Monday, Dec. 14, 1931
Eastern Shore Justice
The only way that Negro Matthew Williams knew to protest his low wages was to get a revolver, kill his boss. His boss was Daniel J. Elliott, 67-year-old lumber dealer of Salisbury, on the eastern shore of Maryland. Last week, a few hours after the crime, the Eastern Shore upheld its reputation for being a fringe of the Deep South. Six men marched into the hospital where Williams lay, only partly conscious because he had shot himself in the chest and his employer's son had shot him in the head. A mob of 2,000 turned out to see rough-&-ready justice done. They strung up the blackamoor, blinded by bandages, to a tree on the court house lawn. After 20 min. he was cut down, taken to a vacant lot, saturated with gasoline, set afire. Maryland, which has lynched 13 Negroes and one White in the past 45 years, had enjoyed a clean record since 1911.
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