In Texas

NEGROES In Texas A crime is committed. A Negro suspect is arrested and lodged in jail. A business-like crowd gathers and demands the prisoner. The sheriff protests. The crowd seizes the Negro, drags him to a tree, ties a rope around his neck, hoists him in air, riddles his body with bullets--newspapers carry stories of this kind from time to time. But this account of what happened last week in Dallas is of a rarer type, at least in the newspapers: Two men were murdered, two women assaulted. Two Negroes, Frank and Lorezo Noel, were arrested, charged with the crimes. The prisoners were placed in the county jail at Dallas. A few curious onlookers gathered before the jail. Allegedly, a crowd was attracted when a maudlin drunken woman started to shrill a popular song. The crowd laughed and joked with a few deputies who lounged before the jail. The crowd continued to grow. Agitators began to circulate in it. A call was promptly sent out for fire apparatus, which came to the spot. The crowd increased to some 5,000. The firemen began to spray them with hoses. The crowd took its wetting and charged. The leaders were seized and escorted inside, where they could dry off in cells. About 100 were thus seized, including one well-dressed woman. The crowd began to withdraw. Suddenly, word came to the defenders that another crowd was gathering to storm the jail from the rear. Firemen dragged their hoses around and laid down a barrage of water. The crowd countered with a barrage of bricks, bottles, rocks. Some of the attackers got close enough to use brass knuckles. Forty policemen and firemen were scraped, bruised. Someone in the surging crowd fired a revolver. In desperation, the police fired over the heads of the crowd. Five of the attackers fell wounded--one shot through the chest, one in the arm, two in the leg, one cut on the arm. The crowd drew back, muttered, gradually dispersed. The Negroes--and 100 rioters --remained secure in jail. Next morning, a company of the National Guard was on hand with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles, tear bombs, ammonia bombs, machine guns. The Dallas Morning News published a front-page cartoon: A man (Anarchy) butting his head against a stone wall (The Law). Judge C. A. Pippen, who will preside over the Negroes' trial, declared: "I had believed and sincerely wished that the time had come when the great and good men of Dallas County put first, above everything else in the world, the upholding of this Government, its courts and its constituted authorities. But, if I am correctly advised, on last night an effort was made, or a demonstration against the courts, its officers and all those things which men should prize. . . . "Certain individuals have been indicted for horrible and heinous crimes. Their cases have been set for trial on the first possible day on which they could be tried. They will be tried by a jury of Dallas County men. It is my intention, and I assume the responsibility for the same, to surround them and this courthouse with men whose courage has been tried and tested, and who, under their oath of office, will do their duty. . . . "I pray unto the God who made me that the men of this county will stop and reason among themselves to the end that there will be no more bloodshed ; and that this great state and county will maintain and keep its reputation for peacefulness among the Commonwealths of this Republic."