AFRIC'S SABLE PROGENY

As the Scottsboro case limps along toward the retrial granted by Supreme Court decision, conditions seem ideal for an enactment of the bloody drama which so often speeds the hand of Southern justice. For excellent reasons, not a negro can be found in or near the little courthouse at Decatur, Alabama. Noisy groups of farmers, barbers, illiterates of every stripe, stand in the street outside, muttering ominously of "outsiders," "Jew lawyers," and "new fangled city trimmings." Representatives of the metropolitan press are ready to give the world its first ringside seat at a genuine lynching.

It is with all this in mind that Defense Attorney Samuel S. Leibowitz asks that the place of trial be transferred to Birmingham, a city of more liberal repute. At Decatur his six young negro plaintiffs can neither be condemned nor acquitted. To find them guilty would obviously be a miscarriage of justice; to set them free would be equivalent to turning them over to the good citizens of Decatur and vicinity. The National Guard, composed of men whose ethical principles largely coincide with those of the rustics, is not to be depended upon in a crisis. Judge Lynch and the "old fashioned trial" have ruled before; they can rule again.

But although wide publicity seems not to have materially benefitted the Scottsboro defendants, it has at least served to emphasize the need for centralization, of criminal procedure in America. The petty jurisdiction of local medieval bailiwicks lends itself all too easily to intimidation either by organized thugs or by the blind fury of an ignorant mob. Only by the introduction of a strong system of federal courts, now made practical by modern avenues of communication, will local prejudice eventually be transcended and uniform justice meted out to all.