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HENRY SWEET, JURY, CLARENCE DARROW -
MICHIGAN VS. SWEET 1926
The Law of Love - Page 2
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Go here for more about
 Clarence Darrow.
Go here for more about
Darrow's Law of Love speech.
It follows the full text transcript of
Clarence Darrow's closing argument in the case
The People of Michigan vs. Henry Sweet, delivered at
Detroit, Michigan - May 11, 1926. |
This is page 2 of 2. Go to
page 1.
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[Lunch Break] |
I was speaking before luncheon about the people
around the house, and the wonderful protection
the blacks had. Nobody can tell exactly how many
were there, of course. Here is a man, a real
estate dealer, who had an office at the corner
of St. Clair and Charlevoix, just a block away.
He came down that night,--he was in the habit of
staying at his office, and he had a partner.
Real estate men are pretty wary people, you
know. They don't miss many chances. If there is
anybody around that looks like a prospect, they
are on hand. He came down and saw that crowd.
What did he do? He went over to this
apartment-building on the corner. He stuck
around the apartment-building ten or fifteen
minutes or half an hour, I don't know just how
long, and he leaves his office open. He stuck
around ten or fifteen minutes and then went back
to his office; not to make a sale, but to get
his partner, who was the only man in charge of
the office. And so the two of them started back
and stood there on the corner until the shooting
began.
What do you suppose they were there for? Real
estate men don't waste time with a crowd around
the office. Not only was he content and brought
his partner, and left nobody in the office. He
didn't even stop to lock the door, and they
stayed there on the corner until the shooting
began.
Witnesses forget
themselves and tell the truth. Why were the
police telling people to move on? All the
witnesses said they were not permitted to stand
near the house. Why do they, every once in a
while, pull themselves up and say that the crowd
was so and so? Why does the little boy come into
this court room and on the first trial of this
case say: "I saw a large crowd," and then pull
himself up; "I saw a great many people," and
then say, "I saw a few?" And then on
cross-examination admit that he had been told to
do it, and had forgot himself when he said a
great many people? This is in the record as
coming from the last case, and he said it was
true. It was true, and every man in this case
who has listened to it knows that it is true.
Oh, they say, there is nothing to justify this
shooting; it was an orderly, neighborly crowd;
an orderly, neighborly crowd. They came there
for a purpose and intended to carry it out. How
long, pray, would these men wait penned up in
that house? How long would you wait? The very
presence of the crowd was a mob, as I believe
the Court will tell you.
Suppose a crowd
gathers around your house; a crowd which doesn't
want you there; a hostile crowd, for a part of
two days and two nights, until the police force
of the city is called in to protect you. How
long, tell me, are you going to live in that
condition with a mob surrounding your house and
the police-force standing in front of it? How
long should these men have waited? I can imagine
why they waited as long as they did. You
wouldn't have waited. Counsel say they had just
as good reason to shoot on the 8th as on the
9th. Concede it. They did not shoot. They waited
and hoped and prayed that in some way this crowd
would pass them by and grant them the right to
live.
The mob came back
the next night and the colored people waited
while they were gathering; they waited while
they were coming from every street and every
corner, and while the officers were supine and
helpless and doing nothing. And they waited
until dozens of stones were thrown against the
house on the roof, probably-- don't know how
many. Nobody knows how many. They waited until
the windows were broken before they shot. Why
did they wait so long? I think I know. How much
chance had these people for their life after
they shot; surrounded by a crowd, as they were?
They would never take a chance unless they
thought it was necessary to take the chance.
Eleven black people penned up in the face of a
mob. What chance did they have?
Suppose they shot before they should. What is
the theory of counsel in this case? Nobody
pretends there is anything in this case to prove
that our client Henry fired the fatal shot.
There isn't the slightest. It wasn't a shot that
would fit the gun he had. The theory of this
case is that he was a part of a combination to
do something. Now, what was that combination,
gentlemen? Your own sense will tell you what it
was. Did they combine to go there and kill
somebody? Were they looking for somebody to
murder?
Dr. Sweet scraped
together his small earnings by his industry and
put himself through college, and he scraped
together his small earnings of three thousand
dollars to buy that home because he wanted to
kill somebody? It is silly to talk about it. He
bought that home just as you buy yours, because
he wanted a home to live in, to take his wife
and to raise his family. There is no difference
between the love of a black man for his
offspring and the love of a white. He and his
wife had the same feeling of fatherly and
motherly affection for their child that you
gentlemen have for yours, and that your father
and mother had for you. They bought that home
for that purpose; not to kill some body.
They might have
feared trouble, as they probably did, and as the
evidence shows that every man with a black face
fears it, when he moved into a home that is fit
for a dog to live in. It is part of the curse
that, for some inscrutable reason, has followed
the race--if you call it a race--and which
curse, let us hope, sometime the world will be
wise enough and decent enough and human enough
to wipe out.
They went there to live. They knew the dangers.
Why do you suppose they took these guns and this
ammunition and these men there? Because they
wanted to kill somebody? It is utterly absurd
and crazy. They took them there because they
thought it might be necessary to defend their
home with their lives and they were determined
to do it. They took guns there that in case of
need they might fight, fight even to death for
their home, and for each other, for their
people, for their race, for their rights under
the Constitution and the laws under which all of
us live; and unless men and women will do that,
we will soon be a race of slaves, whether we are
black or white. "Eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty," and it has always been so and
always will be. Do you suppose they were in
there for any other purpose? Gentlemen, there
isn't a chance that they took arms there for
anything else.
They did go there
knowing their rights, feeling their
responsibility, and determined to maintain those
rights if it meant death to the last man and the
last woman, and no one could do more. No man
lived a better life or died a better death than
fighting for his home and his children, for
himself, and for the eternal principles upon
which life depends. Instead of being here under
indictment, for murder, they should be honored
for the brave stand they made, for their rights
and ours. Some day, both white and black,
irrespective of color, will honor the memory of
these men, whether they are inside prison-walls
or outside, and will recognize that they fought
not only for themselves, but for every man who
wishes to be free.
Did they shoot too quick? Tell me just how long
a man needs wait for a mob? The Court, I know,
will instruct you on that. How long do you need
to wait for a mob?
We have been told that because a person
trespasses on your home or on your ground you
have no right to shoot him. Is that true? If I
go up to your home in a peaceable way, and go on
your ground, or on your porch, you have no right
to shoot me. You have a right to use force to
put me off if I refuse to go, even to the extent
of killing me. That isn't this case, gentlemen.
That isn't the case of a neighbor who went up to
the yard of a neighbor without permission and
was shot to death. Oh, no. The Court will tell
you the difference, unless I am mistaken, and I
am sure I am not; unless I mistake the law, and
I am sure, I do not.
This isn't a case
of a man who trespasses upon the ground of some
other man and is killed. It is the case of an
unlawful mob, which in itself is a crime; a mob
bent on mischief; a mob that has no rights. They
are too dangerous. It is like a fire. One man
may do something. Two will do a much more; three
will do more than three times as much; a crowd
will do something that no man ever dreamed of
doing. The law recognizes it. It is the duty of
every man, I don't care who he is, to disperse a
mob. It is the duty of the officers to disperse
them. It was the duty of the inmates of the
house, even though they had to kill somebody to
do it. Now, gentlemen, I wouldn't ask you to
take the law on my statement. The Court will
tell you the law. A mob is a criminal
combination of itself. Their presence is enough.
You need not wait until it spreads. It is there,
and that is enough. There is no other law; there
hasn't been for years, and it is the law which
will govern this case.
Now, gentlemen,
how long did they need to wait? Why, it is
silly. How long would you wait? How long do you
suppose ten white men would be waiting? Would
they have waited as long? I will tell you how
long they needed to wait. I will tell you what
the law is, and the Court will confirm me, I am
sure. Every man may act upon appearances as they
seem to him. Every man may protect his own life.
Every man has the right to protect his own
property. Every man is bound under the law to
disperse a mob even to the extent of taking
life. It is his duty to do it, but back of that
he has the human right to go to the extent of
killing to defend his life. He has a right to
defend the life of his kinsman, servant, his
friends, or those about him, and he has a right
to defend, gentlemen, not from real danger, but
from what seems to him real danger at the time.
Here is Henry
Sweet, the defendant in this case, a boy. How
many of you know why you are trying him? What
had he to do with it? Why is he in this case? A
boy, twenty-one years old, working his way
through college, and he is just as good a boy as
the boy of any juror in this box; just as good a
boy as you people were when you were boys, and I
submit to you, he did nothing whatever that was
wrong.
Of course, we
lawyers talk and talk and talk, as if we feared
results. I don't mean to trifle with you. I
always fear results. When life or liberty is in
the hands of a lawyer, he realizes the terrible
responsibility that is on him, and he fears that
some word will be left unspoken, or some thought
will be forgotten. I would not be telling you
the truth if I told you that I did not fear the
result of this important case; and when my
judgment and my reason comes to my aid and takes
counsel with my fears, I know, and I feel
perfectly well that no twelve American jurors,
especially in any northern land, could be
brought together who would dream of taking a
boy's life or liberty under circumstances like
this. That is what my judgment tells me, but my
fears perhaps cause me to go further and to say
more when I should not have said as much.
Now, let me tell you when a man has the right to
shoot in self-defense, and in defense of his
home; not when these vital things in life are in
danger, but when he thinks they are. These
despised blacks did not need to wait until the
house was beaten down above their heads. They
didn't need to wait until every window was
broken. They didn't need to wait longer for that
mob to grow more inflamed. There is nothing so
dangerous as ignorance and bigotry when it is
unleashed as it was here. The Court will tell
you that these inmates of this house had the
right to decide upon appearances, and if they
did, even though they were mistaken they are not
guilty. I don't know but they could safely have
stayed a little longer. I don't know but it
would have been well enough to let this mob
break a few more window-panes. I don't know but
it would have been better and been safe to have
let them batter down the house before they shot.
I don't know.
How am I to tell,
and how are you to tell? You are twelve white
men, gentlemen. You are twelve men sitting here
eight months after all this occurred, listening
to the evidence, perjured and otherwise, in this
court, to tell whether they acted too quickly or
too slowly. A man may be running an engine out
on the railroad. He may stop too quickly or too
slowly. In an emergency he is bound to do one or
the other, and the jury a year after, sitting in
cold blood, may listen to the evidence and say
that he acted too quickly. What do they know
about it? You must sit out there upon a moving
engine with your hand on the throttle and facing
danger and must decide and act quickly. Then you
can tell.
Cases often occur
in the courts, which doesn't speak very well for
the decency of courts, but they have happened,
where men have been shipwrecked at sea, a number
of the men having left the ship and gone into a
small boat to save their lives; they have
floated around for hours and tossed on the wild
waves of an angry sea; their food disappearing,
the boat heavy and likely to sink and no
friendly sail in sight,--What are they to do?
Will they throw some of their companions off the
boat and save the rest? Will they eat some to
save the others? If they kill anybody, it is
because they want to live. Every living thing
wants to live. The strongest instinct in life is
to keep going. You have seen a tree upon a rock
send a shoot down for ten or fifteen or twenty
feet, to search for water, to draw it up, that
it may still survive; it is a strong instinct
with animals and with plants, with all sentient
things, to keep alive.
Men are out in a
boat, in an angry sea, with little food, and
less water. No hope in sight. What will they do?
They throw a companion overboard to save
themselves, or they kill somebody to save
themselves. Juries have come into court and
passed on the question of whether they should
have waited longer, or not. Later, the survivors
were picked up by a ship and perhaps, if they
had waited longer, all would have been saved;
yet a jury, months after it was over, sitting
safely in their jury-box, pass upon the question
of whether they acted too quickly or not.
Can they tell? No. To decide that case, you must
be in a small boat, with little food and water;
in a wild sea, with no sail in sight, and
drifting around for hours or days in the face of
the deep, beset by hunger and darkness and fear
and hope. Then you can tell; but, no man can
tell without it. It can't be done, gentlemen,
and the law says so, and this Court will tell
you so.
Let me tell you
what you must do, gentlemen. It is fine for
lawyers to say, naively, that nothing happened.
No foot was set upon that ground; as if you had
to put your foot on the premises. You might put
your hand on. The foot isn't sacred. No foot was
set upon their home. No shot was fired, nothing
except that the house was stoned and windows
broken; and an angry crowd was outside seeking
their destruction. That is all. That is all,
gentlemen. I say that no American citizen,
unless he is black, need wait until an angry mob
sets foot upon his premises before he kills. I
say that no free man need wait to see just how
far an aggressor will go before he takes life.
The first instinct
a man has is to save his life. He doesn't need
to experiment. He hasn't time to experiment.
When he thinks it is time to save his life, he
has the right to act. There isn't any question
about it. It has been the law of every English
speaking country so long as we have had law.
Every man's home is his castle, which even the
King may not enter. Every man has a right to
kill to defend himself or his family, or others,
either in the defense of the home or in the
defense of themselves.
So far as that
branch of the case is concerned, there is only
one thing that this jury has a right to
consider, and that is whether the defendants
acted in honest fear of danger. That is all.
Perhaps they could have safely waited longer. I
know a little about psychology. If I could talk
to a man long enough, and not too long, and he
talk to me a little, I could guess fairly well
what is going on in his head, but I can't
understand the psychology of a mob, and neither
can anybody else. We know it is unreasoning. We
know it is filled with hatred. We know it is
cruel. We know it has no heart, no soul, and no
pity. We know it is as cruel as the grave. No
man has a right to stop and dicker while waiting
for a mob.
Now, let us look at these fellows. Here were
eleven colored men, penned up in the house. Put
yourselves in their place. Make yourselves
colored for a little while. It won't hurt, you
can wash it off. They can't, but you can; just
make yourself black men for a little while; long
enough, gentlemen, to judge them, and before any
of you would want to be judged, you would want
your juror to put himself in your place. That is
all I ask in this case, gentlemen. They were
black, and they knew the history of the black.
Our friend makes
fun of Dr. Sweet and Henry Sweet talking these
things all over in the short space of two
months. Well, gentlemen, let me tell you
something, that isn't evidence. This is just
theory. This is just theory, and nothing else. I
should imagine that the only thing that two or
three colored people talk of when they get
together is race. I imagine that they can't rub
color off their face or rub it out of their
minds. I imagine that is it with them always. I
imagine that the stories of lynchings, the
stories of murders, the stories of oppression is
a topic of constant conversation. I imagine that
everything that appears in the newspapers on
this subject is carried from one to another
until every man knows what others know, upon the
topic which is the most important of all to
their lives.
What do you think
about it? Suppose you were black. Do you think
you would forget it even in your dreams? Or
would you have black dreams? Suppose you had to
watch every point of contact with your neighbor
and remember your color, and you knew your
children were growing up under this handicap. Do
you suppose you would think of anything else?
Well, gentlemen, I
imagine that a colored man would think of that
before he would think of where he could get
bootleg whiskey, even. Do you suppose this boy
coming in here didn't know all about the
conditions, and did not learn all about them?
Did he not know about Detroit? Do you suppose he
hadn't read the story of his race? He is
intelligent. He goes to school. He would have
been a graduate now, except for this long
hesitation, when he is waiting to see whether he
goes back to college or goes to jail. Do you
suppose that black students and teachers are
discussing it?
Anyhow, gentlemen, what is the use? The jury
isn't supposed to be entirely ignorant. They are
supposed to know something. These black people
were in the house with the black man's
psychology, and with the black man's fear,
based, on what they had heard and what they had
read and what they knew. I don't need to go far.
I don't need to travel to Florida. I don't even
need to talk about the Chicago riots. The
testimony showed that in Chicago a colored boy
on a raft had been washed to a white bathing
beach, and men and boys of my race stoned him to
death. A riot began, and some hundred and twenty
were killed.
I don't need to go
to Washington or to St. Louis. Let us take
Detroit. I don't need to go far either in space
or time. Let us take this city. Now, gentlemen,
I am not saying that the white people of Detroit
are different from the white people of any other
city. I know what has been done in Chicago. I
know what prejudice growing out of race and
religion has done the world over, and all
through time. I am not blaming Detroit. I am
stating what has happened, that is all. And I
appeal to you, gentlemen, to do your part to
save the honor of this city, to save its
reputation, to save yours, to save its name, and
to save the poor colored people who can not save
themselves.
I was told there
had not been a lynching of a colored man in
thirty years or more in Michigan. All right.
Why, I can remember when the early statesmen of
Michigan cared for the colored man and when they
embodied the rights of the colored men in the
constitution and statutes. I can remember when
they laid the foundation that made it possible
for a man of any color or any religion, or any
creed, to own his home wherever he could find a
man to sell it. I remember when civil rights
laws were passed that gave the Negro the right
to go where the white man went and as he went.
There are some men who seem to think those laws
were wrong. I do not. Wrong or not, it is the
law, and if you were black you would protest
with every fiber of your body your right to
live.
Michigan used to
protect the rights of colored people. There were
not many of them here, but they have come in the
last few years, and with them has come
prejudice. Then, too, the southern white man has
followed his black slave. But that isn't all.
Black labor has come in competition with white.
Prejudices have been created where there was no
prejudice before. We have listened to the siren
song that we are a superior race and have
superior rights, and that the black man has
none.
It is a new idea
in Detroit that a colored man's home can be torn
down about his head because he is black. There
are some eighty thousand blacks here now, and
they are bound to reach out. They have reached
out in the past, and they will reach out in the
future. Do not make any mistake, gentlemen. I am
making no promises. I know the instinct for
life. I know it reaches black and white alike. I
know that you can not confine any body of people
to any particular place, and, as the population
grows, the colored people will go farther. I
know it, and you must change the law or you must
take it as it is, or you must invoke the primal
law of nature and get back to clubs and fists,
and if you are ready for that, gentlemen, all
right, but do it with your eyes open. That is
all I care for. You must have a government of
law or blind force, and if you are ready to let
blind force take the place of law, the
responsibility is on you, not on me.
Now, let us see
what has happened here. So far as I know, there
had been nothing of the sort happened when Dr.
Sweet bought his home. He took an option on it
in May, and got his deed in June; and in July,
in that one month, while he was deliberating on
moving, there were three cases of driving Negro
families out of their homes in Detroit. This was
accomplished by stones, clubs, guns and mobs.
Suppose one of you were colored and had bought a
house on Garland Avenue. Take this just exactly
as it is. You bought it in June, intending to
move in July, and you read and heard about what
happened to Dr. Turner in another part of the
city. Would you have waited? Would you have
waited a month, as Sweet did? Suppose you had
heard of what happened to Bristol? Would you
have waited? Remember, these men didn't have any
too much money. Dr. Sweet paid three thousand
dollars on his home, leaving a loan on it of
sixteen thousand dollars more. He had to scrape
together some money to buy his furniture, and he
bought fourteen hundred dollars worth the day
after he moved in and paid two hundred dollars
down.
Gentlemen, it is
only right to consider Dr. Sweet and his family.
He has a little child. He has a wife. They must
live somewhere. If they could not, it would be
better to take them out and kill them, and kill
them decently and quickly. Had he any right to
be free?
They determined to
move in and to take nine men with them. What
would you have done, gentlemen? If you had
courage, you would have done as Dr. Sweet did.
You would have been crazy or a coward if you
hadn't. Would you have moved in alone? No, you
would not have gone alone. You would have taken
your wife. If you had a brother or two, you
would have taken them because you would know,
that you could rely on them, and you would have
taken those nearest to you. And you would have
moved in just as Dr. Sweet did. Wouldn't you? He
didn't shoot the first night. He didn't look for
trouble. He kept his house dark so that the
neighbors wouldn't see him. He didn't dare have
a light in his house, gentlemen, for fear of the
neighbors. Noble neighbors, who were to have a
colored family in their neighborhood. He had the
light put out in the front part of the house, so
as not to tempt any of the mob to violence.
Now, let us go
back a little. What happened before this? I
don't need to go over the history of the case.
Everybody who wants to understand knows it, and
many who don't want to understand it. As soon as
Dr. Sweet bought this house, the neighbors
organized the "Water Works Park Improvement
Association." They made a constitution and
by-laws. You may read the constitution and
by-laws of every club, whether it is the Rotary
Club or the--I was trying to think of some other
club, but I can't. Whatever the club, it must
always have a constitution and by-laws. These
are all about the same. You cannot tell anything
about a man by the church he belongs to. You
can't tell anything about him by the kind of
clothes he wears. You can't tell anything about
him by any of these extraneous matters, and you
can't tell anything about an association from
the by-laws. Not a thing. I belonged to
associations in my time. As far as I can
remember, they all had by-laws.
Mr. Toms: All of
them have the same by-laws?
Mr. Darrow: Yes,
all have the same. They are all of them engaged
in the work of uplifting humanity, and humanity
still wants to stay down. All engaged in the
same work, according to their by-laws,
gentlemen. So, the "Water Works Park Improvement
Club" had by-laws. They were going to aid the
police. They didn't get a chance to try to aid
them until that night. They were going to
regulate automobile traffic. They didn't get any
chance to regulate automobile traffic until that
night. They were going to protect the homes and
make them safe for children.
The purpose was
clear, and every single member reluctantly said
that they joined it to keep colored people out
of the district. They might have said it first
as well as last. People, even in a wealthy and
aristocratic neighborhood like Garland and
Charlevoix, don't give up a dollar without
expecting some profit; not a whole dollar.
Sometimes two in one family, the husband and
wife, joined.
They got in quick. The woods were on fire.
Something had to be done, as quick as they heard
that Dr. Sweet was coming; Dr. Sweet, who had
been a bellhop on a boat, and a bellhop in
hotels, and fired furnaces and sold popcorn and
has worked his way with his great handicap
through school and through college, and
graduated as a doctor, and gone to Europe and
taken another degree; Dr. Sweet, who knew more
than any man in the neighborhood ever would know
or ever want to know. He deserved more for all
he had done. When they heard he was coming, then
it was time to act, and act together, for the
sake of their homes, their families and their
firesides, and so they got together. They didn't
wait. A meeting was called in the neighborhood;
we haven't a record of that, but we have a
record of another one.
And then, what happened after that? Let me read
you, not from the books of any organization; not
from colored people; from what I have learned is
a perfectly respectable paper, so far as papers
go, the Detroit Free Press.
Mr. Toms: Free
Press, the best morning paper.
Mr. Darrow: And
the only real Free Press that I ever heard of.
On July 12th, gentlemen, a month after Dr. Sweet
had bought his home, this appears in the paper,
the headlines: "Stop Rioting." "Smith Pleads
with Citizens. Detroit Faces Shame and Disgrace
as the Result of Fighting, he states." "Negro,
held for shooting youth, vacates residence under
police guard."
Here is the story,
not published in colored papers: "While Detroit
police were anticipating further outbreaks near
the homes occupied by Negroes in white
residential areas and had full complements of
reserves in readiness to deal with any situation
that might arise, Mayor John W. Smith late
yesterday issued a statement asking the public
to see that the riots ‘do not grow into a
condition which will be a lasting stain on the
reputation of Detroit as a law-abiding
community."
"The storm centers
are considered to be American and Tireman
Avenues [in southwestern Detroit] where
Vollington A. Bristol, Negro undertaker ..."
Excuse me. This isn't the only time I ever heard
of that Tireman Avenue.
"The storm centers
are considered to be American and Tireman
Avenues where Vollington A. Bristol, Negro
undertaker still occupies the home he recently
purchased there in the teeth of demonstrations
on three successive nights and a residence on
Prairie Avenue, near Grand River Avenue."
"John W. Fletcher,
9428 Stoepel Avenue, two blocks from Livernois
and Plymouth Avenue, the Negro who is to be
charged with causing grievous bodily harm in
connection with the shooting of a white youth,
Leonard Paul, 15 years old, 9567 Prairie Avenue,
Friday night, relieved the situation in his
district by moving out yesterday after less than
forty-eight hours tenancy. Six patrolmen, under
Lieutenant A. R. Saal of the Petosky Avenue
Station, were at hand as Fletcher moved his
furniture over his brick-strewn lawn from the
house in which not one window remained whole."
Gentlemen, what
kind of feeling does it give a white man? It
makes me ashamed of my race. Now, to go on:
"There was no
trouble. Latest reports from Receiving Hospital
indicates that the youth, Paul, who was twice
shot in the hip by Fletcher, according to the
latter's alleged statement, is still in a
serious condition. Although no demonstrations
were held up to a late hour last night, police
guards will be maintained for an indefinite
period about the three homes, it was announced.
Two of the houses have been purchased and
occupied by Negro families, and negotiations are
under way for the purchase of the third by a
Negro, according to rumors which have reached
the police. The latter is on Prairie Avenue."
"The police
armored car, which was conditioned early last
week and has been held in readiness in case of
trouble, last night was moved near the scene of
the recent disturbances. It will remain for the
present in the vicinity of Tireman and American
Avenues. Every available policeman and
detective, and fifty deputy sheriffs also have
been detailed to the locality."
"A meeting,
attended by more than ten thousand persons, was
held on West Fourth Street, a mile west of
Lincoln Park Village last night. A speaker from
Tennessee advocated laws to compel Negroes to
live only in certain quarters of the city."
I don't know
whether he was one of the policemen who was up
at the Sweet house. This speaker was from
Tennessee.
"The only incident
noted occurred when Bristol left this house. As
he greeted Sergeant Welsh and two officers who
stood on guard, an automobile passed by and
swerved towards the pavement where the Negro
was. The latter jumped back hurriedly, and the
car kept on its way."
Mayor Smith's statement is as follows:
"Recent incidents
of violence and attempted violence in connection
with racial disagreements constitute a warning
to the people of Detroit which they cannot
afford to ignore. They are to be deplored, and
it is a duty which rests as much upon the
citizenry as upon the public officials to see
that they do not grow into a condition which
will be a lasting stain upon the reputation of
Detroit as a law-abiding community."
"The police
department can have but one duty in connection
with all such incidents, that is to use its
utmost endeavors to prevent the destruction of
life and property. In the performance of this
duty, I trust that every police officer will be
unremitting in his efforts. The law recognizes
no distinction in color or race. On all
occasions when the emotions are deeply stirred
by controversy, the persons affected on all
sides of the dispute are likely to feel that the
police or other controlling force are siding
against them. I hope and believe that the police
during the recent attempts to preserve law and
order have done so impartially."
"With the police
department doing its utmost to preserve order,
there is always the possibility that
uncontrolled elements may reach such proportions
that even these efforts will not be completely
effectual. It is that fact that calls for
earnest cooperation by all good citizens at this
time. Curiosity seekers who go to scenes of
threatened disorder add immeasurably to the
problem of preserving order. Thus, the persons
innocent of ill intentions are likely to be
chiefly responsible for inexcusable incidents."
"The condition
which faces Detroit is one which faced
Washington, East St. Louis, Chicago and other
large cities. The result in those cities was one
which Detroit must avoid, if possible. A single
fatal riot would injure this city beyond
remedy."
"The avoidance of
further disorder belongs to the good sense of
the leaders of thought in both white and colored
races. The persons either white or colored who
attempt to urge their fellows on to disorder and
crime are guilty of the most serious offense
upon the statute books. It is clear that a
thoughtless individual of both races constitutes
the nucleus in each disorder, and it is equally
clear that the inspiration for their acts comes
from malign influences which are willing to go
even to the limits of bloodshed to gain their
ends. The police are expected to inquire and
prosecute any persons active in organizing such
disorder or inciting a riot. The rest of the
duty for preserving order lies with the
individual citizens--by refraining from adding
to the crowds in districts where danger exists,
from refraining from discussion which may have a
tendency to incite disorder, and finally to
rebuke at once the individual agitators who are
willing to risk human life, destroy property,
and ruin their city's reputation."
That is the
Mayor's proclamation. The newspaper adds this:
"To maintain the high standard of the
residential district between Jefferson and Mack
Avenues, a meeting has been called by the Water
Works Improvement Association for Thursday night
in the Howe School auditorium. Men and women of
the district, which includes Cadillac, Hurlburt,
Bewick, Garland, St. Clair, and Harding Avenues,
are asked to attend in self-defense."
I shall not talk
to you much longer. I am sorry I have talked so
long. But this case is close to my heart. These
colored people read this story in the paper. Do
I need to go anywhere else to find the feeling
of peril over the question of color? Dr. Sweet
had to face the same proposition. Two nights
after this story was in the paper, at the Howe
School, across the street from Dr. Sweet's
house, seven hundred people of the neighborhood
were present; two detectives, and all the
neighbors, and in their presence, a man from
Tireman Avenue, who they say was radical, and
who, this good gentleman, Mr. Andrews, says,
called a spade a spade. Well, well, what do you
know about that? He called a spade a spade. I
suppose Andrews meant that he called a black man
a "nigger," and "said that where the nigger
showed his head, the white must shoot." He
advocated force and violence. He told what had
happened in his own neighborhood. He told of
driving people out of their homes, and said that
the Tireman Avenue Improvement Association could
be called on to help at Garland and Charlevoix.
Gentlemen, we know
the work of an improvement association. If you
can only get enough improvement associations in
the City of Detroit, Detroit will be improved.
This meeting occurred July the 14th, and Sweet
moved into the house September 8th. The people
knew it. They were confronted with the mob.
Their house was stoned. Their windows were
broken. No more riotous combination ever came
together than the one that was there assembled.
Who are these people who were in this house?
Were they people of character? Were they people
of standing? Were they people of intelligence?
First, there was
Doctor Sweet. Gentlemen, a white man does pretty
well when he does what Doctor Sweet did. A white
boy who can start in with nothing, and put
himself through college, study medicine, taking
post graduate work in Europe, earning every
penny of it as he goes along, shoveling snow and
coal, and working as a bell hop, on boats,
working at every kind of employment that he can
get to make his way, is some fellow.
But, Dr. Sweet has
the handicap of the color of his face. And there
is no handicap more terrible than that.
Supposing you had your choice, right here this
minute, would you rather lose your eyesight or
become colored? Would you rather lose your
hearing or be a Negro? Would you rather go out
there on the street and have your leg cut off by
a street car, or have a black skin?
I don't like to
speak of it; I do not like to speak of it in the
presence of these colored people, whom I have
always urged to be as happy as they can. But, it
is true, Life is a hard game, anyhow. But, when
the cards are stacked against you, it is
terribly hard. And they are stacked against a
race for no reason but that they are black.
Who are these men
who were in this house? There was Doctor Sweet.
There was his brother, who was a dentist. There
was this young boy who worked his way for three
years through college, with a little aid from
his brother, and who was on his way to graduate.
Henry's future is now in your hands. There was
his companion, who was working his way through
college,--all gathered in that house.
Were they
hoodlums? Were they criminals? Were they
anything except men who asked for a chance to
live; who asked for a chance to breathe the free
air and make their own way, earn their own
living, and get their bread by the sweat of
their brow?
I will read to you what the Mayor said. I will
call your attention to one sentence in it again,
and then let us see what the mob did. This was
the Mayor of your City, whose voice should be
heard, who speaks of the danger that is imminent
to this city and to every other city in the
north, a danger that may bear fruit at any time;
and he called the attention of the public of
this city to this great danger, gentlemen. And,
I want to call your attention to it. Here is
what he said:
"The avoidance of
further disorder belongs to the good sense of
the leaders of thought of both white and colored
races. The persons, either white or colored, who
attempt to urge their fellows to disorder and
crime, are guilty of the most serious offences
upon the statute books."
Gentlemen, were
those words of wisdom? Are they true? They were
printed in this newspaper on the 12th day of
July. Two days later, on the schoolhouse
grounds, a crowd of seven or eight hundred
assembled, and listened to a firebrand who arose
in that audience and told the people that his
community had driven men and women from their
homes because they were black; that the Tireman
Avenue people knew how to deal with them, and
advised the mob to violate the law and the
constitution and the rights of the black;
advised them to take the law into their own
hands, and to drive these poor dependent people
from their own homes. And, the crowd cheered;
while the officers of the law were there, all
within two days of the time the Mayor of this
city had called the attention of the public to
the fact that any man was a criminal of the
worst type who would do anything to stir up
sedition or disobedience to the law in relation
to color.
The man is more
than a firebrand who invited and urged crime and
violence in his community. No officer raised his
hand to prosecute, and no citizen raised his
voice, while this man uttered those treasonable
words across the street from where Sweet had
purchased his home, and in the presence of seven
hundred people. Did anybody say a thing? Did
anybody rise up in that audience and say: "We
respect and shall obey the law; we shall not
turn ourselves into a mob to destroy black men
and to batter down their homes, in spite of what
they did on Tireman Avenue."
Gentlemen, these black men shot. Whether any
bullets from their guns hit Breiner, I do not
care. I will not discuss it. It is passing
strange that the bullet that went through him,
went directly through, not as if it was shot
from some higher place. It was not the bullet
that came from Henry Sweet's rifle; that is
plain. It might have come from the house; I do
not know, gentlemen, and I do not care. There
are bigger issues in this case than that. The
right to defend your home, the right to defend
your person, is as sacred a right as any human
being could fight for, and as sacred a cause as
any jury could sustain.
That issue not
only involves the defendants in this case, but
it involves every man who wants to live, every
man who wants freedom to work and to breathe; it
is an issue worth fighting for, and worth dying
for, it is an issue worth the attention of this
jury, who have a chance that is given to few
juries to pass upon a real case that will mean
something in the history of a race.
These men were taken to the police station.
Gentlemen, there was never a time that these
black men's rights were protected in the least;
never once. They had no rights, they are black.
They were to be driven out of their home, under
the law's protection. When they defended their
home, they were arrested and charged with
murder. They were taken to a police station,
manacled. And they asked for a lawyer. And,
every man, if he has any brains at all, asks for
a lawyer when he is in the hands of the police.
If he does not want to have a web woven around
him, to entangle or ensnare him, he will ask for
a lawyer. And, the lawyer's first aid to the
injured always is, "Keep your mouth shut." It is
not a case of whether you are guilty or not
guilty. That makes no difference. "Keep your
mouth shut." The police grabbed them, as is
their habit. They got the County Attorney to ask
questions.
What did they do? They did what everybody does,
helpless, alone, and unadvised. They did not
know, even, that anybody was killed. At least
there is no evidence that they knew. But, they
knew that they had been arrested for defending
their own rights to live; and they were there in
the hands of their enemies; and they told the
best story they could think of at the
time,--just as ninety-nine men out of a hundred
always do. Whether they are guilty or not guilty
makes no difference. But lawyers, and even
policemen, should have protected their rights.
Some things that
these defendants said were not true, as is
always the case. The prosecutor read a statement
from this boy, which is conflicting. In two
places he says that he shot "over them." In
another he said that he shot "at them." He
probably said it in each place but the reporter
probably got one of them wrong. But Henry makes
it perfectly explicit, and when you go to your
jury room and read it all, you will find that he
does. In another place he said he shot to defend
his brother's home and family. He says that in
two or three places. You can also find he said
that he shot so that they would run away, and
leave them to eat their dinner. They are both
there. These conflicting statements you will
find in all cases of this sort. You always find
them, where men have been sweated, without help,
without a lawyer, groping around blindly, in the
hands of the enemy, without the aid of anybody
to protect their rights. Gentlemen, from the
first to the last, there has not been a
substantial right of these defendants that was
not violated.
We come now and lay this man's case in the hands
of a jury of our peers,--the first defense and
the last defense is the protection of home and
life as provided by our law. We are willing to
leave it here. I feel, as I look at you, that we
will be treated fairly and decently, even
understandingly and kindly. You know what this
case is. You know why it is. You know that if
white men had been fighting their way against
colored men, nobody would ever have dreamed of a
prosecution. And you know that, from the
beginning of this case to the end, up to the
time you write your verdict, the prosecution is
based on race prejudice and nothing else.
Gentlemen, I feel deeply on this subject; I
cannot help it. Let us take a little glance at
the history of the Negro race. It only needs a
minute. It seems to me that the story would melt
hearts of stone. I was born in America. I could
have left it if I had wanted to go away.
Some other men,
reading about this land of freedom that we brag
about on the 4th of July, came voluntarily to
America. These men, the defendants, are here
because they could not help it. Their ancestors
were captured in the jungles and on the plains
of Africa, captured as you capture wild beasts,
torn from their homes and their kindred; loaded
into slave ships, packed like sardines in a box,
half of them dying on the ocean passage; some
jumping into the sea in their frenzy, when they
had a chance to choose death in place of
slavery. They were captured and brought here.
They could not help it. They were bought and
sold as slaves, to work without pay, because
they were black.
They were
subjected to all of this for generations, until
finally they were given their liberty, so far as
the law goes,--and that is only a little way,
because, after all, every human being's life in
this world is inevitably mixed with every other
life and, no matter what laws we pass, no matter
what precautions we take, unless the people we
meet are kindly and decent and human and
liberty-loving, then there is no liberty.
Freedom comes from human beings, rather than
from laws and institutions.
Now, that is their
history. These people are the children of
slavery. If the race that we belong to owes
anything to any human being, or to any power in
this Universe, they owe it to these black men.
Above all other men, they owe an obligation and
a duty to these black men which can never be
repaid. I never see one of them, that I do not
feel I ought to pay part of the debt of my race,
and if you gentlemen feel as you should feel in
this case, your emotions will be like mine.
Gentlemen, you
were called into this case by chance. It took us
a week to find you, a week of culling out
prejudice and hatred. Probably we did not cull
it all out at that; but we took the best and the
fairest that we could find. It is up to you.
Your verdict means something in this case: It
means something, more than the fate of this boy.
It is not often that a case is submitted to
twelve men where the decision may mean a
milestone in the progress of the human race. But
this case does. And, I hope and I trust that you
have a feeling of responsibility that will make
you take it and do your duty as citizens of a
great nation, and, as members of the human
family, which is better still.
Let me say just a
parting word for Henry Sweet, who has well nigh
been forgotten. I am serious, but it seems
almost like a reflection upon this jury to talk
as if I doubted your verdict. What has this boy
done? This one boy now that I am culling out
from all of the rest, and whose fate is in your
hands,--can you tell me what he has done? Can I
believe myself? Am I standing in a Court of
Justice, where twelve men on their oaths are
asked to take away the liberty of a boy
twenty-one years of age, who has done nothing
more than what Henry Sweet has done?
Gentlemen, you may
think he shot too quick; you may think he erred
in judgment; you may think that Doctor Sweet
should not have gone there, prepared to defend
his home. But, what of this case of Henry Sweet?
What has he done? I want to put it up to you,
each one of you, individually. Doctor Sweet was
his elder brother. He had helped Henry through
school. He loved him. He had taken him into his
home. Henry had lived with him and his wife; he
had fondled his baby. The doctor had promised
Henry money to go through school. Henry was
getting his education, to take his place in the
world, gentlemen--and this is a hard job. With
his brother's help, he had worked himself
through college up to the last year. The doctor
had bought a home. He feared danger. He moved in
with his wife and he asked this boy to go with
him. And this boy went to help defend his
brother, and his brother's wife and his child
and his home.
Do you think more
of him or less of him for that? I never saw
twelve men in my life--and I have looked at a
good many faces of a good many juries,--I never
saw twelve men in my life, that, if you could
get them to understand a human case, were not
true and right.
Should this boy
have gone along and helped his brother? Or,
should he have stayed away? What would you have
done? And yet, gentlemen, here is a boy, and the
President of his College came all the way here
from Ohio to tell you what thinks of him. His
teachers have come here, from Ohio, to tell you
what they think of him. The Methodist Bishop has
come here to tell you what he thinks of him.
So, gentlemen, I
am justified in saying that this boy is as
kindly, as well disposed, as decent a man as any
one of you twelve. Do you think he ought to be
taken out of his school and sent to the
penitentiary? All right, gentlemen, if you think
so, do it. It is your job, not mine. If you
think so, do it. But if you do, gentlemen, if
you should ever look into the face of your own
boy, or your own brother, or look into your own
heart, you will regret it in sack cloth and
ashes. You know, if he committed any offense, it
was being loyal and true to his brother whom he
loved. I know where you will send him, and it
will not be to the penitentiary.
Now, gentlemen, just one more word, and I am
through with this case. I do not live in
Detroit. But I have no feeling against this
city. In fact, I shall always have the kindest
remembrance of it, especially if this case
results as I think and feel that it will. I am
the last one to come here to stir up race
hatred, or any other hatred. I do not believe in
the law of hate. I may not be true to my ideals
always, but I believe in the law of love, and I
believe you can do nothing with hatred. I would
like to see a time when man loves his fellow
man, and forgets his color or his creed. We will
never be civilized until that time comes.
I know the Negro
race has a long road to go. I believe the life
of the Negro race has been a life of tragedy, of
injustice, of oppression. The law has made him
equal, but man has not. And, after all, the last
analysis is, what has man done?--and not what
has the law done? I know there is a long road
ahead of him, before he can take the place which
I believe he should take. I know that before him
there is suffering, sorrow, tribulation and
death among the blacks, and perhaps the whites.
I am sorry. I would do what I could to avert it.
I would advise patience; I would advise
toleration; I would advise understanding; I
would advise all of those things which are
necessary for men who live together.
Gentlemen, what do
you think is your duty in this case? I have
watched, day after day, these black, tense faces
that have crowded this court. These black faces
that now are looking to you twelve whites,
feeling that the hopes and fears of a race are
in your keeping.
This case is about
to end, gentlemen. To them, it is life. Not one
of their color sits on this jury. Their fate is
in the hands of twelve whites. Their eyes are
fixed on you, their hearts go out to you, and
their hopes hang on your verdict.
This is all. I ask
you, on behalf of this defendant, on behalf of
these helpless ones who turn to you, and more
than that, on behalf of this great state, and
this great city which must face this problem,
and face it fairly, I ask you, in the name of
progress and of the human race, to return a
verdict of not guilty in this case!
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