Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1912 — COL ROOSEVELT ON DURBIN [ARTICLE]

COL ROOSEVELT ON DURBIN

Former President Commended Indiana’s Governor for His Btand for Law and Order. Under date of August 5, 1903, President Roosevelt wrote to Governor Winfield T. Durbin, of Indiana, a letter elicited by the course of Governor Durbin in connection with the Evansville race riot and the effort of the authorities at Evansville to secure the consent of the governor for the trial of the man a mob tried to lynch under the protection of the state militia, a suggestion the governor promptly vetoed. What President Roosevelt said of Governor Durbin is of special interest at this time. Colonel Roosevelt said in the opening paragraphs of a long letter of commendation: “Permit me. to thank yon as an American citizen for the admirable way in which you have vindicated the majesty of the law by your recent action In referring to lynching. I feel, my dear sir, that you have made all men your debtors who believe, as all far-seeing men must, that the wellbeing, indeed the very existence, of the republic depends upon that spirit of orderly liberty under the law which Is as incompatible with mob violences as with any form of despotism. Of course, mob violence is simply one form of anarchy, and anarchy ia now, as it always has been, the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny. “I feel that yon have not only reflected honor upon the state which for its good fortune has you as its chief executive, but upon the whole nation. It is incumbent upon every man throughont this country not only to hold up your hands in the course in which you have been following, but to show his realization that the matter is of vital concern to us all.”