The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-04-28
FRIDAY.
INSANITY WOULD BE THE ONLY
EXCUSE.

We published yesterday an extract
from communication in the Charlotte
Observer giving as an excuse for the
brutal conduct of the Georgia mob that
it was "the work of insane people," but
the writer added that the Southern
white men twill become insane as often
as negro brutes outrage white women.
The first claim of insanity is the best
palliation for men who could cut of ears,
fingers and toes, kindle fire with oil
and pitch, and burn up the basest crimi-
nal. but the statement that they will
''become insane at stated periods shows
that the plea of insanity will not excuse
the men who have brought n stain upon
their section and a blot upon Southern
civilization.
The manhood and intelligence of the
South revots alike at the crime and the
punishment The first was the act of a
brute who would have been executed by
law; the last is the crime of the white
men who boast of their civilization. I'm
civilized men grow enraged and avenge
crimes like that in Georgia was avenged;
civilized men are able to govern them
selves and to leave the punishment of
crime to the constituted authorities.
When they grow frantic and relapse into
barbarism, as those Georgia men did,
they bring discredit upon the South and
are law breakers.
The South must put an end to >lynch
law. 1t is no justification to say that
the brutes deserved the punishment they
received. That goes without saying, and
it would be melted out without causing
the destruction of respect for law and
morals among the less educated young
men of the South. 4 Lawlessness begets
a disregard for law, and the innate re-
spect for authority that has always
characterized the South will be utterly
destroyed unless lynch law is completely
wiped ont.
Lynch law barbarities must cease in
the South, not because they give occa-
sion to sectionalists at the North to
abuse the South and to misrepresent the
attitude of its reputable citizens-what
that class of men may think or say is
become matter of Indifference to us
but because lynch law strikes at the
very foundations of our civilization, sub
stituting the blind fury of the mob for
the safeguards of law.
The effect of atrocities like that IT
Newman, Georgia, does not end with the
last gasp of the wretch who is burned
at the stake or with the further bru-
talizing of the semi-brutes who take
part in them; it wounds the public self.
respect and begets a skepticism as to the
efficacy of enlightened public opinion,
that is the surest forerunner of
degeneracy and decay. No pa
triotic man of the South can read
the sickening details of such affairs
without bowling his head in shame for
heritage of 5000 years of civilization,
that could not save from such a iuccil
downward to primal savagery.
The fact that lynchings have rather
increased in the atrocities that attend
them of late years is an unmistakable
evidence of their effect upon the public.
I che aefoa tn nd n
that there is no halfway ground, no
certain limit, when once the will of the
mob is substituted for the processes of
law. From killing to torture is but a
step, when passion and not reason is the
guiding force. The logical reflex of
continually taking the law into their
own hands is appearing all too plainly
in those communities that have been
wont to do that.
Next to the harm done to the healthy
sentiment for law and order by the
lyncher is the evil wrought by his apollo
gist. So long as mob-murder is declared
to be rooted in chivalry mob-murder will
tpHtiiut' ~ iohS thc thuS Nho thto
off ears as souvenirs is dubbed a hero
thugs will multiply. What is wanted is
n public sentiment that shall put the
right estimate on the act of the lynch
er, public sentiment so stern in its
condemnation that it will beget few