THE LYNCHING OF NEGROES—ITS CAUSE AND ITS PREVENTION[39]
In dealing with this question the writer wishes to be understood as
speaking not of the respectable and law-abiding element among the
Negroes, who unfortunately are so often confounded with the body
of the race from which come most of the malefactors. To say that
Negroes furnish most of the ravishers is not to say that all Negroes
are rapists.
* * * * *
The crime of lynching in this country has, at one time or another,
become so frequent that it has aroused the interest of the whole
people, and has even arrested the attention of people in other
countries. It has usually been caused by the boldness with which
crime was committed and the inefficiency of the law in dealing with
lawbreakers through its regular forms. Such, for instance, were the
acts of the Vigilantes in California in the old days, and such have
been the acts of the Vigilantes in other sections of the country
at times. In these cases, there has always been a form of trial,
which, however hasty, was conclusive on the essential points of
the commission of the crime, the identification of the prisoner,
the sentence of “Judge Lynch”—that is, of the mob—and the orderly
execution of that sentence. And, in such cases, most persons who are
well-informed as to all the conditions and circumstances have found
some justification for this “wild justice.”
Lynching, however, has never before been so common, nor has it
existed over so extended a region as of late years in the Southern
States. And it has aroused more feeling outside of that section than
was aroused formerly by the work of the Vigilantes. This feeling
has undoubtedly been due mainly to the belief that the lynching has
been directed almost exclusively against the Negroes; though a part
has, perhaps, come from the supposition that the laws were entirely
effective, and that, consequently, the lynching of Negroes has been
the result of irrational hostility or of wanton cruelty. Thus, the
matter is, to some extent, complicated by a latent idea that it has a
political complexion.
This is the chief ground of complaint in the utterances of the
Negroes themselves and also in those of a considerable part of the
outside press. And, indeed, for a good while, the lynching of Negroes
appeared to be confined to the South, though lynching of whites was
by no means the monopoly of that section, as may be recalled by
those familiar with the history of Indiana and some of the other
Northwestern States.
Of late, however, several revolting instances of lynching of Negroes
in its most dreadful form: burning at the stake, have occurred in
regions where hitherto such forms of barbarous punishment have been
unknown; and the time appears to be ripe for some efficient concert
of action, to eradicate what is recognized by cool heads as a blot on
our good name and a serious menace to our civilization.
In discussing the means to put an end to this barbarity, the first
essential is that the matter shall be clearly and thoroughly
understood.
The ignorance shown by much of the discussion that has grown out of
these lynchings would appear to justify plain speaking.
All thoughtful men know that respect for law is the basic principle
of civilization, and are agreed as to the evil of any overriding of
the law. All reasonable men know that the overriding of law readily
creates a spirit of lawlessness, under which progress is retarded
and civilization suffers and dwindles. This is as clearly recognized
at the South as at the North. To overcome this conviction and stir
up rational men to a pitch where the law is trampled under foot, the
officers of the law are attacked, and their prisoners taken from them
and executed, there must be some imperative cause.
And yet the record of such overriding of law in the past has been a
terrible one.
The _Chicago Tribune_ has for some time been collecting statistics
on the subject of lynching, and the following table taken from that
paper, showing the number of lynchings for a series of years, is
assumed to be fairly accurate:
1885 184
1886 138
1887 122
1888 142
1889 176
1890 127
1891 192
1892 235
1893 200
1894 190
1895 171
1896 131
1897 166
1898 127
1899 107
1900 115
1901 135
1902 96
1903 104
1904 (to Oct. 27) 86
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+——————+——————
Total lynchings. |Whites.|Negroes.|In the|In the
| | |South.|North.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+——————+——————
1900 115 | 8 | 107 | 107 | 8
1901 135 | 26 | 107 | 121 | 14
1902 96 | 9 | 86 | 87 | 9
1903 (to Sept. 14) 76 | 13 | 63 | 66 | 10
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+——————+——————
_Causes Assigned._
1900. 1901.[40] 1902.[41] 1903.
Murder 39 39 37 32
Rape 18 19 19 8
Attempted rape 13 9 11 5
Race prejudice 10 9 2 3
Assaulting whites 6 — 3 3
Threats to kill 5 — 1 —
Burglary 4 1 — —
Attempt to murder 4 9 4 6
Informing 2 — — —
Robbery (theft) 2 12 1 —
Complicity in murder 2 6 3 5
Rape and murder — — — 1
Suspicion of murder 2 3 1 3
Suspicion of robbery 1 — — —
No offence 1 — — —
Arson 2 4 — —
Suspicion of arson 1 — — —
Aiding escape of murderer 1 — 1 —
Insulting a white woman — 1 — —
Cattle and horse stealing — 7 1 —
Quarrel over profit-sharing — 5 — —
Suspicion of rape — 1 — —
Suspicion of rape and murder — 1 — —
Unknown offences 2 6 — 4
Mistaken identity — 1 1 3
The lynchings in the various States and Territories in 1900 were as
follows:
Alabama 8
Arkansas 6
California 0
Colorado 3
Connecticut 0
Delaware 0
Florida 9
Georgia 16
Idaho 0
Illinois 0
Indiana 3
Iowa 0
Kansas 2
Kentucky 1
Louisiana 20
Maine 0
Maryland 1
Massachusetts 0
Michigan 0
Minnesota 0
Mississippi 20
Missouri 2
Montana 0
Nebraska 0
New Jersey 0
New Hampshire 0
New York 0
Nevada 0
North Carolina 3
North Dakota 0
Ohio 0
Oregon 0
Pennsylvania 0
Rhode Island 0
South Carolina 2
South Dakota 0
Tennessee 7
Texas 4
Vermont 0
Virginia 6
West Virginia 2
Wisconsin 0
Washington 0
Wyoming 0
Arizona 0
District of Columbia 0
New Mexico 0
Utah 0
Indian Territory 0
Oklahoma 0
Alaska 0
From these tables certain facts may be deduced. The first is that,
in the year of which an analysis is given (1900), over nine-tenths
of the lynchings occurred in the South, where only about one-third
of the population of the country were, but where nine-tenths of the
Negroes were; secondly, that, of these lynchings, about nine-tenths
were of Negroes and one-third were in the three States where the
Negroes are most numerous; thirdly, that, while the lynchings appear
to be diminishing at the South, the ratio, at least, is increasing at
the North. Of the lynchings in 1903, 12 occurred in the North and 92
in the South. Of the total number, 86 were Negroes, 17 were whites,
and 1 a Chinaman. Among the alleged causes were murder, 47; criminal
assault, 11; attempted criminal assault, 10; murderous assault, 7;
“race prejudice,” 5. Of those in 1904 there were 82 Negroes and 4
whites; 81 occurred in the South and 5 in the North.
It further appears that, though after the war lynching in the South
may have begun as a punishment for assault on white women, it has
extended until of late less than one-fourth of the instances are for
this crime, while over three-fourths of them are for murder, attempts
at murder, or some less heinous offence. This may be accounted for,
in part, by the fact that often the murders in the South partake
somewhat of the nature of race-conflicts.
Over 2,700 lynchings in eighteen years, with a steady increase in the
barbarity of the method and with the last the most shameful instance
of this barbarity, are enough to stagger the mind. Either we are
relapsing into barbarism, or there is some terrific cause for our
reversion to the methods of mediævalism, and our laws are inefficient
to meet it. The only gleam of light is that, of late years, the
number appears to have diminished.
To get at the remedy, we must first get at the cause.
Although in early times there were occasional assaults and even some
burnings at the stake these outrages appeared to have passed out of
fashion and time was when the crime of assault was substantially
unknown throughout the South. Though criminal assaults had been
sufficiently common at one time for many of the States to adopt laws
of Draconian severity relating to them, yet during the later period
of slavery, the crime of rape did not exist, nor did it exist to any
considerable extent for some years after emancipation.[42] During the
war the men were away in the army, and the Negroes were the loyal
guardians of the women and children. On isolated plantations and
in lonely neighborhoods, women were as secure as in the streets of
Boston or New York, indeed, were more secure.
Then came the period and process of Reconstruction, with its
teachings. Among these was the teaching that the Negro was the equal
of the white, that the white was his enemy, and that he must assert
his equality. The growth of the idea was a gradual one in the Negro’s
mind. This was followed by a number of cases where members of the
Negro militia ravished white women; in some instances in the presence
of their families.[43]
The result of the hostility between the Southern whites and
Government at that time was to throw the former upon reliance on
their own acts for their defence or revenge, with a consequent
training in lawless punishment of acts which should have been
punished by law. And here lynching, in its post-bellum stage, had its
evil origin.[44]
It was suggested some time ago, in a thoughtful paper read by
Professor Wilcox, of Washington, that a condition something like that
which exists in the South at present, had its rise in France during
the religious wars.
The first instance of rape, outside of these attacks by armed
Negroes, and of consequent lynching, that attracted the attention of
the country after the war was a case which occurred in Mississippi,
where the teaching of equality and of violence found one of its most
fruitful fields. A Negro dragged a woman down into the woods and,
tying her, kept her bound there a prisoner for several days, when he
butchered her. He was caught and was lynched.
With the resumption of local power by the whites came the temporary
and partial ending of the crimes of assault and of lynching.
As the old relation, which had survived even the strain of
Reconstruction, dwindled with the passing of the old generation from
the stage, and the “New Issue” with the new teaching took its place,
the crime broke out again with renewed violence. The idea of equality
began to percolate more extensively among the Negroes. In evidence
of it is the fact that since the assaults began again they have been
chiefly directed against the plainer order of people, instances of
attacks on women of the upper class, though not unknown, being of
rare occurrence.[45]
Conditions in the South render the commission of this crime
peculiarly easy. The white population is sparse, the forests are
extensive, the officers of the law distant and difficult to reach;
but, above all, the Negro population have appeared inclined to
condone the fact of mere assault.
Twenty-five years ago, women went unaccompanied and unafraid
throughout the South, as they still go throughout the North. To-day,
no white woman, or girl, or female child, goes alone out of sight
of the house except on necessity; and no man leaves his wife alone
in his house, if he can help it. Cases have occurred of assault and
murder in broad day, within sight and sound of the victim’s home.
Indeed, an instance occurred not a great while ago in the District of
Columbia, within a hundred yards of a fashionable drive, when, about
three o’clock of a bright June day, a young girl was attacked within
sight and sound of her house, and when she screamed her throat was
cut. So near to her home was the spot that her mother and an officer,
hearing her cries, reached her before life was extinct.
For a time, the ordinary course of the law was, in the main, relied
on to meet the trouble; but it was found that, notwithstanding
the inevitable infliction of the death-penalty, several evils
resulted therefrom. The chief one was that the ravishing of women,
instead of diminishing, steadily increased. The criminal, under
the ministrations of his preachers, usually professed to have
“got religion,” and from the shadow of the gallows called on his
friends to follow him to glory. So that the punishment lost to these
emotional people much of its deterrent force, especially where the
real sympathy of the race was mainly with the criminal rather than
with his victim. Another evil was the dreadful necessity of calling
on the innocent victim, who, if she survived, as she rarely did, was
already bowed to the earth by shame, to relate in public the story
of the assault—an ordeal which was worse than death. Yet another
was the constant delay in the execution of the law. With these,
however, was one other which, perhaps, did more than all the rest
taken together to wrest the trial and punishment from the courts and
carry them out by mob-violence. This was the unnamable brutality
with which the causing crime was, in nearly every case, attended.
The death of the victim of the ravisher was generally the least of
the attendant horrors. In Texas, in Mississippi, in Georgia, in
Kentucky, in Colorado, as later in Delaware, the facts in the case
were so unspeakable that they have never been put in print. They
simply could not be put in print. It is these unnamable horrors which
have outraged the minds of those who live in regions where they have
occurred, and where they may at any time occur again, and, upsetting
reason, have swept from their bearings cool men and changed them into
madmen, drunk with fury and the lust of revenge.
Not unnaturally, such barbarity as burning at the stake has shocked
the sense of the rest of the country, and, indeed, of the world. But
it is well for the rest of the country, and for the world, to know
that it has also shocked the sense of the South, and, in their calmer
moments, even the sense of those men who, in their frenzy, have been
guilty of it. Only, a deeper shock than even this is at the bottom of
their ferocious rage—the shock which comes from the ravishing and
butchery of their women and children.
It is not necessary to be an apologist for barbarity because one
states with bluntness the cause. The stern underlying principle of
the people who commit these barbarities is one that has its root deep
in the basic passions of humanity; the determination to put an end to
the ravishing of their women by an inferior race, or by any race, no
matter what the consequence.
For a time, a speedy execution by hanging was the only mode of
retribution resorted to by the lynchers; then, when this failed of
its purpose, a more savage method was essayed, born of a savage fury
at the failure of the first, and a stern resolve to strike a deeper
terror into those whom the other method had failed to awe.
The following may serve as an illustration. Ten or twelve years ago,
the writer lectured one afternoon in the early spring in a town in
the cotton-belt of Texas—one of the prettiest towns in the Southwest.
The lecture was delivered in the Court-house. The writer was
introduced by a gentleman who had been a member of the Confederate
Cabinet and a Senator of the United States, and the audience was
composed of refined and cultured people, representing, perhaps, every
State from Maine to Texas.
Two days later, the papers contained the account of the burning at
the stake of a Negro in this town. He had picked up a little girl of
five or six years of age on the street where she was playing in front
of her home, and carried her off, telling her that her mother had
sent him for her; and when she cried, he had soothed her with candy
which, with deliberate and devilish prevision, he had bought for the
purpose. When the child was found, she was unrecognizable. Her little
body was broken and mangled and he had cut her throat and thrown her
into a ditch.
A strong effort was made to save the wretch for the law, but without
avail: the people had reverted to the primal law of personal and
awful vengeance. Farmers came from fifty miles around to see that
vengeance was exacted. They had resolved to strike terror into the
breasts of all who might contemplate so hideous a crime, so that such
a thing should never occur again.
This was, perhaps, the second or third instance of burning in the
country after the war.
Of late, lynching at the stake has spread beyond the region where it
has such reason for existence as may be given by the conditions that
prevail in the South. Three frightful instances of burning at the
stake have occurred recently in Northern States, in communities where
some of these conditions were partly wanting. The horror of the main
crime of lynching was increased, in two of the cases, by a concerted
attack on a large element of the Negro population which was wholly
innocent. Even unoffending Negroes were driven from their homes, a
consequence which has never followed in the South, where it might
seem there was more occasion for it.
It thus appears that the original crime, and also the consequent
one in its most brutal form, are not confined to the South, and,
possibly, are only more frequent there because of the greater number
of Negroes in that section. The deep racial instincts are not limited
by geographical bounds.
These last-mentioned lynchings were so ferocious, and so unwarranted
by any such necessity, real or fancied, as may be thought to exist
at the South by reason of the frequency of assault and the absence
of a strong police force, that they not unnaturally called forth
almost universal condemnation. The President felt it proper to write
an open letter, commending the action of the Governor of Indiana
on the proper and efficient exercise of his authority to uphold
the law and restore order in his State. But who has ever thought
it necessary to commend the Governors of the Southern States under
similar circumstances? The militia of some of the Southern States are
almost veterans, so frequently have they been called on to protect
wretches whose crimes stank in the nostrils of all decent men. The
recent shameful instance where an officer is charged with having
connived with the mob is the single exception to fidelity that can be
recalled, and even in that case the men showed a fidelity in marked
contrast to that weakness. The Governor of Virginia boasted, a few
years ago, that no lynching should take place during his incumbency,
and he nearly made good his boast; though, to do so, he had to call
out at one time or another almost the entire military force of the
State.
Editorials in some of the Eastern papers note with astonishment
recent instances where law-officers in the South have protected
their prisoners or eluded a mob. The writers of these editorials
know so little of the South that one is scarcely surprised at their
ignorance. But men are hanged by law for this crime of assault every
few months in some State in the South. A few years ago, Sheriff
Smith, of Birmingham, protected a murderer at the cost of many lives;
a little later, Mayor Prout, of Roanoke, defended with all his power
a Negro ravisher and murderer, and, though the mob finally succeeded
in their aim, six men were killed by the guards before the jail was
carried. These are only two of the many instances in which brave and
faithful officers have, at the risk of their lives, defended their
charges against that most terrible of all assailants—a determined
mob.[46]
For a time, the assaults by Negroes were confined to young women who
were caught alone in solitary and secluded places. The company even
of a child was sufficient to protect them. Then the ravishers grew
bolder, and attacks followed on women when they were in company. And
then, not content with this, the ravishers began to attack women in
their own homes. Sundry instances of this have occurred within the
last few years. As an illustration, may be cited the notorious case
of Samuel Hose, who, after making a bet with a Negro preacher that
he could have access to a white woman, went into a farmer’s house
while the family, father, mother, and child, were at supper; brained
the man with his axe; threw the child into a corner with a violence
which knocked it senseless, ravished the wife and mother with
unnamable horrors, and finally butchered her. He was caught and was
burned.
Another instance, only less appalling, occurred two years ago in
Lynchburg, Va., where the colored janitor of a white female school,
who had been brought up and promoted by the Superintendent of
Schools, and was regarded as a shining example of what education
might accomplish with his race, entered the house of a respectable
man one morning, after the husband, a foreman in a factory, had
gone to his work; ravished the wife, and, then putting his knee on
her breast, coolly cut her throat as he might have done that of a
calf. There was no attempt at lynching; but the Governor, resolved
to preserve the good name of the Commonwealth, felt it necessary to
order out two regiments of soldiers, in which course he was sustained
by the entire sentiment of the State.
These cases were neither worse nor better than many of those which
have occurred in the South in the last twenty years, and in that
period hundreds of women and a number of children have been ravished
and slain.
* * * * *
Now, how is this crime of assault to be stopped? For stopped it must
be, and stopped it will be, whatever the cost. One proposition is
that separation of the races, complete separation by the deportation
of the Negroes, is the only remedy. The theory, though sustained by
many thoughtful men, appears Utopian. Colonization has been the dream
of certain philanthropists for a hundred years. And, meantime, the
Negroes have increased from less than a million to nine millions.
They will never be deported; not because we have not the money, for
an amount equal to that spent in pensions during three years would
pay the expenses of such deportation, and an amount equal to that
paid in six years would set them up in a new country. But the Negroes
have rights; many of them are estimable citizens; and even the great
body of them, when well regulated, are valuable laborers. It might,
therefore, as well be assumed that this plan will never be carried
out, unless the occasion becomes so imperative that all other rights
give way to the supreme right of necessity.
It is plain, then, that we must deal with the matter in a more
practicable manner, accepting conditions as they are, and applying
to them legal methods which will be effective. Lynching does not
end ravishing, and that is the prime necessity. Most right-thinking
men are agreed as to this. Indeed, lynching, through lacking the
supreme principle of law, the deliberateness from which is supposed
to come the certainty of identification, fails utterly to meet the
necessity of the case even as a deterrent, though it must be admitted
that there are a respectable number of thoughtful men who dissent
from this view. The growth of a sentiment which, at least, condones
lynching as a punishment for assaults on women is a significant and
distressing fact. Not only have assaults occurred again and again in
the same neighborhood where lynching has followed such crime; but,
a few years ago, it was publicly stated that a Negro who had just
witnessed a lynching for this crime actually committed an assault on
his way home. However this may be, lynching as a remedy is a ghastly
failure; and its brutalizing effect on the community is incalculable.
The charge that is often made, that the innocent are sometimes
lynched, has little foundation. The rage of a mob is not directed
against the innocent, but against the guilty; and its fury would not
be satisfied with any other sacrifice than the death of the real
criminal. Nor does the criminal merit any consideration, however
terrible the punishment. The real injury is to the perpetrators of
the crime of destroying the law, and to the community in which the
law is slain.
It is pretty generally conceded that the “law’s delay” is partly
responsible for the “wild justice” of mob vengeance, and this has
undoubtedly been the cause of many mobs. But it is far from certain
if any change in the methods of administration of law will effect the
stopping of lynching; while to remedy this evil we may bring about
a greater peril. Trial by jury is the bed-rock of our liberties,
and the inherent principle of such trial is its deliberateness. It
has been said that the whole purpose of the Constitution of Great
Britain is that twelve men may sit in the jury-box. The methods of
the law may well be reformed; but any movement should be jealously
scanned which touches the chief bulwark of all liberty.
The first step, then, would appear to be the establishment of a
system securing a reasonably prompt trial and speedy execution by
law, rather than a wholesale revolution of the existing system.
Many expedients have been suggested; some of the most drastic by
Northern men. One of them proposed, not long since, that to meet
the mob-spirit, a trial somewhat in the nature of a drum-head
court-martial might be established by law, by which the accused may
be tried and, if found guilty, executed immediately. Others have
proposed as a remedy emasculation by law; while a Justice of the
Supreme Court has recently given the weight of his personal opinion
in favor of prompt trial and the abolishment of appeals in such
cases. Even the terrible suggestion has been made that burning at the
stake might again be legalized!
These suggestions testify how grave the matter is considered to be by
those who make them.
But none of these, unless it be the one relating to emasculation,
is more than an expedient. The trouble lies deeper. The crime of
lynching is not likely to cease until the crime of ravishing and
murdering women and children is less frequent than it has been of
late. And this crime, which is well-nigh wholly confined to the Negro
race, will not greatly diminish until the Negroes themselves take it
in hand and stamp it out.
From recent developments, it may be properly inferred that the
absence of this crime during the later period of slavery was due more
to the feeling among the Negroes themselves than to any repressive
measures on the part of the whites. The Negro had the same animal
instincts in slavery that he exhibits now; the punishment that
follows the crime now is quite as certain, as terrible, and as swift
as it could have been then. So, to what is due the alarming increase
of this terrible brutality?
To the writer it appears plain that it is due to two things: first,
to racial antagonism and to the talk of social equality that inflames
the ignorant Negro, who has grown up unregulated and undisciplined;
and, secondly, to the absence of a strong restraining public opinion
among the Negroes of any class, which alone can extirpate the crime.
In the first place, the Negro does not generally believe in the
virtue of women. It is beyond his experience. He does not generally
believe in the existence of actual assault. It is beyond his
comprehension. In the next place, his passion, always his controlling
force, is now, since the new teaching, for the white women.[47]
That there are many Negroes who are law-abiding and whose influence
is for good, no one who knows the worthy members of the race—those
who represent the better element—will deny. But while there are, of
course, notable exceptions, they are not often of the “New Issue,”
nor, unhappily, even generally among the prominent leaders: those who
publish papers and control conventions.
As the crime of rape of late years had its baleful renascence in
the teaching of equality and the placing of power in the ignorant
Negroes’ hands, so its perpetuation and increase have undoubtedly
been due in large part to the same teaching. The intelligent Negro
may understand what social equality truly means, but to the ignorant
and brutal young Negro, it signifies but one thing: the opportunity
to enjoy, equally with white men, the privilege of cohabiting with
white women. This the whites of the South understand; and if it were
understood abroad, it would serve to explain some things which have
not been understood hitherto. It will explain, in part, the universal
and furious hostility of the South to even the least suggestion of
social equality.
A close following of the instances of rape and lynching, and the
public discussion consequent thereon, have led the writer to the
painful realization that even the leaders of the Negro race—at
least, those who are prominent enough to hold conventions and write
papers on the subject—have rarely, by act or word, shown a true
appreciation of the enormity of the crime of ravishing and murdering
women. Their discussion and denunciation have been almost invariably
and exclusively devoted to the crime of lynching. Underlying most
of their protests is the suggestion that the victim of the mob is
innocent and a martyr. Now and then, there is a mild generalization
on the evil of lawbreaking and the violation of women; but, for one
stern word of protest against violating women and cutting their
throats, the records of Negro meetings will show many resolutions
against the attack of the mob on the criminal. And, as to any serious
and determined effort to take hold of and stamp out the crime that
is blackening the good name of the entire Negro race to-day, and
arousing against them the fatal and possibly the undying enmity of
the stronger race, there is, with the exception of the utterances of
a few score individuals like Booker T. Washington, who always speaks
for the right, Hannibal Thomas, and Bishop Turner, hardly a trace of
such a thing. A crusade has been preached against lynching, even as
far as England; but none has been attempted against the ravishing and
tearing to pieces of white women and children.
Happily, there is an element of sound-minded, law-abiding Negroes,
representative of the old Negro, who without parade stand for good
order, and do what they can to repress lawlessness among their
people. Except for this class and for the kindly relations which are
preserved between them and the whites, the situation in the South
would long since have become unbearable. These, however, are not
generally among the leaders, and, unfortunately, their influence is
not sufficiently extended to counteract the evil influences which
are at work with such fatal results.
One who reads the utterances of Negro orators, editors and preachers
on the subject of lynching, and who knows the Negro race, cannot
doubt that, at bottom, their sympathy is generally with the “victim”
of the mob, and not with his victim.
Denunciatory resolutions may be adopted without end, and newspapers
may rave over the reversion to barbarism shown by the prevalence of
the mob spirit. But it may safely be asserted that until the Negroes
shall create among themselves a sound public opinion which, instead
of fostering, shall reprobate and sternly repress the crime of
assaulting women and children, the crime will never be extirpated,
and until this crime is stopped the crime of lynching will never be
extirpated. Lynching will never be done away with while the sympathy
of the whites is with the lynchers, and no more will ravishing
be done away with while the sympathy of the Negroes is with the
ravisher. When the Negroes shall stop applying all their energies to
harboring and exculpating Negroes, no matter what their crime may
be so it be against the whites, and shall distinguish between the
law-abiding Negro and the lawbreaker, a long step will have been
taken.
Should the Negroes sturdily and faithfully set themselves to prevent
the crime of rape by members of that race, it could be stamped out.
Should the whites set themselves against lynching, lynching would be
stopped. Even though lynching is not now confined to the punishment
of this crime, this crime is the one that gives the only excuse for
lynching. The remedy then is plain. Let the Negroes take charge of
the crime of ravishing and firmly put it away from them, and let the
whites take charge of the crime of lynching and put it away from
them. It is time that the races should address themselves to the
task; for it is with nations as with individual men; whatsoever they
sow that shall they also reap.
It is the writer’s belief that the arrest and the prompt handing
over to the law of Negroes by Negroes, for assault on white women,
would do more to break up ravishing, and to restore amicable
relations between the two races, than all the resolutions of all the
conventions and all the harangues of all the politicians.
It has been tried in various States to put an end to lynching by
making the county in which the lynching occurs liable in damages for
the crime. It is a good theory; and, if it has not worked well, it is
because of the difficulty of executing the provision. Could some plan
be devised to array each race against the crime to which it is prone,
both rape and lynching might be diminished if not wholly prevented.
* * * * *
The practical application of such a principle is difficult, but,
perhaps, it is not impossible. It is possible that in every community
Negroes might be appointed officers of the law, to look exclusively
after lawbreakers of their own race. The English in the East manage
such matters well, under equally complicated and delicate conditions.
For example, in the Island of Malta, where the population is of
different classes among whom a certain jealousy exists, there are
several classes of police: the naval police, the military police,
and the civil or municipal police. To each of these is assigned
more especially the charge of one of the three classes of whom the
population of the island is composed. Again, in Hong Kong, where the
situation is even more delicate, there are several classes of police:
the English, the Chinese, and the Indian police. Only the first are
empowered to make general arrests; the others have powers relating
exclusively to the good order of the races to which they belong,
though they may in all cases be called in to assist the English
police.
Somewhat in the same way, the Negroes might be given within their
province powers sufficiently full to enable them to keep order among
their people, and they might on the other hand be held to a certain
accountability for such good order. It might even be required that
every person should be listed and steadily kept track of, as is
done in Germany at present. The recent vagrant laws of Georgia,
where there are more Negroes than in the entire North, constitute an
attempt in this direction.
In the same way, the white officials charged with the good order
of the county or town might be given enlarged powers of summoning
_posses_, and might be held to a high accountability. For example,
_ipso facto_ forfeiture of the officers’ official bond and removal
from office, with perpetual disability to hold any office again,
might be provided as a penalty for permitting any persons to be taken
out of their hands.
Few ravishings by Negroes would occur if the more influential
members of the race were charged with responsibilities for the good
order of their race in every community; and few lynchings would
occur, at least after the prisoners were in the hands of the officers
of the law, if those officers by the mere fact of relinquishing their
prisoners should be disqualified from ever holding office again.
These suggestions may be as Utopian as others which have been made;
but if they cannot be carried out, it is because the ravishings by
Negroes and the murders by mobs have their roots so deep in racial
instincts that nothing can eradicate them, and in such case the
ultimate issue will be a resort to the final test of might, which in
the last analysis underlies everything.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] An interesting paper on “Lynch Law,” by Albert Matthews, of
Boston, was published in The Nation, December 4, 1902. Mr. Matthews,
after giving the numerous alleged derivations of the term, and
reciting a score or so of instances in which “Lynch Law” had been
applied (his first reference being to Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry,
1818, page 372), states his conclusions, as follows:
“From this evidence and from other material in my possession, it
appears that the original term was “Lynch’s Law”; that this was
soon shortened to “Lynch (or lynch) Law,” and then to “Lynch”; that
originally lynch law was a whipping or other personal chastisement;
that lynch law originally obtained only in the border settlements,
where the administration of justice either was, or was supposed to
be uncertain; that in the early days of lynch law, innocent persons
were sometimes punished, and suits for damages were by no means
unknown; that, about 1830, writers regarded the practice as on the
wane and likely soon to disappear altogether; that before about 1835
the victims of lynch law were generally whites, occasionally Indians,
but never Negroes; that soon after 1830 a revival of lynch law took
place, due to the anti-slavery agitation, and the practice spread
throughout the country; that between 1830 and 1840 the term “lynch”
underwent a change in meaning and “to lynch” began to acquire the
sense of to put to death; that during the same period Negroes were
first lynched; that about 1835, we first hear of “Judge Lynch”;
that in recent years, lynching has been confined largely, but by no
means wholly, to Negroes in the South and West. It further appears
that there is a direct historical connection between the killing of
a Negro in a highly civilized community in 1902 and the whipping of
a white man along the frontiers in 1817. Step by step, the illegal
whippings of 1817 have led to the illegal burnings alive of 1902. In
short, the more civilized the country has become, the more brutal has
been the punishment meted out under lynch law.”
[40] In 1901 one Indian and one Chinaman were lynched.
[41] In 1902 one Indian was lynched.
[42] For an interesting study of the early history of lynching and
its causes, see note, p. 86.
[43] For outrages in Arkansas, see “Brooks-Baxter War.”
[44] Mr. Matthews points out that though rape existed and was
frequently legislated against during the Colonial period, he
cannot find between 1676 and 1825 a single instance of the illegal
punishment of the crime.
[45] It is significant that, on large plantations where the Negroes,
though in large numbers, are still in the position of old plantation
servants, the crime of assault is almost unknown.
[46] The following table is from the _Chicago Tribune_. The number
of legal executions in 1900 was 118, as compared with 131 in 1899,
109 in 1898, 128 in 1897, 122 in 1896, 132 in 1895, 132 in 1894, 126
in 1893, and 107 in 1892. The executions in the several States and
Territories were in 1900 as follows:
Alabama 4 Arkansas 0 California 5 Colorado 0 Connecticut 1 Delaware
0 Florida 1 Georgia 14 Idaho 2 Illinois 0 Indiana 0 Iowa 0 Kansas 0
Kentucky 0 Louisiana 6 Maine 0 Maryland 3 Massachusetts 0 Michigan 0
Minnesota 0 Mississippi 1 Missouri 3 Montana 3 Nebraska 0 New Jersey
4 New Hampshire 0 New York 3 Nevada 0 North Carolina 9 North Dakota 1
Ohio 1 Oregon 1 Pennsylvania 15 Rhode Island 0 South Carolina 3 South
Dakota 0 Tennessee 4 Texas 18 Vermont 0 Virginia 7 West Virginia 0
Wisconsin 0 Wyoming 0 Washington 2 Arizona 4 District of Columbia 3
New Mexico 0 Utah 0 Indian Territory 0 Oklahoma 0 Alaska 0
There were 80 hanged in the South and 39 in the North, of whom 60
were whites, 58 were blacks, and one a Chinaman. The crimes for which
they were executed were: murder, 113; rape, 5; arson, 1. Thus, of the
119 hangings, about two-thirds (80) were in the South and one-third
(39) in the North; about one-half (60) of the entire number were of
whites, and one-half (58) were of blacks. So, the South appears to
have done its part in the matter of punishing by law as well as by
violence.
[47] See “The American Negro,” by William Hannibal Thomas, pp. 65,
177.