| Show NO lawlessness LAWLES I WANTED whatever may have been the motive of those men who enacted the role of White cappers at monroe on friday night last they acted without due authority of law if not in direct opposition to it and were to that extent at least clearly in the wrong the worst part of such proceedings Is ia that the odium does not rest exclusively upon those who so demean themselves but is cast upon the community in which they live and each individual has to bear his proportion which is what the average citizen of this law abiding state would prefer to be absolutely free from all the time in the southern states immediately and for several years after the war an organization having for its object the terrorizing of the negroes was maintained under the name naine of the ku klux klan it was shown as defensive matter that the late lale freedmen as a rule had no other conception of freedom than immunity from all kindja of restraint or responsibility and that the operation ot of the law was not searching enough or fast enough in most cases to either prevent or adequately punish such offenders this was to a great extent true but it remains a fact that about all the klan succeeded in accomplishing in a moral way was their own Se degradation gradation to a level with those complained of without in the least diminishing the evils complained of so must it ever be there to is no better or safer place than that in which the law with awful silent and majestic power has full sway it IF ia sometimes perverted now and then goes beyond the proper mark and again falls short of it but let every citizen be made to comprehend that li it is his sword as well as his shield when properly invoked and practiced and these mistakes will then grow less from time to time and eventually ex ast 1st only as rare occurrences a long way apart we want no White cappers ku klux or vigilance committees in utah |
