Hanged by the Neck

Even as Southern gentlemen have been time and again aroused to the hanging, burning and mutilation of human flesh in expiation for the black ravishment of their white women, so can the peaceful farmers of the West be aroused to violence in expiation for violation of their property rights.

Some years ago the Government took upon itself an irrigation project in the North Platte valley. Settlers upon the project were ordered to pay a construction charge and in addition an annual water charge. The water charge was increased. Many of the settlers could not, did not pay it. The Government refused to furnish water until all charges were paid. Crops withered and parched on the drought riven fields.

Last week Governor Adam McMullen of Nebraska received from Frank Thomas, President of the Co-operative Beet Growers' Association of Scotts Bluff a telegram: "Feeling is running high here. There is danger of violence."

That same day at Scotts Bluff, two pitiable figures, one of them with an empty sleeve dangling at its side, were dragged into the main street. A A rope was put around the neck of each and the free end was thrown over the cross bar of a lamp post. Strong arms pulled, the ropes slid over the bar, and the two figures hung inert and lifeless in midair. The crowd cheered.

The contorted face of the one-armed man was seen to be made of flour sacking. Into the belly of the effigy a pin was stuck supporting a sheet of paper with the words: "Dr. Elwood Mead" [U. S. Commissioner of Reclamation]. The other horrible object bore the legend: "Dr. Hubert Work [U. S. Secretary of the Interior]. For breaking his word and depriving a project of water."

As an object lesson to all comers they were left hanging until, later, a constable cut them down.

Dr. Work was a hardworking nerve specialist and politician in Colorado until 1921, when President Harding named him First Assistant Postmaster General. When Will Hays, his chief, retired in 1922 to the quiet cloisters of the movie industry, Dr. Work stepped into the vacant Cabinet post, and a year later when Albert Bacon Fall left the shelter of the Cabinet, Dr. Work was made Secretary of the Interior. Recently Congress passed a bill lowering water charges on reclamation projects. The farmers of Scotts Bluff declare that Dr. Work as Secretary of the Interior agreed to let the collection of back charges wait until the reduced scale had been put into effect, then changed his mind.