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“Organized”

October 8, 2021 by Jim Leave a Comment

On September 18, 2021 I received an email from Mr. Ben Uchitelle, Attorney at Law, in Clayton, Missouri. Mr. Uchitelle had read my book JUDGE LYNCH! and found my email address, jmredwine@aol.com, from my website, www.jamesmredwine.com.

Mr. Uchitelle’s Great Grandfather was Manuel Cronbach who was a prominent citizen of Mt. Vernon, Posey County, Indiana who at age seventeen in 1878 personally observed the lynched bodies of four Black men hanging in the center of town on the courthouse lawn. Mr. Uchitelle’s Great Grandfather described the murders in his short autobiography. Mr. Uchitelle shared his Great Grandfather’s observations with me:

“The negro had no social standing in Mt. Vernon but they did not seem to feel any the worse for this. They were treated well so long as they knew their place. One of the great tragedies of their lives in Mt. Vernon was the lynching of four of their number by a mob. Oscar Thomas, a white deputy sheriff, was going to the home of a colored man to arrest him, was shot and killed. Feeling ran high, a white mob was at once organized and four of their number were hanged on trees in the Public Square, and it is claimed that one negro man was put into the fire box of an incinerator and burned to death. How many of the lynched negroes were guilty I do not know, but the bodies of those hanged in the Public Square dangled in the air nearly all next day. I asked the coroner, Uncle Bill Hendricks, why he did not cut them down. He answered, ‘I hain’t had no official notice that they are dead.’ Certainly a profound and unanswerable reason.”

I appreciate Mr. Uchitelle sharing this eye-witness account with me and urge others who might have historical records of the 1878 murders such as letters or diaries to contact me. The truth has no statute of limitations.

From my first knowledge of these horrific events that Oscar Thomas’ descendant, Ilse Horacek, gave to me in 1990, I have sought to uncover the facts. What I do know from my research is that Mr. Manuel Cronbach’s poignant comments illustrate the attitude of the general population of Mt. Vernon and Posey County, Indiana in 1878 and, perhaps, long after. As a practicing Posey County Attorney, Posey County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, County Attorney and Posey County Judge for a total of well over forty years I find the callous official attitude of Coroner Hendricks to be one of the saddest aspects of the whole matter.

Other portions of Mr. Cronbach’s account that are pregnant with what they do not say is his question as to how many of the lynch victims were guilty. Since none of the four lynched men were involved in the death of Officer Thomas, the answer is zero. And Mr. Daniel Harrison, Sr. who was involved was grabbed and chopped into pieces and his parts were dumped in the jail outhouse.

But the word in Mr. Cronbach’s account that most loudly calls out to me is “organized”, as John Leffel, who was the owner and editor of the local Western Star newspaper in 1878, reported that two to three hundred white, male citizens of Posey County, Indiana organized themselves into a well-regimented, armed group and marched onto the courthouse lawn and murdered all five Black men.

As I have done since 1990, I am still calling for the community to finally and publicly atone for the sins of 1878 and erect a memorial to the victims on the courthouse square. Thank you, Attorney Ben Uchitelle, for contacting me and for your interest in justice, even if justice remains long delayed.

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Filed Under: Events, Gavel Gamut, Indiana, Mt. Vernon, Posey County, Posey County Lynchings, Segregation Tagged With: 1878 murders, Ben Uchitelle, eye-witness account, Ilse Horacek, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, JUDGE LYNCH!, justice, lynchings, Manuel Cronbach, Mt. Vernon Indiana, Negro, organized, Oscar Thomas, Posey County, publicly atone for sins, truth

Thou Shalt Not Steal

March 14, 2020 by Jim Leave a Comment

It is easy to have sympathy for thieves if they steal from victims we do not know. Should the victims include acquaintances, friends, family or ourselves, our magnanimity wanes. And while our heart strings are plucked by someone who steals bread to feed their family, if Jean Val Jean had stolen to feed a personal drug habit Victor Hugo might not have portrayed him as a tragic hero. When it comes to our attitude about punishing thieves it is pretty much, “Whose ox is getting gored?”

And over the last few thousands of years we Homo sapiens have applied sanctions on thieves that have ranged from, “go and sin no more”, to the death penalty. Those of us with Anglo Saxon DNA can search back just about one thousand years ago and find death for theft to be de rigueur in the areas that became Great Britain. Of course, when a society does not have jails what can you do with someone who has no respect for the property of others?

Also, in today’s world we still have countries where thieves are sometimes flogged or who have their hands amputated on occasion. The Book of Matthew (Chapter 5, verse 30) advises offending thieves to cut off their own hands whereas the Old Testament decrees if one steals food because they are hungry we should not hate them (Proverbs 6:30-31). But Exodus 22: 3-4 declares that a thief who cannot pay restitution should be sold into slavery.

In other words, we humans have tried about every possible penalty from turning the other cheek to execution when it comes to thieves. Usually a first time offender in all legal systems is treated more leniently than a repeat villain. A thief of tender years normally calls for more sympathy than an experienced adult. And a thief who can pay restitution or who appears to be genuinely remorseful fares better than one who is more callous.

Now, Gentle Reader, you may be curious as to why you and I are considering whether it is better to kiss thieves on the top of their heads or to lop their heads off. Well, I confess my own approach to these issues during my ten years as either a prosecuting attorney or a defense attorney has fluctuated greatly, usually based on which side I represented in court. But it has been my forty years as a trial judge that has seen the greatest variation in my attitude toward dealing with thieves. I have tried practically every approach from rehabilitation to retribution. Suffice it to say I have not found a solution to theft; people are still doing it and on a fairly regular basis. My most recent encounter with the phenomenon of someone who has no respect for the property of others involved a friend of mine who had his tractor stolen right out of our pasture next to the cabin where Peg and I live.

Rape and armed robbery are much worse crimes than theft but the sense of being violated and feeling vulnerable is similar with all three. One immediately feels more generally fearful and angry. The one-time sanctity of our home and the confidence our friend had in the security of his property while on our property has been greatly diminished.

I do not ascribe to Dante Alighieri’s punishment for thieves as he set it forth in Circle 8 of his Divine Comedy. However,  it does graphically show how mankind may sometimes feel about thieves. Dante portrayed thieves as having their offending hands bound with flying reptiles that also pierce the thieves’ jugular veins causing the thieves to turn to ashes. The thieves are constantly being turned back to their human form then re-subjected to the flying reptiles. Such a vision for punishing thieves is interesting but hardly in keeping with modern penology. However, Dante’s hypothesized punishments for thieves he personally despised do call upon one’s darkest urge for revenge. Of course, revenge may be understandable but it is not justice.

When it comes to justice, if it ever does, for whoever stole our friend’s tractor, we can probably best hope for something less Draconian than Circle 8, say Circle 3, where thieves would spend eternity lying in filthy slush while being constantly pelted with icy rain. However, such a penalty probably should not make it into modern law.

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Filed Under: Gavel Gamut, Respect Tagged With: Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, execution, flog, Gentle Reader, hand amputation, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, justice, lop off head, no respect for property, punishment for stealing, revenge, sold into slavery, thieves, thou shalt not steal, turning the other cheek, victims

© 2022 James M. Redwine

 

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