VIGILANTE! The Story of Americans...Then and Now...Guarding Each Oth

Hardback. Vigilantes are, and have always been, on the American scene. The author has written a vigorous and comprehensive account of the vigilante reaction - the desire for order without law - tracing its roots from Colonial days to the nation's Bicentennial Year. He tells of the bitter Regulator-Moderator wars; the famous San Francisco committee (1856), the lynching of 11 reputedly Mafia-linked Sicilians in New Orleans in 1891, the hanging spree that exterminated the infamous Plummer gang in Montana in the 1860's, and much more. The author analyses self-protection groups of Jews in Brooklyn, Blacks from Harlem to Louisana, and other frightened and angry Americans who take the law into their own hands and who, he believes, will do so with increasing ferocity tomorrow. His analysis of the psychology of the typical vigilante is forthright and fascinating, particularly in regard to the new stamp of quasi-respectability given to vigilante activities by a population steeped in fear of the rising crime rate, and the decline of formal law and order. Illus., Notes, Bibliog. and Index. 311pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Nr. F. in Nr. F. dw.