New-York tribune., 1900-07-27
BOY RIOTERS.

The most significant feature Of the New
Orleans riot was the youthfulness of the mob
1t was composed almost entirely of boys of
from eighteen to twenty. with no leaders, and it
was not animated by any purpose to find the
murderer whose crime was the ostensible
cause of the disorder, but went about on gen
eral mischief bent beating, shooting and killing
promiscuously such negroes as came in its way.
A law abiding black man driving an express
wagon or quietly engaged in industry was as
welcome as any other for a victim. The out
break was not an exhibition of the peculiar
institution of lynching but a plain case of law
lessness and hoodlumism. A really serious
revolutionary or extralegal movement Of a
community is not the work of its eighteen-year-
old boys Their rioting is simply a piece of
rOwdysm for the indulgence of brutal instincts
1t is natural that they should seek such in
dulgence and readily rally when any sort of
an excuse is offered them for an orgy of negro
blood. For years their fathers have been edu-
eating them to hang, shoot and burn negroes
whenever II suited the mood of a crowd of
white men. The fathers started out on the
theory that they would only kill negroes when
they deserved it, but they have found it, as
they thought. sometimes more conducive to the
common welfare to kill on general principles
and the sons have improved on their teaching
What else could they expect? They have sown
the whiTlwind Of lawlessness; they have i'm
planted the taste for "nigger hunting" in their
children; the heredity of barbarism Is as sure
as fate. No people give themselves up to
lawlessness year after year and not pay the
penalty in the next generation. The Southern
whites have harmed themselves more than
they have harmed the negroes by the object les
son in lawlessness and violence which they have
given to their boys. The boys naturally think
ii the mark Of nanliness and arstocratic su-
perority to kill negro, and, Just as other
boys are proud to get a razor and shave like
their fathers, the youths where Judge Lynch
holds court and burning at the stake prevails
eagerly take advantage of opportunity to
prove themselves men in an anti-negro riot
II is time for the South to realize how it is
putting poison in the milk Of it's babes A bad
negro kills officers who try to arrest him. Just
as many bad white men have done in every
part of the world. II is commonplace crime
with which the law is fully competent to deal
and the people of New Orleans, accustomed as
they are to lynching, appeared to take that
view of ii. 1t was dull season, however and
the boys Of the town, after thinking the matter
over for day and n night, concluded that a
riot would be dvertlng, so they went at IT,
They were not concerned with the murderer
but just seized the occasion for an attack on
negroes in general, and evidently they were
less angry at negroes even than anxious for
trouble for its own sake, for they managed to
do about as much harm 10 peaceable whites as
10 the negroes. their ostensble foes The great
body Of the white people OF New Orleans have
absolutely no sympathy with the outbreak, and
are intent upon putting it down When they
have done so perhaps they will go aside and
ask themselves If they like this result of the
former riots and lynchngs of Italians and