The Gary American

Cordie Cheek Quiz Will Be a Farce Many Tennesseeans Believe

New York--Charging that the pending investigation by Maury County, Tenn., authorities of the Cordie Cheek lynching on December 15 will be a "white-wash," Prof. Albert E. Barnett of Scarritt College, Nashville, who led a group of prominent white people to Washington recently to testify in favor of the Costigan-Wagner bill, declares that only federal action will bring the lynchers to justice.

Cheek was kidnapped and lynched after being absolved by a white grand jury of the charge he attempted assault on a white child.

In a letter to Walter White, secretary of the NAACP., Prof. Barnett writes; "The Maury County grand jury plans to investigate the lynching. The Davidson county authorities have taken action and are probably delaying in hope that the Maury County will take the initiative. Of course if the case goes into the Maury county courts it will be a straight whitewash'....In my estimation the Negroes who have the most valuable evidence in the case will be afraid to appear in court in Maury county, whereas they would appear in Davidson county. This, added to the hostility of the Maury county citizenship will make any trial staged down there a perfect farce. The case illustrates conclusively the ineffectiveness of our local courts in handling lynching cases and the absolute necessity of relief through federal action.

I wish it were possible to bring the sheriffs and prosecutors of Davidson and Maury counties to Washington under Senate subpoena and quiz them thoroughly before the committee."

In a letter to Senator Van Nuys, chairman of the judiciary sub-committee conducting hearings on the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill, Prof. Barnett urges that the Maury and Davidson Co. officials be hailed to Washington for cross-examination. "Citizens here have raised $1000 to employ a special prosecutor," Prof. Barnett writes: "but it is not improbable that the prosecutor will block his functioning, and he himself has on at least one occasion publicly condoned the lynching. Let me reiterate the conviction expressed in my statement to the committee that the fine on the county in which a lynching takes place is the most effective provision of this (Costigan-Wagner) bill. As a citizen and a taxpayer, I want to help indemnify the family of mob victims."