Word: mcgee
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Time was when any self-respecting American magazine that did not draw its leadership mostly from the South would have treated the farce of trials and retrials that characterized the case of Willie McGee as a rather disgraceful exhibition of American justice, and commended the people of this country to clean up their own house before spreading their philosophy abroad...
Pictorial, widely-read Life magazine however, chose to emphasize the Communist campaign to make McGee a "pawn in the world propaganda war." According to Life, McGee's "bare chance" of escaping the electric chair after his first sentencing vanished when the Communist took up his cause. Whether McGee was guilty or not (and Mr. Luce seemed pretty sure that he was), it is hard to see how Life could so blithely overlook the fact that McGee's first two trials were so badly conducted that they not even satisfy the high court of Mississippi...
...Life merely vaunted to supply one more argument to people who are already anti-Communist, then it succeeded. But if it was hoping to counteract the world-wide Communist propaganda blast about McGee, it was far off the track. If people flee from any cause to which the Communists attach themselves (and the Communists try to attach themselves to almost everything) then it is likely that little constructive work will be done in cleaning up this country's sore spots...
Petitions. All last week, petitions to save Willie McGee's life poured in on Dixiecrat Governor Fielding Wright. Many an honest person who recognized the Communist tactics also urged clemency for McGee. Fundamental point in their plea: no white man has ever been executed for rape in Mississippi...
...Willie McGee had received two reprieves from Supreme Court Justices, but now the court turned him down. He shuffled into the same courtroom in Laurel where he was first tried, and sat down in Mississippi's portable electric chair. The powerful generator that supplied lethal current to the chair whined away. Within a few minutes, Willie McGee was dead...