The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-01

| grievances, or the execution of people
without trial Whoever heard of the
humble house of man being burned
| and his children butchered?
"All of these things indicate that the
| law is no longer respected by commune
| ties and people; the law has lost its
sanction. And what does that mean?
1t means anarchy; it means the disin-
tegration of society. 1t means barhar-
ism. That Is what it means. The very
essential foundation of civilization is
respect for the law, and when the peo-
pie lose that they are on the downward
grade. This court can do little; all of
us can do something And remember
that the white people in South Carolina
cannot escape it's responsibility. The
white people have the government in
their hands. and If they cannot enforce
the law. they confess their impotence,
and lit is a confession of being inca
pacitated to manage the government,
If they cannot govern the state, with
all the machinery of the law in their
hands, without resorting to violent
means, it is a confession of incapac city,
and the sooner this is realized the bet
ter it will be. We can have no real civ
ilization or prosperity until we turn
our faces to the light.
mo one doubts that Baker and his
baby were killed at Lake City ard
their bodies burned in his house. which
was set on fire by the mob; that his
wife was shot and one of his children,
and we do not think there Is a man
who heard or read the testimony in the
case. that there was a single member
of the jury who doubted that some of
the men on trial took part in the hor-
rible atrocity at Lake City. The only
thing that stood between them and the
punishment provided by law was ro-
Htical and race prejudice. 1t is true.
Why not say SO?
IF the politics and complexion of the
actors in the tragedy had been differ
emit the jury would have brought in a
verdict of guilty without leaving their
seats. All the evidence was one way
and against the defendants, but the
evidence had nothing to do with the
failure of the jury to act. That was in
fuenced by considerations apart from
the testimony in the case. No one ex-
pected that the jury would find YER
dict of guilty: 1T would not have been
surprising had the jury found a YER
dict of not guilty; it's failure to agree
to verdict must be regarded as dis
tinct advance in public thought and
conscience. Five white men out of u
in South Carolina holding to the end
for the administration of justice, ac-
cording to the evidence, is a triumph
for order and a promise of better things
in the future. '-Charleston, S. c., News
and Courier.
There was great provocation, it is
true-a conspiracy among negroes to
avenge former lynching by such
vengeance upon the white women of
the community as must of necessity
inf1ame to the highest pitch the pas
sions of their protectors, must make
every white man feel the need of a
swift and dire vengeance to safeguard
their homes. Yet while this may ex-
plain it cannot excuse so revolving a
retribution, so devlish a torture.
1t is in the nature of a race war,
where each side seeks to overcome the
other by the hideousness and horror of
Its revenge. In such a contest where
all scruples are thrown away, all re-
straints broken. the whites will pre-
vail, because they have more strength.
more unity and more ingenuity in
cruelty. But at what cost to them
selves with what shame to civiliza ton,
is this supremacy in the arts of hell
established!
In our own state we have just seen a
jury disagree as to the punishment of
white men who burned the house of o
negro postmaster over his head and
slaughtered him and his infant child
From the neghborhood of New York
comes the story Of the hanging of a
negro until nearly dead, because he
was suspected of stealing pocketbook
The faint is widespread. But. passing
it over, we are setting out to civil
ize" and "Christianize"- cannon
and rifles and bayonets-a lot of Ma
lays $4,000 miles away!-Columbia Is.
ca State