Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1905 — KUKLUX GO UNWHIPT [ARTICLE]

KUKLUX GO UNWHIPT

Appellate Court Reverses a Conviction on a TechnicalityNew Trial Ordered. V MILD CENSURE OF OUTLAWRY Story of the Outrage of the White* caps—Bad Mishap to a Nervy Boy-State Items. Indianapolis, June B.—The judgment In favor of the defendants in Joseph M. Britton’s suit for damages against the other male citizens of Newark, in Greene county, for “whitecapping'’ him was reversed in the appellate court and a new trial ordered. Britton kept a drug store, which became a loafing place for l>oys and men in the surrounding country. The villagers complained and then threatened, and when a crowd of masked men finally whipped Britton in the street in front of his drug store, nobody came from any of the nineteen houses in the village to help him, or visited him during the illness that followed, but many of them expressed satisfaction with the treatment Be received or regret that he had not been killed. Recognized the Outlaws. Britton and his wife and son, who were present when he was whipped, asserted that they recognized the persons who did the whippiug by their dress and general bearing, and sued nearly all the men in the village as well as four who lived elsewhere. The Jury rendered a verdict for the defendants. In reversing the judgment on account of erroneous Instructions given to the Jury by the court Judge Roby said: Not Dangerous to the A Hamers. “The assumption of power to regulate individual conduct through the medium of clubs, and picket slats is a very dangerous assumption. It might be difficult, even in the village of Newark, to stop at Just the place to please all of the nineteen families, and he would he a very bold mail who should venture to join the community, taking chances of popular disapproval, based upon facts beyond his control and emphasized by penalties so arbitrary and severe. The law furnishes a standard of conduct and amide remedy for lawlessness. In its enforcement against all, in its observance by all, lies the •afety and happiness of all.”