The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-06
BISHOP WALTERS FIGURES.

FI0thES.
That was a remarkable statement
which the colored Bishop, Walters, of
Jersey City, made at the opening ses-
sion of the Ecumencal Methodist Con-
ference in London on Wednesday. He
said that 90 negroes had been lynched
in the United States during the year
1900, and that so far as proved only
eleven had committed assaults on
white women. If he meant that only
eleven had been tried and found guilty
of the crime of assaulting white wo-
men or had confessed that they COM
mitted that crime, his statement may
be true, but he must have known that
he was misleading his audience If they
understood him to mean that there was
a strong probability that 70 of the 80
were innocent. OF course lynching is
to be condemned in the strongest pos
sible terms. but it does not follow on
that account that misleading state
ments respecting lynchings are justi-
fable.
1t may be that once in a while an
innocent man is lynched. AS a rule
the mob gets the right man. And 1t is
seldom that there is mob law for any
other crime than rape and murder. 1t
is to be regretted, profoundly regret
ted, that the law is not permitted to
take its course in every instance. The
danger is that the mob spirit will be-
come stronger and insist on summary
punishment for other crimes than
those which are now the cause of
lynchings.
The statement that Bishop Walters
made was calculated to give the Brit
ish public very erroneous impression
of the condition Of society in this
country. Not only must it have got
the idea from what he said that ne
groes are lynched on very slight prov
ocation, but that there is very little
respect for the law and the courts.
We have not kept a record, but from
the number of lynchings which have
been reported in the newspapers re-
Gently it would seem to be a safe
statement that more than eleven ne
groes have been lynched for crimes
against women within the last thirty
days, and 1t is doubtful If in any in
stance the victim of the lynchers was
innocent. In most cases there was
complete Identification or confession.
But all of those who are lynched are
not negroes by any means. nor are
lynchings confined to the South. Some
figures furnished by the Chicago Tri-
bune day or two ago, show that dur
been 2,516 lynchings in the United
States. OF this number 1850 were in
the South and 436 in the North. OF
those lynched, 1878 We're blacks, and
sol were whites, 81 were Indians, 8 were
Chinese and were Mexicans.
There were lynchings in every state
except five-these five being Delaware.
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island and Utah. or course there were
fewer lynchings in the North than IN
the South, but that was owing to the
presence in the South of very large
negro population. The negroes furnish
more than two-thirds of the criminals
in the South. If the negro population
of the South were transferred to the
North there would soon be as many
lynchings there as there are now in the
South. The fact that there were 43G
lynchings in the North during the last
sixteen years shows beyond the ques-
ton of a doubt that all there is needed
in that section to bring about an in
crease in the number OF lynchings is
a larger percentage of crimes of GER
tain kind.