Impact of The Case
Governor Rolph praised the action, stating that California had sent a message to future kidnappers, and promised to pardon anyone involved in the lynching. However, Rolph died on June 2, 1934, before any charges had been filed in the case. Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren was the strongest supporter of prosecution for the lynching; eventually seven people were arrested for the lynchings, but none were convicted. In 1934, the Nazis used photographs of the lynchings as propaganda to show that lawless mobs in America were supporting the interests of Jews -- Brooke Hart's father was Jewish, his mother Catholic.
In the aftermath of the lynching, Governor Rolph was publicly condemned by former President Herbert Hoover, then at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Rolph struck back instantly, accusing Hoover of calling out the U.S. Army against the World War I "Bonus Marchers" who had gathered in Washington, D.C. in 1932 to protest lack of assistance to the veterans of that war. President Roosevelt also condemned the lynching, although subsequent Congressional attempts to outlaw lynching were defeated.
Holmes's parents sued Governor Rolph for his role in the lynching of their son, but the suit was dropped when the governor died of a heart attack in 1934. Thurmond's family took no action on his behalf and reportedly never again spoke about the matter amongst themselves. One young man was charged with the lynching after he publicly claimed credit for their deaths, but the charges were dropped. The Santa Clara County Grand Jury met the following year, but despite literally thousands of witnesses, sources of reporters, and hundreds of photographs, the grand jury found that no witnesses could identify anyone from the lynching, so no charges were filed.
The lynching was unique in American political and criminal justice history because it marked the first time that a lynching was a media event. It was also unique because of the political involvement of a state governor and the eager conspiracy by civic and business leaders and law enforcement (including the FBI) to lynch two men who had not been indicted, arraigned, tried, or sentenced for the crime in a court of law.
Read more about this topic: Brooke Hart
Famous quotes containing the words impact of the, impact of, impact and/or case:
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“Not infrequently, we encounter copies of important human beings; and here, too, as in the case of paintings, most people prefer the copies to the originals.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)