The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1894-04-28
AtrOciOus Crime.

The recent lynching cases in Ohio
in Republican counties of Repub-
lican state-of negroes charged with
criminal assaults on white women
have drawn from representative Re-
publican papers a very different con-
sideration of causes and remedies
than these 6ane papers accorded to
similar outrages at the south, where,
we suppose, hundred such cases oc-
cur in the course of year to one at
the north. There is not that whole
sale denunciation of the people as re
lapsing into condition of barbar-
ism, we observe. when these crimes
occur in Republican communities,
| followed by the offices of Judge
Lynch, that is applied to the south.
Lynch law is not held as part of the
Republican plan of government at
the north. AT the south it is differ
ent, and when these horrible crimes
are followed by lynching it is set
down to the depravity of the Demo
cracy of that section. OF course this
is very illogical, but it is the Repub
lican way.
The Philadelphia Press, comment
ing on the Ohio lynching. about
which Governor Mckinley is as mild
as any southern governor could be,
calls for more etfectual punishment
ofnsuch crimes. 1t thinks public
opinion would sanction the death
penalty, bat the difficulty would be
to get juries to apply it, The Press
has a remedy of it's own, which it
carefully puts forth in this yelled
way:
The surgeons knife would prob
ably prove more deterrent punish
ment in offenses of this character
than the hangman's rope. 1t is a
punishment which would be more
promptly inflicted by the average
jury. 1t would appeal with sngu-
lar and special power to the imagin-
ations of the besotted and brutal,
and pursued with sufficient systemat,
ic severity it would exterminate this
disease strain and rid the commun-
! ity of these monsters for the future
as well as rendering them harmless
for the present The community is
probably not yet ready for this sim
pie and etfectual but drastic remedy.
The Press thinks such a statute
would speedily follow woman's suf-
frage. Be that as it may, it is strik-
ing that when the crime is brought
home to northern papers delighting
in crusades against the south. be-
cause of the application of lynch law
in such cases, they are inc lined to
take very severe view and advise
the death penalty or 1.-The surgeons
knife, as proposed by the Press.
The statistics of the prevalence of
this fearful crime at the south, in
districts with an excessive negro
population, as recently presented by
southern bishop of the Methodist
church in the North American Re
view, we're simply terrific. A similar
state of facts at the north would con
secrate lynch law as the proper ret
ribution. Human nature is much
the same in such matters, north and
south. The southern people ask that
those who claim to be the peculiar
friends of the negro at the north
should bring an influence to bear on
the negro leaders of the south, that
their race may be educated in a pro-
per detestation of the crime. This
they think would cause an abatement
of it, Instead of that the southern
ers have been lectured by the north
on the retribution inflicted on the
guilty brutes. When the crime
comes home, as it has done in these
Republican counties of OHIO. diff
ferent view is taken, and lynch law
accepted as a natural and righteous
outburst. Why do not these Repub.
lican papers denounce Governor Me
Kinley for not moving tn bring the
Ohio lynchers within the law, which
is the text they always apply to the
southern governors?-Post