A Lynching in Dayton: When Neighbors Decided the Law Was Too Slow

Why is it that the tendency of communities to take into their own hands the administration of justice outside of regular judicial procedures shows such an increase lately? Hardly a week passes but we read of the summary execution of accused criminals by a crowd of citizens, in which the sheriff and posse are not merely ignored, but actually deprived of their charge by the crowd. Is it because the people have lost all confidence in the processes of law, and in their impatience have concluded to take the dispensation of justice into their own hands? Surely we would rather have the law take its course than to have any doubt of the execution of the sentence of a court, or, indeed, of conviction. That there is reason for this revival of the always summary and generally swift retributory justice of Judge Lynch's Court can hardly be denied. There is a sentiment among the people that justice is too largely dependent upon elements, factors or influences foreign to its administration as defined in law; that wealth, influence and 'crookedness' combine to shelter criminals, and that the safety of communities is too often made a jest and jeered at by a criminal portion of society, because of the immunity from punishment afforded through maladministration of the criminal law. So it results that whenever a deed of special diabolism occurs, the public is keen to watch the slow course of legal proceedings, and is ready to supplement with deliberate purpose and stern resolve any failure to measure out retributory justice in cases where the crime was noteworthy in brutality. Hence come the frequent records of executions by armed and determined bands of citizens, whose duty, as they deem it, having been accomplished, they retire and leave the coroner to enter up the record of the execution of the sentence of the court whose voluntary officers they had been.

The lynching of James McPherson, one of the Cummins murderers, at Dayton last Saturday night by vigilantes, was not, in view of the suggestions made above, a strange occurrence. McPherson was one of three men who had committed an unprovoked and brutal murder. He had been tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged. Thus far there was no sense for intervention with the processes of the law. But for some reason a new trial was granted and McPherson was reprieved. Whether right or wrong, many people of Dayton and vicinity were impressed with the belief that the reprieve and removal of this criminal to Walla Walla was but the beginning of a series of delays which would culminate in his escape, and this opinion, not unnaturally perhaps, was strengthened by the fact that he was possessed of ample means to pay for legal technicalities in quantities to suit the end desired. They had known the victims of the murder and his assailants. They had heard the trial, listened to the confession of one of the guilty men. In connection with the crime, they acquiesced in the verdict and decided that 'delays were dangerous.' Therefore they acted. It is not for us to say that they had not good reason, nor, on the other hand, to justify their act. In such cases the people of the community are the best judges. It will, however, occur to all who give the subject thought, that the increase of hangings by vigilantes in the last few years must have some powerful underlying cause.