Richmond Planet

UPHOLDING THE LAW.

When the officers of the law of Halifax County, Virginia uphold the law and prevent the lynching of a Negro charged with killing a white man the day of lynching in Virginia has gone never to return.

Help was sought by the officers from South Boston, Va., a progressive Virginia town and the response was prompt and effective. A party of white men, ready to uphold the law lost no time in appearing at the Houston, Virginia jail and in dispersing the mob of men who sought to lynch Joseph Coleman a progressive colored man of that historic county.

We congratulate the county officials and we have no need to congratulate Judge Barksdale, one of the ablest and most respected jurists in this State. He has the courage of his convictions and if he believes a man is innocent, be he white or black there will be no conviction that can stand in his court. This mob had no excuse for its action. The jury to try a prisoner is composed of white men; the prosecuting attorney is a white man; the trial judge is a white man and the higher court to which an appeal is to be made is composed of white men. This removes then the last excuse for a lawless trial by a lawless body of white men.

The most fiendish part of the whole affair was the burning of Joseph Coleman's home and his barn and his corn by these lawless parties. This crime of arson is a felony and the men engaged in it should be apprehended and punished. The sheriff of the county states plainly that there is no evidence against Joseph Coleman that he committed the murder as charged. Still he is married away from his family, his property destroyed and his life threatened. There is only one way to stop this kind of business and that is to find the men guilty of the crime and to arrest, try and convict them.

We have always insisted that the proper place to punish a mob and its leaders is at the place of their crime. When mob leaders are shot down at the jail that they are assailing, the trial, conviction and execution of the sentence take place at once and no further investigation is necessary.

God grant that the spirit displayed may permeate every office-holder in the State and that the law-abiding citizens of Houston and South Boston may receive the praise and recognition to which they are entitled. Lynch-law must go!