The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-10-08
LAwLEss JUDGE LYNCH

The recent DarparouS ~ ncnlng OF negro
at Cole City, Tenn, and the incendiary
talk of negro preacher before a large
congregation of his race in Chicago on
Sunday last, illustrates the facility with
which like begets like.
One act of unlawful violence inevitably
suggests and too often actually provokes
another. Presidents are sometimes pow
erful and there is no precedent that is
safe but one that is lawful.
The lynching of the negro at Cole City
was as distinctly violation of the law
as the atrocious act he committed or the
threatened destruction of cities by the
torch as advocated by the Chicago
preacher in case justice is not allowed
his race.
The execution itself as an illegal act
was bad enough, but the work of multi
lation and torture as described by the
dispatches recalls the traditions OF the
dark ages, and if as bad as reported,
forces the conviction that the perpetra-
tors are as brutal at heart as the darby
who paid the penalty of his revolving
crime was british in passion.
Acts such as this mob OF unlawful
avengers we're guilty of almost wips out
the line of superiority that is supposed to
liz the white above the black race. and
make it appear as if thu barbarism in
the former fully as much as in the lat
ter. only awaits the opportunity for ex-
preston. 1t is useless to say that the ex-
egencies of the occasion demanded or JUS
titled this summary method of ave nging
an alleged crime. 1t is questionable if
there ever existed any justification tor
lynching in a country that is under the
jurisdiction of free government. When
people voluntarily enter into govern
mental state they delegate all the right OF
punishment for crime against themselves
as individuals to the government they
have created. They set up the ways and
means by which the guilt or innocence OF
one accused of crime is to be deter
mined. crime then becomes not
alone violation of the rights of person
and property of ar individual, but also
an infraction of the law of the state, and
is punishable solely by the latter. VIII en-
individuals attempt to exact atonement
for what the law has declared wrong
doing, they are themselves criminals, no
matter how respectable they might be or
how guod their intentions. No other
principle than this can be admitted or
tolerated with safety to free government.
1t is puerile to give as an excuse for
lynching the failure to bring some crimi :
nails to the point of expiatlon of their
m isdeeds.
The government is what tue people
make it. 1t is no better. no worse. 1t is
more truly representative of US than many
are willing to admit. In its methods, its
actions and Its dealings it represents
after all faithfully the intelligence, the
thrift and the honesty, or the ignorance,
the wastefulness and the dishonesty, as
the case may be, of the whole people.
Individuals may be misrepresented in the
governmental product, but not the whole
people.
II the laws are inadequate. the prose-
cutting attorneys Indifferent or inefficient,
the judges incompetent or corrupt, it lays
in the power and the province OF the peo-
pie in democracy to change it all for the
better. In order to attain justice no peo-
pie can afford to break laws of their own
making.
There is 20 practical need for this kind
and method of punishment in the south,
for it can be said to the credit Of the lat.
ter that crime OF all sorts is more
speedily and severely punished by the
legally constituted authorities of the
southern states than by those o any
other part of the union. 1t can hardly
be shown that there is a single instance
of where a white or black man proved
guilty of the offense charges against the
Cole City victim has escaped extreme
punishment. Hence there is no apparent
need of mob vengeance. In this year of
reconciliation and returning recognition
of the virtues and graces Of the southern
people, this Cole City incident is ex-
ceedingly regrettable. 1t is bound to be
used by certain class of bigoted and
unfair journals and politicians in the
north to discredit the entire south, and
to make the hospitable and charming
people of that favored section appear to
the balance of the world as class little
removed from semi .civilization. as was
done by some of the perniclous literature
OF the ante-bellum and reconstruction
eras.