The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-19
THEY ARE MUM.

We have examined within few days
a vast amount of comment in The pub
lie press of all sections of the country
upon the atrocious lynchin5s IN IN
diana. We find them condemned, of
course, universally and unspaflnSlE.
We find all possible varieties OF eNpla-
nations and all conceivable remedies
to prevent such occurrences Tor the
future We do not find, however, one
thing that we were looking for, with
very little expectation, we must COIL
fess, of finding it. This is frank and
any Republican newspaper of its uil-
fairness and partisan indecency in the
past, in charging upon the South re-
sponsibility for the lynching habit in
this country, and ascribing its preva-
lence to hatred of the negro and
desire to persecute him politically and
civilly.
There is hardly a Republican organ
in the United States against which
this charge does not lie. 1t lies against
the party platforms of the Republicans
in the nation and in the states. 1t lies
against the eminent Republican who
now occupies the white house. One and
ALL from top to bottom, haze joined
in the hue and cry raised against the
Democratic party for political effect,
charging it with responsibility for
the frequent lynching of negroes in the
Southern states. 1t seems to us that
ordinary manliness requires not silence
today on the part of the party advo-
Gates. but a confession of their unfair
ness and injustice. The two most no
torious and unparGonable instances of
lynch law and mob vengeance known
to this country within recent times
have occurred one in Ohio, the state
of President Mckinley, at Urbana, and
the other is this latest horror fIom In
diana In the latter case there were
five victims who were Put to death
without trial, and several % them
without even being accused of COM
J,;icity in the series of petty annoy
arces that had vexed the community.
they were not murderers. They had
not assaulted women. They were not
guilty of any of the crimes that are
supposed to stir the people to ven
geance in a rude community. Yet the
Iaw was set aside AMI the state dis
graced.
There was no adequate punish
ment in Ohio, we expect none IN
Indiana. Beth of these states have
proved repeatedly that in this partic-
ular they possess a lower rather than
a higher standard of morality and re-
spect for law than their neighbors in
the South. When lyrchings happen in
the South, and they have been unfor-
tunately too frequent there, they are
nearly always accounted for, if not eX-
tanuated, by the frenzy that seizes,
not unnaturally. upcp the men of
community when they find that their
wives and daughters are not safe from
negro assailants. No such motive and
no such passion are witnesses in be-
half Of the cold-blooded Wretches who
strung UP five untried, and possibly
innocent men, in Indiana. 1t was a
return to barbarism pure and simple;
a reversion to a state of society far
lower than that of those districts Of
the South where Judge Lynch still
holds sway, far lower than the from
tier community where the vigilantes
rule.
1t is murder pure and simple. When
it happens under circumstances so ag-
graxated in Nor.hern sta -,-s. W, have
a. right to demand that the Repu5li-
can newspapers and T ,.;Ii..ia-ls with
draw their charges against the South;
and that, while admitting and deplor-
ing the apparently growing disposition