1906

  ____________________ 

“Talk about Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii, 

this surely beats all.”

 

Frank Collins

____________________

Justice Harlan.

 

January 25: The New York Times has revisited a Supreme Court case now mostly forgotten, which has its roots in a lynching in early 1906. That case, as described by Peter Canellos, who wrote a book about Justice John Marshall Harlan, was The United States v. Shipp. 

The story of the Shipp case begins in January 1906. That’s when Nevada Taylor, a young white woman, was raped in a Chattanooga cemetery. The crime provoked a frenzied reaction, putting pressure on the local sheriff, a proud Confederate veteran named Joseph Shipp, to identify and apprehend the rapist. The search had turned up a piece of leather. Upon the offering of a $375 reward for information leading to an arrest, a white man claimed to have seen a Black man milling around the cemetery, twirling a piece of leather shortly before the crime. He identified Ed Johnson as the man at the scene. Seizing on this shred of evidence, Sheriff Shipp arrested and jailed Mr. Johnson.

 

On the night of Jan. 25, a mob of hundreds of men tried to ram their way through the jail to reach Mr. Johnson. The local judge, Samuel McReynolds, in an effort to calm the crowd, promised to put the case first on his docket and expressed hope for an execution “before the setting of Saturday’s sun.”

The rush to judgment continued through the trial. There were numerous witnesses who could say that they’d seen Mr. Johnson elsewhere during the time of the attack. And when asked to identify her rapist, Ms. Taylor said she believed that it was Mr. Johnson. But she declined to make a definitive identification. Taking the stand a second time, under a demand that she swear “in God’s name” that Mr. Johnson was the man who assaulted her, Ms. Taylor only reiterated that she believed that Mr. Johnson was her attacker. A juror shouted out a threat: “If I could get at him, I would tear his heart out right now.” Judge McReynolds failed to remove the juror, and Mr. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death.

 

Two Black pioneering lawyers — Noah Parden and Styles Hutchins — led Mr. Johnson’s appeals. In an attempt to stop an unfair execution, Mr. Parden made a frantic journey to see the Supreme Court justice designated to hear emergency appeals from Tennessee, John Marshall Harlan. Fortunately, Justice Harlan was also the lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson, the case that advanced the separate-but-equal doctrine.

 

Over two decades, Justice Harlan had failed to persuade a single colleague of the injustices being visited on African Americans. States’ violations of Black defendants’ rights were more a norm than an aberration. But the Supreme Court had resolutely looked the other way. For Justice Harlan, Mr. Parden’s arrival was a rare opportunity. Here, finally, in his capacity overseeing the Sixth Circuit, was a chance to order a federal review on his own.

 

After Mr. Parden presented the facts of the case, Justice Harlan telegraphed the local authorities on March 18 that a stay of execution was necessary for the Supreme Court to review the case. White Chattanooga rebelled.

 

The next day, jail keepers offered no resistance when the mob came around.

The vigilantes carried Mr. Johnson to the city’s most visible landmark, the Walnut Street Bridge. Using trolley wires, they strung him up and offered a last chance to confess. “God bless you all. I am a innocent man,” he said.

They hanged him and peppered his body with gunshots.

 

Someone attached a note addressed to “Chief Harlan.” Here lay his man — though that’s not the word they used. “Thanks for your kind consideration of him. You can find him at the morgue.”

 

Outraged, Justice Harlan persuaded his colleagues to take the unprecedented step of sitting as a trial court. The U.S. attorney general, William Henry Moody, filed a petition charging Sheriff Shipp, other officials and mob leaders with contempt of the Supreme Court. After the presentation of voluminous evidence — including the testimony of Sheriff Shipp’s Black cook, who said that the sheriff had anticipated a mob attack should the execution be stayed — six of the defendants, including Sheriff Shipp, were found guilty of contempt. The sheriff and two others were sentenced to 90 days in jail; the other three received 60-day sentences.

 

Sheriff Shipp was released early and returned home to thousands of supporters and a band playing “Dixie.” Much of white Chattanooga promptly forgot about the case. 

 

In a forgotten corner of a black cemetery in Chattanooga, you can still visit Mr. Johnson’s grave. There on the headstone are his last words: “God Bless you all. I am an innocent man.” 

The decision of the court, delivered by Chief Justice Fuller, can be found here. He writes: 

[Sheriff Shipp] and his deputies and the jailer, who had knowledge…of an intense feeling in the neighborhood against the prisoner which on previous occasions had threatened his safety, [and] were bound to use all means within their power to protect him, and failure on their part to take any precautions whatever to prevent the seizure and killing of the prisoner at the hand of a mob attacking the jail while in a defenseless condition was, under the circumstances of this case, willful negligence, and disregard of duty to, and contempt of, this Court, and so held…in connection with the lynching on March, 19, 1906, of Ed Johnson by a mob after this Court had allowed his appeal from an order refusing relief on habeas corpus. …

 

[Shipp, Matthew Galloway, and Jeremiah Gibson] had every reason to believe from current reports and rumors conveyed to them, that an attempt would be made on the evening of the nineteenth or early in the morning of the 20th, by a mob composed of a large number of armed men, to force an entrance into the county jail for the purpose of taking Johnson therefrom and lynching him; that notwithstanding said information and said reports, the sheriff withdrew from the jail early in the evening of the nineteenth the usual and customary guard, and left in charge thereof only the night jailer – defendant Gibson – and committed other acts and did other things evincing a disposition on the part of said sheriff to render it less difficult and less dangerous for the mob to prosecute and carry into effect its unlawful design and purpose of lynching Johnson; that about 9 o’clock in the evening of said March 19, defendants and others conspired to break into the jail for the purpose of taking Johnson therefrom and lynching him, with intent to show their contempt and disregard for the above-mentioned order of this Court, and prevent it from hearing the appeal of Johnson[.]

 

Three lawyers assigned to defend Johnson in court, and three other prominent lawyers in Chattanooga met to discuss options. Should they appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court? 

Twice the militia had already been called out to defend the jail. 

To say that they failed to take a principled stand is an understatement. As one of the three put it: 

“We discussed the recent mob uprising and the state of unrest in the community. It was the judgment of all present that the life of the defendant, even if the wrong man, could not be saved; that an appeal would so inflame the public that the jail would be attacked and perhaps other prisoners executed by violence. In the opinion of all of us, a case was presented where the defendant, now that he had been convicted by a jury, must die by the judgment of the law, or else, if his case were appealed, he would die by the act of the uprising of the people.”

 

The Court also notes: 

About half-past 8 or 9 that night, a number of men entered the jail and went directly and without resistance to the door leading to Johnson’s corridor.

 

There is a conflict of evidence as to whether the door leading from the offices to the jail proper was locked during the evening, but, if it was locked when the mob came, it was easily broken down.

 

Gibson was the only officer there at the time, and he was on the top floor with Johnson.

 

Keys were obtained from him without resistance, but, as the lock on the door leading to the corridor where Johnson's cell was located had been broken by a member of the mob, the keys would not work.

 

The mob, with sledge and ax, then began to break the bolts on the corridor door.

 

About twelve men were actively engaged in breaking down the door and in all subsequent events of the lynching. Some of these men were masked.

 

A crowd of spectators began to gather around the jail soon after the mob reached it, and continued to gather in and around the jail until Johnson was taken out. This crowd was variously estimated from a few to 150 or more.

 

Two men then went through the circular door and in a few minutes brought Johnson out with his arms tied with a rope.

 

When Johnson was thus brought out, the dozen men or so composing the mob grabbed him.

 

This mob took Johnson from the jail to the county bridge over the Tennessee river, which was about six blocks from the jail.

 

Johnson was taken from the jail a little after 10 o’clock. …

 

The crowd which had gathered around the jail followed the mob down to the bridge.

 

When the bridge was reached, the mob took Johnson a little beyond an arc light, put a rope around his neck, threw it over a beam, and swung him up.

 

At the bridge, the mob actively engaged in lynching Johnson were close to him and separated by a space from the crowd of spectators.

 

The first time Johnson was swung up, the rope broke or slipped and he fell. He was swung up a second time and shot. After some shots were fired, Johnson again fell, and while lying on the ground was again shot. It was about ten minutes after the mob had reached the bridge until Johnson was killed.

 

It is apparent that a dangerous portion of the community was seized with the awful thirst for blood which only killing can quench, and that considerations of law and order were swept away in the overwhelming flood. 

*

April 18: The San Francisco Earthquake leaves the city in ruin.

 

*

 

April 24: In Letters of the Century, edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler, a letter from Frank Collins to his family, gives interesting details in the wake of the San Francisco Earthquake.

 

Collins and his business partner Max Koenig had escaped from the shattered city by ferry. Now they had returned. He described the scene:

 

From the ferry to Van Ness it looks like a gray and black graveyard, as far as you can see, there isn’t a house visible until you get within a few blocks of Van Ness. The fire passed way beyond Van Ness on both sides of the city. Rob [Robert Knox Collins, probably his brother, owned a cigar store], was wiped out same as Max and I.

 

Six days after the quake, it was still unsafe to venture out after dark. Troops were on patrol to stop looting and keep law and order. Collins explained to his family:

 

…they take a shot at you if you are out after 8:30 p.m. So you sit in pitch darkness with a gloomy pall of smoke over your heads and a graveyard silence and an occasional earthquake tremor.

 

At 5 o’clock a rifle shot was heard on the block and some young fellow fell dead who was misprudent enough to venture out to borrow some whiskey for his sick mother. A soldier ordered him to throw it away and shot him for refusing.

 

A friend was helping take care of babies who were still being born. “Soon as they’re born,” Collins said, “they just have to roll them in some old coat or rags until they find clothes. One woman had triplets.”

 

As for the damage around him, he wrote, “Church towers of stone have crashed and crushed into homes beside them. Many places crushing the occupants. No one will ever know the hundreds that were killed under fallen buildings and then buried.” Elsewhere, he noted, “Valencia St. has slid 40 feet out of its course and a hotel on that street and Market collapsed, killing 103 out of 106 that were in it. The earth split open there wide enough for a man to fall in and you can hear a running river or creek under it.” Wrecked buildings were already being cleared ways. In another neighborhood, he found, “They are dynamiting dangerous walls…and an earthquake last night at 11:30 shook down a few more besides scaring the balance of courage out of the people there.”

 

Collins and his partner had been hit hard:

 

You know what we have lost of course. Our beautiful store, a $50,000 stock. Everything at our apartments, my library, your paintings and mine — Bronzes, silver vase. Expensive pictures, our embroidered robes, linens, steins. All good clothes such as black suits, overcoats, hats, shoes, underclothes, shirts. All souvenirs and pictures from Germany, cut glass, all photographs, piano, hand painted china — and so on down to just what useful thing we could rush into a valise and to bundles (enough to cover us in case we had to sleep on the hills) Everything else went. Still we are like all other big losers. We meet it cheerfully and we’ll have to make a new start when all confusion is over and we see if S.F. is doomed to be left or the rest of it demolished.

 

They have dug “Privy” holes in the middle of streets out in the part that’s saved for women to use.

 

Collins notes that there are “tearfully funny things,” stories of people who saved what they could, and not always what one might expect:

 

One woman saved a bird and one shoe. Another a few flat irons. One poor Chinaman crossed the bay with a stick of firewood wrapped up, and some ran with an “enlarged picture” of someone of the family as a child. Old women and men were seen dragging chairs loaded with things in the way of clothing and blankets, pulled by a little rope over their backs.

 

“Talk about Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii, this surely beats all,” he added.

 

To end the letter, he describes for his family his own experiences, when the quake first struck:

 

Max and I were almost thrown from our beds when the shock came at about 5:15. I rushed to the door casing between bedroom and Turkish room, Max at my heels. We hung onto the sides of the wall while the building seemed to split, groan and crack and rock, expecting each second for the whole big structure of stone and its main floor to crush us at each roll. Stones from the top were falling at our window sills outside and the screams of hundreds of women rushing into the streets half naked.

 

When the stillness came, I climbed into bed to stop the chatter of my teeth, which seemed to be loose in stiffened jaws. Then we dressed hurriedly and ran to the store over the debris of fallen chimneys and top stories of buildings in the street. Found our store stood it fine. Our wax figures never tipped over but stood unscratched even though the big plate glass windows lay on the sidewalk and glass surrounded them...

 

Inside the store dressing was full of fallen plaster that was all. We even began to clean up and arrange things for business when another shock came and we saw that the city was on fire, so we locked the doors and left the swell story to its fate and went to our home. A little later, when the fire had reached within three blocks. So, expecting the building on our heads any minute, we hurriedly packed some useful clothing, took a farewell look at all our belongings and “hiked” out over the high steep hills and made a circuit to the water’s edge and followed that around to the Ferry.

 

Everything was smoking ruins then right up to the Ferry building. It seemed the only thing left and they saved that by pumping water on it from the bay.

 

We can’t tell what we are going to do yet as we don’t know yet what is going to happen here so will let you know later on. But have hardly recovered from it all yet. All are well here but no fires are allowed here either in stoves as everybody’s chimneys in the yards, so it’ll be a long time before everything is entirely safe.

Earthquake and then flames.

Watching fire spread in the wrecked areas.

Soldiers guard the ruined city to stop looting.

Damaged city center.

What would residents of these houses have been thinking?

Street split by quake.

Street split by fault.

San Franciscans coping as best they can.

Ruins days later.

*

 

June 26: Harry K. Thaw shoots the architect Stanford White to death at a restaurant atop Madison Square Garden. Thaw believed that White had raped his wife, the Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit, when Nesbit was 15 or 16. (Maybe: 22; birth records were destroyed in a fire; and Nesbit said she wasn’t sure.) Eventually, Thaw was found innocent of murder, pleading temporary insanity.

Women: The Eternal Question, drawn by Charles Dana Gibson.
Nesbit was his model. Note the shape of her hair.

Evelyn Nesbit.

*

 

June 30: The Pure Food and Drug Act is passed. For the first time, the federal government takes responsibility for safeguarding the health and safety of the American people, in terms of what they eat and the medicines they take. Thank you, Upton Sinclair (See: Year 1905)

 

For examples of why this law might be necessary, consider the disastrous birth defects that resulted when pregnant women took thalidomide for morning sickness, mouse turds in hotdogs, and cheap fish sold in restaurant as expensive kinds.

 

Of course, no one should ignore the disaster that has resulted from the over-prescription and sale of pain-killing opioid drugs.