Salt Lake Tribune | 1915-02-26 | Page 6 | Need a Lesson

NEED A LESSON. Tennessee, as well as Kentucky, is cursed with bands of cowardly assassins who go abroad during the darkness of night to terrorise peaceful and law-abid'ng law-abid'ng citizens, both white and black, and without making any distinction on account of sex. In the last few years manv grave crimes have been committed by night riders in these two states. The present trouble in Tennessee is owing to a desire to drive the negToes out of Lake county because some of them have leased land and are endeavoring to make an honest living by tilling tho soil. The night riders in Kentucky organized to control the tobacco output of the state, the men and women who dared to u.-" their own judgment in disposing of their crops being either killed or driven out of the country. Very few states would put up with these night marauders very long. After the first raid, if the members escaped, the officers and law-abiding citizens would be prepared and a second put-break put-break would prove disastrous to the prowlers. Two score or more years ago cowboys used to have a habit of coming into frontier settlements, getting drunk and "shooting up the town." Occasionally Occasion-ally the citizens would attempt to preserve pre-serve order and there would be a funeral or two the next day, citizens occupying positions of honor in the hearses. This sort of thing became wearisome to the inhabitants of one frontier town, and it was decided to teach the wild riders of the boundless prairies a much-needed much-needed k-fsou. Si a result the next time the cuwboys came riding into town they found the stores and saloons closed and the main street apparently deserted. Before Be-fore they bad time to investigate the strange phenomenon or utter their cus-tomarv cus-tomarv blood-curdling yells, the citizens turned loose their Winchesters and began be-gan emp-yii:g saddles of cowboys. T'no-c who escaped the fusillade put spurs to their horses and rode back to the range swearing vengeance, but they never returned. re-turned. If soiuething iike this should happen to the night riders of the south there would be no further trouble with ;hem.