The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-07-04
CHE Jaessengn.
THE UNITED SOUTH As To ONE
CRIME.

cotes of the new republican plan of
turning the United States into a second
England and making them the other
great Anglo-Saxon empire. Some of
the college men are also very denun-
efatory OF all 1ynchings for all offences
including the cruel assaults upon pure,
helpless women and children. In the
north every day crazy and ignorant ed
itOrs denounce all 1ynchings in the
south while either giving a quasi assent
to rapes or by silence allowing them
to go unchallenged. If the Messenger
were to undertake to discuss all the
bitter, slanderous articles that appear
in northern rabid sheets it would have
to produce a daily editorial.
There may be some excuse for fools
and madmen in the north making all
readers as to lynchings in the south,
while hardly c~ondemning at all such
mob law in the north, but no southern
man ought to make a mistake at this
point. It is probably a fact that not
more than n negro in ten who COM
nits a rape upon a white m Of
character is ever hanged by court or
mob. Rev. DIR. Hoss, editor of he
Nashville Christian Advocate, organ Of
the Southern Methodist church, is re-
ported in southern newspapers as say
ing that 300 rapes were committed upon
whites by negroes in three months.
President Dreher, Of Roanoke col
lege, Virginia, is a scholarly and able
educator. He has written well and
wisely upon education in the south.
Recently he sent to the New York Sun
an article bearing upon southern lynch
ings. Just why he should choose such
a malignant and INSCRIPTIONS north
ern newspaper as a medium of express
sion, we do not know. We learn, for
we have not seen the article, that he
contends that southern lynchings are
by no means limited to rapes, but that
true contention. The Messenger in
common with other newspapers that
believe in lynching any brute that vio-
lates the sacred person of a pure white
woman or white child, does not justify
in the least the mob hangings for other
crimes. Let the law deal with all
crimes but the one crime that invites
speedy and sure punishment. Presi-
dent Dreher is able to make a good ar
.gument against all lynchings, for the
north, and south, often overruns with
argument aginst mob punishment of
all kinds. Ike find copied the follow
ing from him in the Richmond Times:
THE only position to be taken by
layg-aaRi1tRg taaHH6- a%-respeeting people
N This: That lynching for any crime
whatever is itself a crime against civ
ilized society. Wherein does civiliza-
ton especially differ from barbarism?
In civilized society we have laws for
the protection OF person and property,
for the administration of justice and
the punishment Of crime. Unde bar
SarUus and savage conditions brute
force rules and revenge dictates pun
fshment. To say, then, that in the
south or anywhere else in our country
it lis necessary to lynch any class Of
persons for any crime whatever is to
confess that laws are defective, the
administration of justice uncertain and
our boosted Christian civilization to
that extent a failure. The remedy Tor
this condition of affairs is certainly not
in Iynching, for every mob tramples
the law under foot"
In a perfect civilization with perfect
criminal laws, and pure and competent
juries, and judges without bias or falli-
bilfty, and lawyers above all tricks
and catches and sophisims, this would
work admirably. All men Of fifty
years old have probably seen ten red
handed murderers escape the hang
man, and indeed, punishment almost of
any kind. With the jury system now
existing in the south it is not only pos
sibIe,, but it is quite probable that any
murderer or rapist, If a black, may es-
cape punishment. If this is not true
every where in the south then other
states are better off than is North Car
olina We turn to copy now from the
Richmond Times, with whose views,
we are in sympathy. Commenting on
President Dreher's communication to
the Sun, it says:
1.-The best people throughout the
south, indeed the great majority of the
southern people, are violently opposed
Iynching, save for the one unpardon-
able crime of assault upon defenceless
women We have commended, and we
do contend, that the lynching of this
class of criminals originated not in
any spirit OF law~lessness, but in a
spirit of chivalry. Southern men hold
their women in reverential regard and
when any indiginity is shown them
their indignation knows no bounds.