The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1893-07-25
BILL Aisp ON LYNcHINGs.

| < <nAsh N>kN
They Will Not Cease Until the Out
ra&es Are StOpped-EducationW With
out Moral Training is Curse In
stead of n Blessing.
We see that the twenty four Judges
OF our circuit courts are going to meet
very soon in Atlanta to confer together
Tor the good of the State. That Ger.
tainly is Il good thing to do. "In the
multitude Of counsel there is safety. !,
Our judges are brainy and conserva.
tive men and If we had about three on
q bench instead of one we could safely
dispense with all the jury business and
all the hallelujah speeches and trans
act as much business in day as they
do now in week. Nothing in the
world but reverence for "magna
charta" and the old land marks keeps
the old jury system in use. If we need
a learned, well-balanced Judge and
learned and eloquent lawyers, how
much more important it is to have
| Jurors OF the same education and capa-
city.
One thing that these judges are to
consider is whether the courts are to
blame for these lynchings and if they
are then to provide remedy by hay
ing more speedy trials in criminal
cases.
The courts are not to blame for
lynch1ngs. If when an outrage is COM
mitted that provokes lynching the
people knew that the guilty criminal
would be tried and convicted within
two or three months it would not stop
not the actuating emotion. It is
simply the explosion of gun that has
long been loaded. The newspapers
speak of lynchings as the act of a
bowling, yelling, demoniac mob.
The newspapers do not know. Editors
live in town and feel secure. Their
wives can visit and their daughters go
to school without apprehension of dam
ger. The police are always within call
and neighbors are near. But go to the
country and get close up to the heart
of farmer who has children and he
will tell you that the apprehension of
some horrible calamity is always over
him. That it is a shadow that follows
him when he leaves home or his chill
dren have gone to the neighboring
school, not that it makes him miser-
able, but nevertheless it comes over
him in spite of himself. This feeling
Is common to all country people,
especially the poor-the tenants who
cannot give protection like the rich. I
have heard them talk about it often
and know that this fear has kept many
a little country girl from school. That
dark path through the woods and
across the creek and those negroes in
the fields or ut the mines or wandering
up and down the creek with hook and
line. "Who next ?" is the thought
whenever they read of an outrage, and
so when one does occur in their vicini-
ty pentup emotions break loose and they
join in the pursuit as Putnam and his
men pursued the wolf that had so long
preyed upon their sheep folds. Such
negroes are brutes and deserve no more
consideration. If his crime affected
any one who was near and dear to me
could see him burned and feel no re-
gret, but satisfaction rather in the
hope that l might intimidate some
other brute.
When will these things stop? |
don't mean the lynchings, for they will
never stop as long as the outrages go
on. When will the outrages stop
They do not seem to be abating, but
are increasing in frequency. Indeed,
the last report of Colonel Jones, the
principal keeper, gives no encourage
mcnt. Crime is on the increase among
the negroes. Within two years 245
have been added to the number of con-
victs. They now number near 1000
and within eight years will number
5000 if the rate goes on. What an
army-and what an army it will take
to guard them . Is there any way to
stop or diminish this black current of
crimes that is overpowering the land ?
The school commissioner boasts that
illteracy is rapidly decreasing in Geor-
gia. What of it if crime is increasing :?
1t is good citizenship that we want.
Education does not diminish crime. but
it increases it-not little, but i'm
menscly. That is not contrOverted
now. Massachusetts has about twice
the white population of Georgia and
her illiteracy is only per cent, while
Georgia is about 20 per cent. Massa-
chusetts has 1900 white convicts in her
prisons and Georgia 1913. Our negroes
land white people in crime and if our
present system of education goes on
they will soon surpass them. Educa-
tion without moral training is curse
| instead of a blessing. The commits
sioners report shows that 60 per cent.
of these negro convicts are under thirty
years of age and of course know
nothing of slavey; so per cent. are un-
der forty years and only per cent. are
over fifty. Forty-one per cent. of them
can read, but the old negroes who had
DRAINING Wnlle III slavery are not In Jne
chaingang.
These statistics show that the
negroes in the schools are not getting
that moral training that makes good
citizens. The negro teachers fail to
teach them honesty, truth, charity,
obedience to law, and other cardinal
virtues. Many of the teachers are
lacking in these virtues themselves,
and negro editors and negro preachers
are more exercised about the lynchings
than they are about outragcs that pro.
voked them. There ought to be some
| special rules prescribed for negro
schools. The decalogue should be
J printed in large letters and framed and
hung up in every schoolroom, and
three of the commandments should be
in larger type than the rest. The race
traits of the negro should be impressed
upon the pupils. They should know
that, out of 1,750 convicts, 1850 arc
there for larceny in some form. Theil
inclination to steal is natural, and il
is safe to say that if all who steal were
punished there would be five times the
number in the chaingang. Every
family who hires them knows this
The cooks and housemaids and nurse.
and Office boys will all steal, but They
rarely steal very valuable things. The
most extraordinary case on record oc
CURED in our town year ago. a resi-
dent moved to the country to stay few
months, and left his piano in the house