Move to Punish Duluth Lynchers.

Move To Punish Duluth Lynchers.
Rigid Inquiry Is Planned as City Come to Order and Troops Control.
Women Aid Authorities.
Thirteen Negroes Held After Triple Hanging–Similar Attack Followed

Circus at South Bend.

Special to The New York Times.

DULUTH, Minn., June 16 – This little city at the head of the Lakes, lacking the excuse of the “hot blooded” South, and appalled by the frenzy which took hold of its leading citizens last night. Is tonight trying to read just itself and come to the realization that the ringleaders of the mob which hanged three Negroes on its principal thoroughfare must be punished.
Duluth is normal again, after a day of revelry which ended in tragedy for it was revelry that brought about the lynching and set the city in turmoil.
“No one thought they would do it,” say the witnesses to the hanging.
The crowd which “attended” the hanging bee was like a crowd attending a carnival. Giggling boys and girls looked skyward today where the bodies of the Negroes swung during the hours before daylight. The police, restored to authority by the mob itself after the purpose of the lynch law “court” had been accomplished, cut down the bodies at dawn.
There will be no further disorder, and the lynchers will allow the law to take its course in the cases of three other Negroes whom the mob let go and those since held in connection with the crime against a seventeen-years-old girl which caused the midnight hanging.
Ten Negroes arrested in Virginia, Minn., and hidden in a farmhouse near the city were brought to Duluth today and placed in the city jail. Two companies of State troops escorted the automobiles containing the prisoners, but no one offered resistance to the officers of the law.
While the city was returning to its normal state the wheels of justice were in motion. Sixty warrants were sworn out against the Negroes still to be tried.

None of the Lynchers Arrested.

No arrests have been made of any one alleged to have participated in the lynching, but an investigation, backed by the judges of the courts and other citizens, is under way.
Officials said tonight that the investigation would be slow, because of the attitude of the citizens.
“It is impossible to get even an official to sign a warrant,” said William Murnian, Commissioner of Public Safety. “Those who say they are willing to sign were not witnesses, but citizens who were at home and in bed.”
The Judges of the District Court, who propose to site the affair to the bottom are handicapped by public sentiment. An extra session of the Grand Jury has been called for tomorrow morning, and those who declare the city must redeem itself are busy seeking witnesses who will go before the jury. These are hard to find.
It was stated that the hanging would be investigated, but that the jury would go further and make a general inquiry into the Police Department.
Citizens say that all day long yesterday, while the Negroes were being held in the city jail and certain trouble was brewing, no attempt was made to remove the prisoners for places of safety. One jurist declared that for two hours before the lynching an automobile with a rope tied to it paraded Superior Street, where the hanging took place, in quest of recruits to “attend a lynching at the police station.”
District Judge W. A. Cant, who is leading the minority in the demand for punishment of the mob leaders, was one who made an appeal to the crowd while the frenzy was at its height. Two Catholic priests joined him, but the three were pushed aside by the mob with cries of ”Get out of the way!” “Lynch the black snakes!”
Judge Bert Fesler, an another part of the crowd, asked citizens to assist him in stopping the hanging, and, although a few responded, most of them would do nothing. All were bent on “getting” the Negroes.
That the Police Department was inadequate to handle the situation was the assertion of Commissioner of Safety Murnain. It was only because Murnain issued strict orders that no firearms were to be used by the police that bloodshed was averted. It was realized that the first shot would have been followed by an attack on the police insignificant in numbers compared with the mob of 5,000 which stormed the jail and filled the adjoining streets.

Police Called to Account.

As it was twelve of the police were injured by flying stones and bricks. Police Sergeant Oscar Olson was the only officer roughly handled. He strove to the last to protect the blacks and finally was carried fighting out of the jail and backed into the crowd, where he was placed under a guard.
John Murphy, Chief of Police, who was out of the city, returning from Virginia with the other Negroes arrested called his assistants on the carpet today to lay the blame for inactivity while the mob was gathering.
The blood lust of the mob was evidently satisfied when the last of the three Negroes had been strung up, for the unmasked rioters disappeared as if by magic.
Today all lips are sealed. If among the thousands of citizens who are going about their daily work there are those who pulled the ropes around the necks of the Negroes, no one is the wiser. The mob is keeping its own counsel.

Women Urge Punishment.

Women of Duluth joined civic organizations today in the effort to punish the mob leaders. The Kiwanis Club adopted the following resolutions.
“The Kiwanis Club, in common with all right-thinking people, deplores the shocking outrage perpetrated in out city on the night of June 14 by six men, but even more deplorable, shameful and barbarous was the hideous crime committed on June 15 by lawless mob of men who make our city their home.
“Duluth has been disgraced before the world, and every decent citizens has been made to hand his head in shame. They have outraged civilization, humiliated and disgraced their city and made themselves loathsome criminals.
“The Kiwanis Club denounces every person who participated in the crime of the mob and pledges its unanimous support to the officials who will strive to bring the stern justice every person connected with the crime.”
Tonight the County Jail, where the Negro prisoners are being held, is guarded by a tank company from Fort Snelling. Home Guards are on duty in other parts of the city, armed with machine guns and with orders to shoot to kill should any further trouble start.
The young girl who was attacked by the Negroes is in a serious condition, but is expected to recover.
Chief of Police Murphy added to the sensation of the day by declaring that his investigation at Virginia, Minn., where the circus which brought the doomed Negroes to Duluth played today proved that McGhie, the first Negro hanged here, was innocent.
The three other Negroes, whom the lynchers turned back to the authorities, are Lonnie Williams, John Thomas and Henry Richardson. All are said to have come from Southern plantations before being employed by the traveling circus, known as the Robinson Shows.
A score of automobiles carrying members of last night’s mob had scoured the country all the way to Virginia from Duluth in an effort to seize other Negro employes of the circus who might have taken part in the attack on the girl here.

Attacked a Girl at South Bend.

SOUTH BEND, Ind., June 16 Negores employed by the same circus as the three who were lynched in Duluth last night, following an attack on a white girl, attempted to assault Helen Penrod of South Bend when the show as in this city on June 7.
The assailants of the South Bend girl escaped, being hidden by companions, the police said here today.
The National Association for Advancement of Colored People yesterday telegraphed to Governor Burnquist of Minnesota its commendation on his actions in sending State troops to Duluth, where the three Negroes were lynched.
Governor Burnquist who is also President of the St. Paul Branch of the Association, has been one of the staunch supporters of its work. The national organization offered him the aid of its 328 branches and membership of 100,000 to help in running down the lynchers. The association’s telegram, signed by James Woldon Johnson, its Field Secretary, said in part.
“Prompt apprehension said rigorous punishment of lynchers of Negroes and violators of the law of the State of Minnesota will have a wholesome and salutary effect throughout the nation. As Governor of State and President of St. Paul Branch of National Association for Advancement of Colored People may we urge you to use every power at your command to prevent further disorder and arrest lynchers? Commend action in sending troops. Advise us if we can be of assistance. Can furnish staff investigators if needed.”