America has always had its troubles with the mob. Whether a lynch mob, the pitchfork and torch crowd, basic rioters, or criminal organizations, they all have one thing in common; they take the law into their own hands.
Once formed and deployed to take action, they are a destabilizing force to democracy and society whether their actions are large or small. The threat of mob violence shapes, changes and determines outcomes even more than mob action. While the mob has never completely disappeared from the American scene, they have been quieter and less formed in recent decades. But now they are back and BIGGER than ever.
The most notorious example of American mob evil is the lynch mob where blacks were regularly strung up and murdered by hanging. This horrific chapter of our history was most common, but not completely relegated to the Southern states. However, this form of mob murder has also been visited upon other hated minorities.
On April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee of The National Pencil Company was strangled to death and found the next morning in the factory cellar. Leo Frank, a New York Jew and Managing Director of the company was indicted for the murder, without credible evidence.
Frank, a Cornell University engineering graduate, had moved from New York to Georgia in 1908, not for the fried chicken, or the Southern Belles, but to advance his career. At that time, Jew-hatred was rampant, especially in the South, making Frank made a ripe target. After a sham trial, he was convicted on August 25, 1913, and sentenced to death. All of Frank's appeals failed, including his final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon his belief that Frank had not received a fair trial, Ga. Governor John Slaton held hearings. Based upon newly presented evidence not available at trial, he commuted Frank's sentence from death to life in prison.
What happened next? The angry Jew-hating mob snatched him from prison and hung him from a tree. To them, this was justice. To the mob, the judge and jury are just noise around the edges, unless they reach the right verdict and pronounce the proper sentence.
Scarface, Al Capone, aka "Snorky" due to his dapper style, comes from a different kind of mob. Al's mob and its successors the "organized" crime mob, also subvert the rule of law. Although Al's business model was different from the pitchfork and torch crowd that lynched Leo Frank, the results are the same. Al's crowd would threaten jurors, their families, suborn perjury, bribe cops, judges, and do everything and anything to wreck the justice system.
Although there aren't many people from that era still walking around to discuss it with, I've heard his tactics were pretty effective. Poor Al, after his indictment for Income Tax Evasion and a stint in Alcaraz, he spent his final days hounded by the FBI sitting on his dock in Miami Beach as a freak show attraction, waving with a crazy-eyed gaze to the passing tour boats. Snorky died in 1947 of complications from syphilis. Big Al presumably caught the disease in happier times during his Glory days when he ruled Chicago and owned its justice system.
John Adams, Founding Father, our second President, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was terrified of the mob as a destructive force to the rule of law and democracy. In 1770, despite his hatred of British rule and at great risk to his person and career, agreed to represent the British soldiers and their commanding officer, Thomas Preston, who fired into the angry mob that resulted in three deaths. That tragic American story became known as the Boston Massacre.
The Redcoats and the mob that gathered against them came into violent conflict over the colonist’s protestation of The Townshend Act. Adams won an acquittal before a jury that was also antagonistic towards British rule. This victory was secured through persuasive argument, presentation of evidence, the presumption of innocence, and proper Civil Procedure.
Mr. Adams died on July 4, 1826, the same date as his former antagonist, and later friend Thomas Jefferson. Were John to revisit America in 2021, 251 years after the Boston Massacre, he would sadly find the mob with its contempt for the rule of law to be bigger than ever.
James Madison, in Federalist 10, spoke to the destructive power of "factions''. Factions, as he described them, are the disease-ridden state of a political reality, where Americans would be so polarized that it could lead to the destruction of our Constitutional Republic. We are now at that tipping point. This is true both at the micro and macro level of our society and political culture. Extremists of all political stripes have their mobs ready and willing to burn and loot our cities if they don’t like a verdict, political decision, or policy.
As for the media mob, what can I say? On June 4, 2020, a few days into the "peaceful protests" and riots, CNN Body Building Diva, Chris Cuomo, rhetorically asked, “Why do people expect protests to be polite and peaceful?”
Sorry muscles, it’s in First Amendment to The Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Despite the frequently correct observations concerning legislation from the bench, sham decisions, and bad policy that we share concerning the imperfection of our system at every level... Let’s be clear; the mob is back bigger than ever, and they will destroy our society if we allow them to.
It is our responsibility to thoroughly vet, as best we can, all of our public officials so that their actions while in office align with The American Way.
- Emes