Sabbath Association’s Detective Acquitted of Murder
By K. C. RUSSELL
WEDNESDAY, the 12th inst., Nelson C. Starkey was acquitted of the charge of murder in the Pittsburg, Pa., criminal court. It will be remembered that Starkey was employed as a detective by force the Allegheny County Sabbath Observance Association, and was charged even with the murder of Harry D. Knox, an iceman, who was shot and killed during a riot in Allegheny, Pa., following a hearing there in a case developing from the blue law crusade last fall. The Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph of July 12, in commenting editorially on the case, says:— The verdict of the jury in the case of Nelson C. Starkey, charged with the murder of Harry D. Knox, of Allegheny, is that the accused is not guilty. While it is clear from the evidence that Knox was an innocent victim of Starkey’s bullet, the justice of the verdict will be generally conceded. Starkey and the other representatives of the law and order organization had been set upon by a mob, and had reason to believe that their lives were in peril. Starkey fired into the mob, and did not single out any particular person for a target. Knox was in the crowd, though he does not appear to have been of it, merely happening to be proceeding along the street when the mob was in full cry after Starkey and the others. It is unfortunate that an innocent man should have been killed, but the circumstances of the killing are such as to properly acquit Starkey of blame, and to justify his act as one of self-defense for the preservation of his life. A different verdict would have been a justification of mob law. The one rendered will be a discouragement to such procedure. We certainly concur with the foregoing editorial in not favoring any verdict that would justify mob law, but, on the other hand, we greatly deplore the unchristian methods which were employed by the Allegheny County Sabbath Observance Association, which really lie at the bottom of this most unfortunate affair. All can readily see that the things which evidently provoked a mob which resulted in the death of an innocent man, were the unchristian efforts on the part of the detective in spying about for the purpose of securing evidence against those who were exercising a God-given privilege which the state can not by right invade. This experience is but the fruitage of what may be expected when the church transcends the limit of her proper function in seeking the aid of the civil power to enforce upon the citizens any day as the Sabbath, or any other religious institution. The inquisition and its baneful fruit is an awful commentary on the methods employed by every religious organization which seeks the power of the state to enforce its religious dogmas. If we could hope that this terrible lesson, at such a priceless cost, would be taken to heart by those who have been engaged in the unchristian and uncivil work of seeking to have the state enforce the observance of Sunday, or any other religious institution, we would even now feel to take courage, and hope for a better state of things, but alas! instead of heeding the lesson, there is a growing demand for Sunday legislation. Let all who have the light on these vital questions permit it to shine.