The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-19
SOME LYNCHING COMMENTS.

The comments in the Northern papers
on the Leavenworth lynching are inter
esting for several reasons, but particularly
because these papers are not yet ready
apparently to admit that race prejudice
is at the bottom of most lynchings. If
the victim of the mob's vengeance had
been a white man, it is doubtful if he
would have been burned to death. The
same may be said of the Georgia, Texas,
and Colorado lynchings at the stake. The
victims in these cases might have been
shot or hanged, but not tortured to death
by fire.
Commenting on the Leavenworth lynch
ing the New York Evening Post says:
THE spread of lynching-a few weeks
ago in Colorado and now in John Browns
state-shows how little competent it is
for the North longer to take the Phari-
saical attitude toward the South in this
matter" This is honest, and what might
be expected from the Post. We have
been saying for years that the reason
there were not as many lynchings in the
North as in the South was the fact that
nearly the whole of the negro popula-
ton of the country is in the South, and
that therefore there are comparatively
few negro criminals in the North. Let
the conditions in the North be the same
as they are in the South and there would
be even more of the horrible lynchings
in that section than there are In this.
The Philadelphia Press, one of the ex-
IRENE Republican papers, the paper of
which the Postmaster General is the edi-
tor when he is not in Office. has this to
say of the Kansas lynching:
THE burning alive of a colored man
accused of rape and murder in Kansas
places that State in this respect by the
side of Colorado, Georgia, Texas, Ar
kansas and Tennessee. 1t proves that
the brutal instinct is as rampant in the
first State as in any of the other states
which have burned alleged murderers
and rapists at the stake. There is no
more excuse, and in fact less excuse,
for the preparation of such a barbarism
in Kansas than there is in South Carolina
or Mississippi, and it is to the honor of
the last two states that neither of them
have been disgraced by such an out
rage"
From the foregoing it is apparent that
the Press does not think there is any
race prejudice in lynchings. If it will
study the situation carefully it will come
to a different conclusion. And it seems
to think that people in the states which
it names-states in which negroes have
been burned alive-are more brutal than
those of other states. 1t has not been
so very long since it held the opinion that
negro would never be lynched by burn
ing alive in any Northern State, no mat
ter how great the provocation. Now it
seems to think that such a thing could
happen in only two Northern states
Colorado and Kansas.
The truth is that crime like that at
Leavenworth is likely to be committed.
in any Northern state. Let the heinous
offense, for which lynchings in the South
are most common, be committed by
negro in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts
or any other Northern state, and if there
is not lynching it will be because the
mob cannot reach the criminal.
These lynchings at the stake are not
so much an indication of the spread OF
the mob spirit as the Press says as
the cropping out of the prejudice against
the negro. The race problem is a prob
lem for the whole country, and the ne
cessity for it's solution is becoming more
and more urgent