Race Leader, Ferd. Barnett, In Duluth Defending His Race.

RACE LEADER, FERD. BARNETT,
IN DULUTH DEFENDING HIS RACE.

The Duluth grand jury which investigated the lynching horror, which shocked the country on the 14^th of June last returned indictments against seven men charging them with rape. They were Max Mason, Clarence Greer, William Miller, Loney Williams, Nate Gray, Louis Hayes, and Frank Spier. The remaining six men held in prison since the lynching were declared not guilty by the grand jury and were set at liberty Wednesday.
R. C. McCullough, who represented all of the prisoners, secured the services of Hon. F. L. Barnett formerly for fifteen years an assistant state attorney in Chicago, to assist as associate council. Mr. Barnett arrived in Duluth Monday morning and with Mr. McCullough started to make things hum. A call was made on the clerk of the county court for copies of the indictments but as the men had not been arraigned the copies could not be delivered. The lawyers then consulted County Attorney Greene and Judge Cant, and arraignment was set for two o’clock.
Promptly at the hour the seven indicted men were brought into court were called upon to plead and all pleaded “not guilty.” The attorneys, R. C. McCullough of Duluth and Hon. F. L. Barnett of Chicago, were entered as attorneys for all the prisoners, and the hearing of the Habeas Corpus writ which was previously issued was set for Friday morning.
Then the lawyers proceeded to secure the release of the men whom the grand jury refused to indict. These were Eugene Jefferson, John Thomas, Charles Harris, Norman Ousley, Albert Smalls, Earl Thomas. Necessary records of the no bills and issue of discharges required some time but the time was well used by the lawyers who called a few citizens together, Wm. M. Gibbs and Spencer Russell of Chicago, and the Woman’s Welfare, and gave them the task of securing clothes for the prisoners. Hon. McClure, Atty. at law; made arrangements for these six men to have a place to stop as soon as released from jail, a very happy number. These six will be witness at the trial of the indicted men.
Mr. Barnett, in speaking about the case, said that the lynching of the three colored men and the subsequent persecution of the other fourteen men constituted a plot upon the fair name of the state. He said every one of the seven men would be acquitted.
Mr. Barnett, while in the city, is stopping with Attorney McCullough, 411 E. 4^th st.