The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1902-05-16

intimate personal and professional re
lations with him. know him physi
cally, morally and intellectually. He
is an idolator. He has no conception
Of a principle in religion. He simply
a great despotic king, seated
on an immense white throne. in gol-
den city. His idea of worship is to
hatter Jehovah and win favors from
him by the same mouthy, cunning and
obsequious services with which he al
ways sought to outwit his master, when
a slave. His idea Of heaven is far be-
low that of the Indian who'looks to the
happy hunting grounds" as a bound
less realm of forests, mountains and
green valleys, inviting the highest de-
gree of skill and courage in manly
sports. The negro's idea of heaven is
unrestrained license luxury and lazi-
ness with undisputed equality with the
white man.
Il speak from observation a certain
truth, when it is asserted that 80 per
cent of negro preachers are the most in
veterate libertines Of the race. On the
great western plains every drove of buf-
faloes is managed by a "herd bull. .
The negro preacher is simply the herd
bull" of his ecclesiastical range. 1t is
utterly impossible to disgrace one ne
gro in the estimation Of another, except
for the one unpardonable offence Of be-
traying the crimes of his race for the
information of the white man. This is
never forgiven. 1t is idle to attempt
any intelligent discussion of the lynch
ing evil without a recognition and com
prehension of the unbroken and unde
waiting lines OF race distinction and
race antagonism reaching from the
very dawn of the creation to this pres
ent day, and stretching away into the
dim distance Of the undiscovered future
England has been in India 400 years,
and yet the Englishman as a type, or
race, is no nearer to the Hindoo thar
he was at the birth Of man in his differ
ent types
Of the 100000, 900 English subjects in
India, only one per cent in all thest
centuries have ever prOfessed the Chris
tian religion, and to that one per CEN
the Anglo-Saxon creed is a heterogene
GUS graft that would wither in nigh
if left to itself. England knows it is
impracticable and makes no pretense o1
controlling her Indian subjects by the
same statutes that govern her citizen;
at home. Our government is in the
Philippines but no such farce is being
enacted as an attempt to govern the
Filipinos through the same judicia
processes that are adapted to and sufi
cient for the preservation Of law and
order among the white people of the
States. Why? Simply because it is
impossible to adjust the straight and ii
flexible lines of law to the Irregular
ties always presented when the absurd
attempt is made to amalgamate sepa-
rate and distinct types into one homo
geneous citizenship. The Hindoo and
the Filipino are both higher types thar
the negro and yet unthinking and un'
informed white people in the South
are and foolishly bemoaning oul
vainly failure to equally and
successfully adapt statutory laws
to all the inequalities presented by the
diverse and widely separated types thai
constitute our citizenship.
There is a law of mathematics that
things that are equal to the same thing
are equal to each other. The same
proposition holds good as to the radical
elements of civil and political organiza-
tion
Lynching is the physical result Of ab
normal conditions; it is the material
expression Of cause and effect, First
the blade, then the ear, then the full
corn in the ear illustrates the unfold
ing of natural law, the fruitition Of
which is lynching When Butler is
sued his famous order threatening tC
turn loose his brutal soldiers upon the
beautiful and refined women of New
Orleans with license to "treat them as
women of the town plying their voca
tion" he lynched the oldest and most
sacred moral code in the annals of man
kind, yet he claimed that the emergen-
cy justified it. If the confederate sol
diers had captured Butler and lynched
him, the Federal government would in
turn have lynched Confederate prison