Refinement of Tactics

"Did they wear hoods?"

"What did you say?"

"I asked you whether the lynchers wore hoods, whether they were fixed up like Klansmen."

"I don't remember."

Rupert Taylor, jailer of the town of Aiken, S. C., was testifying at a Coroner's inquest held upon the death of three Negro prisoners--Demon and Clarence Lowman and their sister, Bertha. The jailer's account was simple.

At about four o'clock in the morning he heard someone knocking at his door; when he went to open it he was overpowered, bound by three men who had already entered the house and were hiding in the hall. His wife, hearing the scuffle, telephoned to Sheriff Robinson. The Sheriff found the jail yard filled with squatting figures. He was admitted through the front door, knocked down, laid beside Jailer Taylor. The visitors drove off with their dark, gibbering prey.

The three Lowmans had been in jail a year and a half while they were being tried for the murder of Sheriff Henry H. H. Howard. The Sheriff was a Klansman. He had been shot in-the back while raiding the house of Sam Lowman, father of the three prisoners. While Howard's body lay in state Klansmen had paraded past it, two by two, in full regalia. A fiery cross was burned in the cemetery on the anniversary of his death. Meanwhile the Lowmans were tried and sentenced to death. The State Supreme Court reversed this sentence and ordered a new trial. Judge Lanham, presiding in the case, had just charged his jury for a verdict of not guilty on Demon Lowman. Perhaps this was what had started the night callers at the jail.

They did not hang the Lowmans; theirs was a refinement of the tactics of most lynchers. When they had gone a few miles out of town they set the Lowmans free. They told them to run, shot them in the face and chest as they turned for one despairing look.

At Dover, Tenn., four unmasked men shouldered into the county jail, overpowered Sheriff L. L. Ellis, borrowed his keys. Back in the cells, a voice screamed in prayer. It was Herbert ("Rip") Bell, 30-year-old Negro, charged with beating to death one Rufus Joiner, white farmer. The Negro stopped praying as they ferried him and the sheriff across the broad Cumberland river. On the far bank a throng of hillbillies waited, still and serious. Leaving Sheriff Ellis, they all went into the back country, about ten miles. Next day Dover was quiet and Sheriff Ellis went into the back country to investigate. It shocked him to see flies around the bullet holes in a black, dangling Thing.