The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-10-04
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1901.
SIMPLY HUMAN NATURE.

Last Tuesday nights occurrence at
Helena but strengthens the often re-
peated remark that geographical
lines do not influence human nature.
Men are pretty much all the same,
whether they live in the north or the
South and the same impulses prompt
all, regardless of what may be said
X to the contrary. There are certain
crimes the commission of which
IL such a storm of Indignation
in the communities in which they
are committed that men lose their
senses and for the once becomes reck-
less and Indifferent to the laws which
at other times they regard as sacred
and not to be violated. Rape is one
of those crimes and especially heinous
and fearful does it become when the
victim is an innocent, ~defenseless and
helpless child, as was the case in
Helena. In it's contemplation reason
and judgment suspend their functions
and the desire to infict prompt and
summary punishment Upon the perpe-
traitor is the one arimating thought
which holds the minds of men. What
the consequences may be SO far as
the name and reputation of the COM
munity is concerned is a secondary
consideration with the men BEN upon
Wreaking vengeance on the fiend who
has wrecked a home and blasted the
life of an innocent person, for it must
afterward Of a victim OF rape is not
one far above. death itself. To them
but one penalty seems adequate and
that penalty is the forfeiture of life.
The law may have a defect that might
enable the guilty II to escape, or the
sympathies of a jury may be worked
to get off with but slight punishment.
So and in other ways do the lynchers
reason, if they reason at all, and the
determination to make impossible all
these and other contingencies be-
comes more fixed and nothing but the
life of the bastard will satisfy the
mob.
OF course, the thig will be investi-
gated. a grand jury has already been
summoned to this end by the presid-
ing judge Of the district in which the
1ynching occurred, but unless preced-
ent falls and men for nee change
their natures, it is safe to
say that the present inyes-
tigation will be fruitful of no
different results than have followed
those in other communities where an
attempt has been made to secure the
punishment of men who composed
mobs that took the law into their own
hands. We may deplore lynch law as
much as we willard inveigh against it
and against those who enforce it, but
so long as womanly purity is consid-
cred a virtue and men retain their
chivalric instincts and natural attri-
butte of affording protection to the
members of the opposite sex, SO long
will incidents of the kind which has
stirred up Helena continue and an oc.
casional lynching will be chronicled,
whether it be from the north or the
south. American manhood revolts at
the thought of rape and when it Is
committed under such horrible cir
cumstances as attended the Helena
crime it must not be wondered at that
men discard reason and judgment and
allow their places to be taken by the
desire for revenge and extinction OF
a life which it is hardly fair to desig.
nate as human.
After all, will the name of a com
munity in which a lynching like that
at Helena and the cause which is re
sponsible for it suffer because of its
preparation? The facts which led
up to it, as well as the lynching it.
self will be published and though
some may be found who will condemn
it, the majority will say the men
who wore masks and hanged Brady
did a c~ommendable act and imposed
punishment no severer than the crime
merited.
N Ea@HEt