National Affairs: Saturday Night

James Scott is dead. It happened this way:

A girl about fourteen years old, daughter of the German professor at the University of Missouri, is walking one Spring day in the country outside the college town of Columbia. She approaches a railroad bridgehead. A Negro accosts her. He touches her. A car passes. He jumps back. The girl runs safely home to her parents.

A Negro is later arrested, identified by the girl, and cast into Columbia jail under the authority of a United States Sheriff. The little town begins to talk excitedly and then...