatic; nearly everyone is a deadly shot. It is necessary in order to support life. "Egypt" is like the Wild West, except that it is untamed. Those who judge the life of the early West by fiction had best go to "Egypt" and have a taste of it in fact.