Barbarism in Baldwin

• Reuben Sims

Governor Cunningham will have an opportunity at the very outset of his service as the state’s chief executive officer to show his devotion to the cause of law and order. A mob gathered from Baldwin and Monroe counties, at a little village called Little River, casting the laws of the state and preservation of society to the wind, took a negro charges with murder to a tree and there was whipped three times, then hanged, and then the barbarians filled the dead body with bullets.

The case was not one that involved womanhood. No victim of criminal assault would have been compelled to testify. Evidence as to the murder committed by the negro was and is ample, and conviction might have been speedy and certain. It was a casae of lynching for lynching’s sake. There were doubtless mingled desires of revenge and rural excitement.

Let us hope Governor Cunningham will take hold of this case with an earnestness that will convince all that the supremact of the law is to be maintained in this state. The lynching at Little River was absolutely inexcusable, and the men engaged in it should be brought to trial. If the soliciter and sheriff cannot find the lynchers, detectives can and the Age-Herald has confidence that Governor Cunningham will hold up Alabama’s enviable record as a law and order state – Age Herald.

“Barbarism in Baldwin.” The Journal (Huntsville, AL), April 28, 1904.