to pay him back by giving him nine months of his labor. The Negro thereupon enters upon the performance of this contract, but fails for some reason, not stated, to finish it. How long he worked does not appear either, but this much does. He is haled into Court a second time and a second time a fine is imposed upon him. And again an employer, who is opportunely present at the second trial, pays the fine. The Negro now binds himself to the service of this second man for fourteen months, which, to use a slang expression, is surely “going some.” At this stage of the game, however, the United States Government stepped into the case, otherwise a third charge might have been preferred in due time, and again the term of involuntary service lengthened, and so on ad infinitum until death released the victim. This is a well-known Southern method for multiplying Negro criminals to meet the demands of Southern employers of cheap labor. It is a danger to which every colored man is exposed in the South, because Southern Courts are as a rule administered in the interest of the employer class wherever the Negro is concerned. There have been a few notable instances of Southern Judges who have refused to lend their Courts to this iniquitous business, like Judge Emory Speer, of Georgia, and the late Judge Jones, of Alabama, but such examples are like angels’ visits—few and far between in that land of race repression and oppression. [Pg 11] Take another and different case, which is common enough in the South also. It is, like the preceding clipping, taken from the Washington Post: LYNCHED BY MOB OF 1,000. Little Girl’s Assailant Dragged From Jail as Troops Are Assembling. Little Girl’s Assailant Dragged From Jail as Troops Are Assembling. Shreveport, La., May 12.—Edward Hamilton, colored, held on the charge of attacking a 10-year old white girl, was taken from the parish jail shortly after noon and lynched. For three hours a mob of 1,000 men and boys stood in the rain outside the jail doors, hammering away with a heavy railroad iron at the barrier. Steel saws finally were used, and entrance was gained by the mob. Sheriff J. P. Flourney had telegraphed the governor for troops and orders had been sent the Shreveport company of the national guard to report for
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