Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1901-08-17

,ers of the Southland, who are generally
forward in condemning the race for the
action of few individual members of
il.
Ninety five per cent of the colored peo-
pie abhor crime in all of its forms, and
they are particularly antagonistic TO
criminal assault.
They insist however that the officers
of the law and not the representatives
of the mob should punish. They insist
that cruel and unusual punishment
shall not be resorted TO, as they do not
tend TO check crime; but rlther serve
to infiame the passions and increase the
very evils which they We're intended to
eradicate
GEORGIA and ALABAMA shall offer re-
wards and that the sheriffs in the coun-
ties in which the crimes were commit
ted shall arrest the leaders of the mob
and that, after being charged with pre-
meditated murder, they shall be hanged
dead by the neck and their accessories
be given long terms in the convict
camps of the respective commonwealth.
They insist that the punishment of
the Negro-lynchers shall be equally as
severe as that of the white lynchers and
vice-verSa.
They declare that the two men burn
ed at the stake, even if guilty. were but
the product of the community in which
they lived, for the mob which so brutal
ly executed them proved conciusively
that they Were willing to commit a
crime as heinous as the one with which
they stood charged.
The aim of the law should not be so
much TO punish as it should be to re-
form. Vengeance should have no place
in thoroughly civilized communities.
The plea as to the Nervousness of the
offense charged against the victim Of
fers no excuse. The community has no
right to sink to the level of the brute
which essays to punish.
Its action becomes brutalizing when
it resorts to methods outlawed by civil
lied governments.
These axioms-these truths are the
result of centuries of experience.
SPAIN tried the torture FRANCE fol-
lowed in her footsteps, even after Eng
, LAND had long before abandoned the
methodS as n failura
1t is indeed unfortunate that the
American Republic should tolerate such
brutal practices when its inherent law
speaks so emphatically against them.
To-day, in this country, to be charged
with a heinous offense is TO be convicted.
Where the victim is poor and without
friends, his life is not valued as much
as that of chicken.
Race prejudice was never 9 more
, marked and justice never to a greater
, extent disregarded.
1t has poisoned our entire system of
government, extending in many cases
60 the race with which the victims are
identified.
Many colored people are as intolerant
as are the white people of whom we
complain. They are imitators and have
been influenced by the surroundings in
which they live.
This makes it all the more necessary
that the God-fearing, conscientious.
thrifty, law-abiding colored people
should stand together, accumulate prop
erty, make friends with the better class
of white people and insist upon rigid
enforcement of the laws.
A crime committed by n colored man
upon white woman is no worse than a
crime committed by white man upon a
colored woman.
The time is not far distant when the
fury of the mob will be blinded TO the
color Of the victim and one or more
white men will be called upon TO offer
up their lives at the stake just as these
colored men have been required to do.
Then, reaction will take place
and those who see these horrible
pumshments through smoked eye glass.
! es VIII take them off and gaze upon the
CRIME IN all of its hideousness.
IL Is long time to wait, but the re-
traln will yet come and the demand
that iynch-law must go shall become
the slogan in the land.
God grant that we may live long
enough to note the change and stand at
the tomb of lawlessness, the first in.
scrlptlon of which shall be Sacred TO
the memory of Judge Lynch"