The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1897-08-12
Bill ARP'S WEEKLY LETTER.
BARLOW SAGE DISCUSSES SUB.
JECT OF LYNCHINGS.
4 STRONG DEFENSE OF GEORGIANS.
Draws Comparison Between the Negroes
OF Ante-Bellum Times and Those OF
the Present Generation.

I had not intended to write anything
more upon lynch law, but recent ut
terances from the press and the pulpit
provoke me to say that the people Of
Georgia do not deserve the condemna-
tion of friends or foes for their con-
sent to lynchings when the crime is
one that is nameless. Our people are
as humane and law-abiding today as
they were thirty, forty or fifty years
ago, and the records of the courts
prove it. In 1861 there were ZIG
white convicts in the penitentiary;
now there are but 1876, and we have q
greater population. There is so per
cent less of felonies in Georgia than
in New York or Massachusetts, accord
ing to population. OF course, I mean
among the whites. Now set that down.
An Ohio paper has recently investiga-
ted the record Of that nameless crime
for the past ten years in that state and
gives the figures which show 324 cases,
and the negro criminals outnumber
the whites six to one in proportion
to population. In Georgia they out
number the whites sixty to one and it
is because of our scattered and un-
protected population in the rural dis
tricts. Before the war that crime was
unknown and almost unheard of in the
south. I never heard of case in
north Georgia. In1S52 Ihad occasion
to visit Cedar Bluff in Alabama and
my companion, Judge Underwood,
stopped the horse to show me pile
Of stones that was heaped up around
q dead and blasted tree. 'Those
stones," said he, 'smark the place
where a negro brute was burned two
years ago and also mark the place
where he committed the crime and
then murdered his victim" That
was the only case that came to my
knowledge. During the war, when in
hundreds of families the only protec-
tors of women and children were
negroes, not deed of violence or
betrayal of trust was heard of from
the Potomac to the Rio Grande; and
General Henry r. Jackson eloquently
said of them, ''they deserve a monu-
ment that would reach the stars"
How is it now2 Nearly 8, 900 colored
convicts in the chaingangs and less
than 200 whites, and the nameless
crime is committed by negroes some
where every day in the year. What is
the cause of this alarming degeneracy
of the negro? I heard a preacher say
the other day that lynching for this
crime or any other was the evidence of
depraved and lawless public senti-
ment. He is mistaken. 1t is rather
the evidence of minds charged, perhaps
overcharged, with love and respect for
wives and daughters, and no man who
has neither is fit juror to try the
case. he is incapable of understand
ing or appreciating the common peril
that, like a shadow, hangs over the
farmers home, be it ever SO humble.
Parental love is nearly all that these
people have to give to their chill
dren and they give that and cherish
them and will defend them as
tigress defends her whelps. What
is the majesty of the law worth to a
man whose child has fallen victim to
brute? What is it to his neighbor who
all these years has been from time
to time apprehending similar vista
ton? What does young man, wheth-
er preacher or editor or lawyer, know
about it? Jean Ingelow (God bless
her sweet memoryD makes the old
fisherman to say: 81 feel for mariners
of stormy nights and feel for wives
that watch ashore" Who knows the
perils of the deep like fishermen?
Some of those learned judges and law
yers and preachers of Atlanta have
given vent to language that is bitter
and malignant against lynchings for
any crime, but it is to be noted that
they have long lived in call of the po-
lice by night and by day, and within
brick walls and with neighbors at
hand ON every side. What can they
know Of the peril of the farmer whose
wife visits Q neighbor, or whose child
rem have to go mile away to school?
Perhaps some inquiring mind will
ask what do know about it? Twenty
years ago I moved from the city to the
country and farmed there for ten
years, and all that time the appreheu-
sion grew stronger and stronger, for
there were negroes all around me on
the farms, and more negroes not far
away working in the mines. I never
expressed my fears, not even to my
wife; but when our boys all left the
farm for other avocations, and had to
be away most of the time, my wife be-
came alarmed, and I Immediately left
the farm and moved to town for secu-
rity. So did every neighbor that I
had, and our school was broken up
and the whole settlement abandoned
and turned over to negro tenants.
The schoolhouse was a mile away, and
I used to look with parental eagerness
for the. first appearance OF the chill
dren's hats as they rose into view over
the distant hill. Until then 1 never
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