The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-05-26
BURNING 4 negro
How a Fury for Firebrands
lnfects a Community.
STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS
Who Treats the Event as a
Psychological Study.


New York, May 25.-A contributor to the
Evening Post writes:
The deliberator narrator who comes at
ter the reporter and the correspondent,
and tries TO set down upon paper, without
their power of rapid generalization and
speed of utterance, what really takes
place in a small community in the South
when negro is burned at the stake is
met at once by the hindrance of truth it
self, which at such times refuses oeome
into the domain of the utterab-e. No
body has dared to describe modern
burning with its communal aspects as
carefully and accurately as the old writer's
have described the auto da fe OF centuries
ago. Shame and pity run together into
Feticence in o. day. The nineteenth
century sits heavily on our lips. The re-
cital is an indictment of man himself I'll
is not easy to suborn the Saxon tongue to
the work Barbarism has its nuances and
subtleties, which defy the gracious tongue
of Christianity. In all those communities
where these unspeakable things have been
done. there have been persons of not only
acute sensibilities. but Of secure and
serene faith in the genera. benighity of
the scheme of the universe. Some of the
organized affection and tenderness Of
these upright lives have gone out into
their relations to the race, and al was
wkeH with the world" Such persons
have heard at times the toscin of dia
boiism suddenly sounded. They have
oh hair nd ctn bai
But the flames of passion have come
through their lids, and the demOnic yells
of man have bored their way into their
souls.
Out Of these dire experiences these per-
sons have come soul-shocked but reticent,
not unlike those seers of the night, who
wake from apocalyptic dreams with the
unspeakab.e in their faces and go about
forever after, troubled and silent They
have caught a glimpse in some Tartarian
dark of the forbidden and have learned
also that it is the actual. From that point
in their lives "all was not so well with
the world"
To write the story of a Southern mob,
one must deal with the subject rather
than the object, if one would know just
where the shame and outrage are, and to
do this one must write with a full sense
of his obligations to the sensibilitieS of the
nineteenth century. If we stand tiptoe
in our imaginations and look backward
over the historic page, mans insensate
cruelty bothers us It is wholly incompre-
hensible and sickening to the developed
! intelligence. When then must be the ac-
tual revival Of it to that intelligence?
70
be stopping in one of the Southern towns
when one of these deeds of shame oc-
Cured. He was staying with small
family as a guest. The adults were in
telligent. God-fearing persons of the
kindliest natures. humbIy active in good
work, widely respected, and making that
kind of home which one oftenest finds
in middle life, and in which some kind
| of sunshine seemed to radiate from the
characters themselves. AL al once there
came the news of an atrocious crime COM
mitted by a negro. The Nervousness and
| the ferOcity of the act We're such as to
| indicate the demonsm or the insanity Of
| a rude nature, suddenly possessed by
! ungOvernable passion. In the family
| where I was the circumstance was
! guardedly alluded to as an incidental ex-
| hibition of crime not at all peculiar TO
the region; the exhibition of elementary
! savagery that constantly takes place in
the very center of civilization, and rs only
to be met by the accreting power of in
| teligence on the one hand. and law and
order on the other. All this goes with
out saying, among men and women who
have been taught to lean up confidently
| Of ofv Ito
ton itself But I very soon preceived
that my friends and their neighbors, in
| all their illusions 10 what was an impor-
tant event in the community, betrayed an
apprehension that I did not understand
until twenty-four hours later.
While we were at breakfast a neighbor'
wife broke in upon Us, and cried out eX-
| citedly, They've got him-the,ve got
! him." and then as suddenly disappeared
7 saw her through the window running
from house to house. dishevelled by the
eagerness Of her tidings. The effect OF
the announcement on our group was pc
culiar and instant. The mother Of The
family was staring at her husband. with
a frightened. facial inquiry. and he wa.
palpably trying to avoid her eye. sud
denly he jumped up without word o.
explanation. and made for the door, bu
before he had turned the knob his wife
had leaped after him and had her arms
about him For the love Of Cod sh'
said. stay herewith me and the boys
His reply echoed her apprehension with
ont answering it They mustn't 40 it
they mustn't do it," and he was gone
The woman entirely ignored me for
moment. Her first thoughts were Of he
two boys who were at the table. C
upstairs to your room" she said per
emptorily. and they ooeyed her as 4 som
inscrutable danger had beset the house
! hold Then she went to the south win
doNs and began pulling the green blind
! too, and hooking them, but not before
had caught a glimpse Of our neigh5or
P hurryins down the road. L al hasae
upon me then in an instant. But even
it had not I would not have been ief
in the dark very long. for presently an
other naiShb1r's wife put her head ir
her face already c3aEested with excite
nent. ard shouted. Come on, they're e
ing 10 bum him,''