We had an election in our city last month. There was a great deal of bitterness in the campaign since one of the candidates for mayor had been forced out of office as mayor some years ago for what was termed "gross misconduct." In the hotly contested election last month he was again returned to office. Since then our city has been the scene of picketing, street brawls and threatening violence. Constitutionally we all have the right protest, but we see developing in our quiet western city all the ingredients of mob violence. We all think the same thing. "It couldn't happen in our town". When I hear that I think back to another community who thought that way, and it wasn't so many years ago either. It was November 26, 1933, in San Jose, California when over 10,000 people took the law into their own hands, battered down the doors to the jail house and removed and lynched two convicted kidnappers. Mothers were seen hoisting their children above the mob for a glimpse of the kidnappers as their bodies hung from the trees. Such occurrences hang very heavy on the conscience of a society and even today in San Jose, no one wants to discuss that terrible night when the mob took over. I am not suggesting that such a thing will happen here in our city, but I do suggest there is great danger when two opposing factions gather in one area to "protest". Somehow a man feels less responsible when he is part of a group and believe me, it only takes one thrown rock to turn a "group" into a mob. We CAN’T let it happen here.
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