No, special, senvicw International attention has for some' time-teen centred upon the trial at Charlotte, North Carolina, of a group originally numbering 16 striking textile workers who were charged with conspiracy to murder the late Q. F. Aderholt, the Gastonia chief of police, during the course mills. of labour difficulties at the Loray
Thirtoen men were charged with first degree murder; three women charged with murder in the second degree, Subsequently six men and the three women were freed, 'The chief of police was killed on June daring the course of a raid on the strikers' camp. Tt hax been the effort of prosecuting officials to show that his death was part of general. programme. over several tumultuous. weeks which culminated Ju the homicide, It was. inevitable that tiis ease, bound up as it is with the general subject of industrialization and the capital-labour conflict in the United States, should be bracketed in the minds' of watchers both in the United States and abroad along with the Sacco-Vanzetti ense in Massachusetts, The Question of Jurors Local newspapers, which have for the most part taken a virulently anti-labour attitude, played a part fu stirring up ill' feeling, while Uiberal observers have been distressed by the -equally extreme though opposite attitude manifested by certain labour publications. Contributing to the difficulties of the situation were, originally, the fact that the trial was to be held fu 'Gaston county—the heart of a niost inflamed distriet—and that the strikers could not be tried by a "jury of their poors" as the federal constitution provides because North Carolina' law allows only property owners to become jurors, while the defendants are workers without Obriating Prejudice On ther other hand, every effort kas been made by the judicial authorities to leave no ground for criticism. "After the _preliniinary Proceedings in Gaston a change of venue 0 Chatlotte was granted while, the lapse of a month's time Sarthér assisted in the calming of camps:
Judge Bf." V. Barnhill speedily earned the commendation of such Mberal, organs as the New, York "Nation" by manifesting what the "Nation" "termed a' "severely judicial" temper" and obviously realizing; "as the "Nation" put it, that "Americ justice as well as the defendants ato on trial."
Although 'a motion' by Arthur Garfield Hays ofthe' defence to dismiss the indictment and bill of particulars. on: grounds of indefinite-ess, anid tistificioncy was' denied by the court, the Judge ordered the prosecution to bring inva more detailed bill and—most important-— mast te confined to events of the right of June 7, when the chief was! killed, This latter ruling at once restrict ed the ease purely tos trial for} conspieaey resulting in murder and eliminated many of the far-flung general issues which the prosecntion had hoped to bring in. The exact words of the court were:
"ME shall restrict the evidence to what happened on the grounds and will admit no evidence of any conspiracy except to resist the officers on the night of Jane 7." The prosecution made vigorous but! fruitless objection, its second. bill of particulars having set forth at length a charge of conspiracy to enter the Loray mill and remove employees.
The Height of Realism The original trial ended in a tisctrial When one of the jurors succumbed to the strain and who, after the prosecution had brought into court a dummy figure of the dead police chief garded in hig blood-stained uniform, manifested signa of insanity, 'The court. had yuled the dummy figure out of! evidence but it had done its work'
an unexpected way, and a day of two later the afflicted juror was! examined, pronounced out of hi rand, and a mis-trial was declared.
Attorneys for. the defence sulssequently satd that they had learned, after the jurors were released from their oath of secrecy,.that a majority stood for acquittal at the time the trial was halted, In No Danger of the Chair'
Before the second trial could open late last month, Mz. John Carpenter prosecuting, announced that the first degree murder charges against 13 of the 16 defendants had been reduced to second degree. The only ones whose charges were not reduced were the three women, and they—together with six of the men—were set free at the reopening of the case on September 30.
Meanwhile "the approach "of winter caused the tent colony of! strikers of Kerlington Heights, near! Gastonia, to melt away." The original colony in Gastonia was! broken up after the killing of the police chief. Labour, union. leaders have, declared that "the strike is cover," but it seems plain that: the southern industrial troubles involve ing strike and trial are far from over.
Kidnappings ang floggings have been among the most recent episodes!
violence accompanying the! trouble. A reward of $500 has been offered by the American Civil Liber-{ies Union for arrest and convietion of the assailants of Deo Teasner, a labour organizer flogged at Kings Mountain, Governor Max Gardner has issued an appeal for! higher wages and shorter hours in the textile industry but says the! North "Carolina situation Is _no worse than in other localities during the transition from agriculture industry.—United Press,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.