I was looking at an old news article from the Enquirer, and saw a timeline of riots in Cincinnati. I guess that's typical for any city. I was comparing behavior back then to behavior today.  Riots were a really affective way for people to get attention...to be a voice that's heard. I mean..these days people will get the media involved, hold up their little signs or complain at city hall but a very select few will actually take it to the level of physically rioting.  Obviously if giant mobs of people are rioting they must feel VERY strongly about their beliefs or their cause.  It seems like the average man isn't involved in politics like they once were.  Has anyone heard about the courthouse riot in 1884?  Here's the story, I'll paste it from a Cinci Enquirer article:

 

 

 

In the 1880s, many Cincinnatians thought the criminal justice system was corrupt. There had been rumors of jury bribing, and there were long delays in trials. Murders were common. There were 93 murders in Cincinnati in 1883! (Compare that with 49 in 2001, 65 in 2003.)

 

A full-page article ran in The Cincinnati Enquirer, on March 9, 1884, headlined "The College of Murder." The story reported:

--

 

I just can't ever see a public reaction like THAT ever happening again.  There's a difference between this and race riots.  I'm sure our local government was reformed to help prevent corruption but what if it was corrupt?  What would we as citizens do about it?  People rarely take matters into their own hands.  I think most "respectable" citizens would think they have too much to lose or something.  10,000 people coming together to murder William Berger, and burn down the courthouse...These weren't black people dealing with opression and being harassed by police, these were white people that got fed up with corruption in the judicial system, and risked their freedom and even their lives because they felt it was their responsibility.  I know social change is always unpredictable but it appears to me that people back then got more involved in local issues. Would you say that's true?  I try to be aware of things going on around the city but I look at my peers and the only time they get political is if they're talking about football.  I guess that's why I spend so much time on here.

if giant mobs of people are rioting they must feel VERY strongly about their beliefs or their cause.

 

Whatever...if giant mobs of people are rioting, some of them feel VERY strongly that leading an out-of-control mob will bring them a lot of political power; some of them feel VERY strongly that participating in an out-of-control mob will give them a chance to smash stuff up and steal from Deveroes; some feel VERY strongly that maybe being out in the middle of the mob they can have some influence to stop the morons from burning down their own neighborhood; and yes, some feel VERY strongly that their political beliefs are important enough to damage their neighbor's property over.

 

But please - rioting is NOT a form of political speech, it's a form of terrorism.  And the fact that most folks don't resort to rioting is not a measure of their lack of political will, it's a measure of their maturity.  AND, one last thing - I completely reject the assertion that folks don't care about politics like they used to...used to be some people were hyper-partisan Whigs, some were hyper-partisan Democrats, many could be swayed either way, and many didn't care.  And today, some are hyper-partisan Republicans, some are hyper-partisan Democrats, many can be swayed either way, and many don't care.

I'm not saying that rioting is the proper way to get attention.  I don't believe the riots in 5 years ago were even about anything political, just an excuse for peope to act stupid. I'm refering to the courthouse riot. These were people that were highly educated on what was going on.  I'm assuming they didn't break into a deveroes and destroy their own neighborhood.

The group in the story you posted reads like a lynch mob.  A popular form of justice in the 19th century in Ohio (lasted into the 1960s in Alabama & Mississippi).

 

These were people that were highly educated on what was going on. 

 

I don't think the know nothings and lynch mob type we highly educated.  Quite the opposite.

The riot of 1884 was, in part, a lynch mob, but seemed to have been participated in by quite a cross section of the population.

It was also sustained for several days.

That it was right or wrong I don't think matters so much as the fact that this sort of thing will happen if things, apparently, warrant it.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohhamil3/

At this link is a link to a pdf that collects some current stories about the riots.

It lists the names & occupations of those killed.

 

 

Eh they make it sound like it was just the general population. 10,000 seems like a high number of mostly lynch mobsters.

Eh they make it sound like it was just the general population. 10,000 seems like a high number of mostly lynch mobsters.

 

It's a little late in the game to get eyewitness accounts from that event.  Who is to say that the newspaper account (from 1884) was accurate?  Along with the big cities each having 3-7 newspapers, they were each very partisian and more of an agenda than any media mogal has now.

Eh they make it sound like it was just the general population. 10,000 seems like a high number of mostly lynch mobsters.

 

It's a little late in the game to get eyewitness accounts from that event.  Who is to say that the newspaper account (from 1884) was accurate?  Along with the big cities each having 3-7 newspapers, they were each very partisian and more of an agenda than any media mogal has now.

 

So you're saying that the media in 1884 was possibly portraying it as an outrage stemming from political corruption instead of Cincinnati maybe just having high crime (93 murders in 1883) ?  Hmm sounds familiar haha

^Er...yeah, exactly, that's completely possible.  Media in the 19th century was extremely partisan, as Magyar said.  There was no pretense of objectivity, and playing fast and loose with the facts for purely partisan reasons was standard operating procedure.  Imagine talk radio today, multiply it by an order of magnitude, then ask yourself the same question...

I think this riot probably is worth more study as it doesn't really fit with a lot of the other large civil disturbances of the 19th century, which where usually more "group" related. ...the various Know-Nothing riots, The NY Draft Riots, which was sort of a race riot, violence associated with labor-management strife, and so forth...and that it lasted longer and was much more violent than lynch mobs (though there are instances of lynch mobs turning into something else, like that Rosedale incident).

 

One has to wonder.  A percieved murderer let off the hook..leading not to a lynch mob but multiple days of rioting and 56 dead?

 

 

^track down some financing and do a thesis or disertation on it. :speech:

^

i dont do theses anymore.

 

 

American rhetoric.  :-D

Secure funding and challenge C-Dawg to help you make a documentary film then.