The Seattle Republican. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1???-1915, 1901-01-18
KANSAS LYNCHERS.


ages and savagedom, they could ex-
pect no worst treatment than some
Of the black folk Of this country are
now receiving in the heart Of Am
erican Christian civilization. Pun
ishment for crime in the United
States, and especially when the Grim
inal has black face, has reached a
point beyond all reasonable expect
alton. No one who lived in this |
country three decides ago would |
have ever believed that any citizen Of
this country would have been burned |
at the stake for committing any de-
gree Of crime, much less an alleged |
section Of this country that is show
ing its barbaric vindictiveness toward |
the black man, but apparently in ev-
cry section Of the United States is he
being prosecuted, imprisoned and |
burned at the stake for crime, in the
North, in the, South, in the East and
in the West, all one and the same.
He has been burned by the Southern
rebels, by the Northern Yankees and
| by the Western frontiersman. The
climax of this awful punishment
melted out to the black man of this |
country seems to have been reached |
when one Of them was burned at the
stake in Kansas last Tuesday night, |
not more than twenty miles from the
famous battle ground where John
Brown and his followers, in opposing
the extension Of slavery in the
United States, drenched the very
earth with human gore advocating
the rights Of the oppressed black
man, and not over sixty miles from
the state capitol of Kansas, where
the governor and his national guards
are stationed and under the very
walls of the Soldiers Home and the
United States military post, where
United States soldiers by scores are
stationed. It must seem to the Ne
gro Of this country that he has lost
his last and only friend when Kan
sas, a state apparently created by
Providence itself to champion his
rights, has adopted the same kind Of
torture to punish the criminal Ne
gro as did the Southern citizens, his
ancient and arch enemy, few years
ago. The man burned at the stake
last Tuesday was charged with only
attempting to overtake a passing
girl, and was thought to have COM
mitted a murder some months ago,
but there was no tangible evidence
of either. But as he stood on his
funeral pyre, he protested his limo
cence and through he knew death in
its most excruciating form would be
his lot, yet he protested until devour-
| ed by the angry flames, that he was
as innocent as the stars that shine.
He may have been guilty, grant it
that he was, still it is seldom that
men will go to their death protesting
their innocence when they are given
repeated opportunities to confess
! the crime for which they are destin-
ed to die, and by this means prepare
themselves to meet their God.
We read in history of how the
: Carthagenians put their Roman cap
tives in barrels in which nails and
sharp pointed instruments were
driven and then rolled them down
hills; we read of Nero compelling the
Christians to walk on red-hot iron
bars, to dring melted metal, to jump
into seething furnaces and to do all
manner Of things that would serve
as an intimidation to others who
might desire to become Christians,
and these things have all been held
up to the young Of each succeeding
generation, that man might never
again drift into Paganism, and that
the Christian influence and spirit
would still live among them. Who
would have thought that the nine
teenth and twentieth centuries in
the United States would have pro-
duced such a state Of affairs as exist
ed in Colorado and Kansas, when in
both places men were burned at the
stake by bowling mobs composed of
persons, perhaps the leading Chris
ton men of those communities.
Either Christianity is a roaring
farce, is a snare and a delusion. is
as false as it pretends to be fair, or
the great majority Of the people Of
the United States have never as yet
experienced true Christianity. Each
section Of the United States vies
! with thn other cactiOn ono Ctatn