The record-union., 1899-04-25
THE GEORGIA TRAGEDY.


is too shocking for recital 1t stains
another page of our history, and fur
nishes to Europeans new text for
preaching of the incapacity Of the
American people for self-government.
The crime for which the man Hose suf-
fered mob torture, violence and death at
the stake, is too awful to be classified.
The punishment the law provides for
such crime is inadequate in it's merci-
fulness if punishment is intended either
as expiation or deterrent influence, or
both
What then is to be said of the action
of the mob? Was it aetuated by brutal
motives and savage instincts? Was its
action in the nature of return to the
purely animal state, in which the beast
mangles its prey and rends it limb by
limb while life remains? The reply
must be in the affirmative. We think,
however, that the mob was also moved
upon by the fury of outraged manhood,
and the unheeding demand for ven
seance. That it was composed of men
who are husbands and fathers, who
have sisters and daughters and who
respect woTnanhood and will fight to
the death for their household treasures
We know. That they found themselves
in the presence of an awful crime, one
unparalleled in fiendishness and bru-
tality; that they felt themselves power
less to protect their wives and daugh-
tiers. their mothers and aged ones from
such fearful assault as that made by
Hose, and were hence lost to reason in
frenzy combining exquisite grief and
uncomfortable anger-all this is true
That condition of mind led to
the vengeance and gave rein
to the animal exhibition that followed
1t was a notable feature of the
affair that this condition of mind
appears to have obtained among vast
number Of people widely separated as
to residence, and that there was uni
fornity Of thought and purpose when
they assembled, without any previous
conference. and apparently without
being inspired or infiarned by any lea
dership. This fact in itself reveals to US
the tense condition Of the public mind,
and gives us some idea of the awful
ness of the anger of an aroused people.
There viii be no human being with
sensibility regarding the right of life
and the sacredness of womans honor,
who win not say that the culprit did
not. deserve death. The law measured
him that penalty; the people anticipated
its infiiction. They did so in a man
ner that reflects upon civilization and
reveals to us the dangerous character of
the passions Of the mob. The law of
rage and fury cannot be approved, how
ever much it's victim may deserve the
penalty inflicted. 1t is horrible to con-
template that in this case the fury of
the multitude ran to the extreme of a
battling for grewsome relics of the
fearful execution, as if these tokens of
offended law and outraged humanity
We're badges and insignia of honor. In
deed. this exhibition of retained, unsat-
isfied vengeance, is one of the most
shocking features Of the whole terrible
affair followed up as 1t was by the hang
ing by lynch law of the negro preacher
Strickland. The miserable negro Hose
met a deserved fate. OF that no man
DOUBTS, we take 1t. Death was his due,
but torture and mutilation combined
with it, reveal only a savagery of
humans nature lost to reason in the
presence Of terrible outrage upon
human rights that excites abhorrence
and makes US feel that the perpetrators
of the torture destroyed what ever of
sympathy they might have claimed
from the mass of men.
1t Is impossible to approve Of mob
1awa We feel that expiation has been
seized out Of the hands of justice and
converted into vengeance; that the de-
terrent quality of the punishment ac-
corded has been swallowed up in the
madness Of men frenzied beyond the
control of reason. Mob law is curse
with no shadow of excuse. Men moved
to employ it lose all sense of their OBJ
legation to abide by the laws of their
own making; to suffer under made
quacy of that law, indeed, rather than
establish the reign of anarchy born of
the hot blood of passion under which no
one is safe in property or person.
Georgia honor is stained. her name is
tarnished, and her men and women are
shanlhd in the eyes of the world by the
terrible scene Of the execution of Hose.
The American name is smirched by the
fearful deed, and in the eyes of man
kind we will suffer reproach and scoff
ing. Lynch law has not proved more
deterrent than the law of the statute
book 1t terrifies for the moment, but
invariably where it is most appealed to
there is the most frequent repetition of
the crimes to prevent which its fierce
tribunal is called into activity
While the negro Hose deserved death
for his crime the law was equal to
awarding. that punishment, and would
have done so. The mob anticipated the
law and shamed the State and the ma
ton by the savagery Of the method of
that anticipation. What then has been