The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-08-27
LYNcHlNe AND CRIME.

alton to do his whole duty and offe
effective resistance to a mob bent upol
lynching a negro prisoner in his Gus
tody and therefore entitled to his pro
lection. If a few more sheriffs Xix,
North should turn up taking negro
prisoners from officers and lynchins
them would probably speedily CEASE
to be the popular pastime it now seem.
to be. The law would command great
er respect and a more orderly state
of affairs would result, for only by the
indiscriminate enforcement of the law
can a state or community hope te
rise above the plane of ~lawlessness
and savagery which marks the people
who lake the matter of Furnishing Grim
inals into their own hands. Time and
its continued practice have long age
demonstrated the impotency Of lynch
ing, even in it's most barbarous forms.
as a preventive of crime, and partic.
ularly of the crime of rape, for it is
in punishment Of that offense that
most of the lynching in the south has
been done and is being done almost
daily. Instead of acting as a deterrent
it seems to inspire the negro with
greater lust, as is proved by the in
crease of the crime of rape in the very
localities where lynching has taken
the place of regularly constituted laws
and where mobs instead of courts
meet out punishment.
The particular case of the negro
at Ashville offered less excuse for
the interference of a mob than that of
most cases where Judge Lynch AFRO
gates to himself the functions of court
and executioner The prisoner had
been tried and convicted and was
even then under sentence of death,
which sentence was ordered executed
at an early day The men who com
posed the mob had every reason for
believing that the sentence imposed
by the court would be carried out.
The prisoner had confessed his guilt
and probably nothing that his friends
or attorney could do would cause any
change in the status he then occupied.
The sentence imposed was the ex-
IRENE penalty provided by law. The
court and the law had decreed that
by reason of his offense he had for
feited the right to live and the date
when he should pay the penalty had
been fixed. All this the mob knew,
but the savage thirst for human life
and the mad desire to infict torture
and cause the height of human physi-
cal suffering, which seem to be mental
conditions ever present in those
who practice mob law in the
horrible form in which it is
practiced in the south, overrul-
ed wisdom and Judgment and
with the blind prejudice of the
members of the mob led them on to
attack the law and it's representatives.
this mac folly and bending to
desire one mar was killed
and another SO severely wounded that
he, too, is expected to die. Had not
lawlessness almost as bad as that
which prompted the commission of
crime for which the mob attempted
10 punish the perpetrator found lodg-
ment in the minds of the men of Ash
vile the second tragedy would not
occurred. The law would have
taken its course, the same as it now
probably and certainly will. and in
Of three lives, only one would
have been exacted-that of the man
who had forfeited it to the law and
whose punishment is just and well
merited.
If the occurrence at Asheville will
cause the men of the south to stop
and think and reason it will not have
been without it's good effects, much
is it is to be deplored. If it will force
them to ask themselves whether after
all it would not be best to bring about
a revival of the old days when the
We're permitted to take their |
course and to insist that both black
and white be punished for their evil
doing it will be worth the sorrow and
it has brought to at least
families of the south. They have
lynching in almost every posi- |
BILE form and found it ineffective. Now
let them try the other and apparently /
forgotten eXp%edient, that of enforce
ment of the laws. Mob law degrades |
and instead of being a deterrent of
crime it seems to lead to it's further
Not only does it do this,
but it also brings those who prac-
ice it within the pale where they
nay be justly termed as lawbreak-
srs themselves and as such are liza