The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1902-06-19
PRESIDENT ANDLYNCHING
A Timely Article by the Editor Of the New
Orleans Times Democrat.

ern Criminal and the Filipino
Patriot" the New York Evening
Journal thus discusses the ill-tenl-
pered allusion to the South made by
President Roosevelt in his Decora-
ton Day address at Arlington:
We give an extract from the
speech delivered on Decoration
Day by President Roosevelt:
Is it only in the Army of the
Philippines that Americans some
times do acts that cause the rest of
American regret' (Cries of "Oh,
no, no!')
"From time to time there occur
in our country, to the deep and
lasting shame of our people, lynch
ings carried on under circumstances
of inhuman cruelty and barbity-a
cruelty infinitely worse than any
that has ever been committed by
our troops in the Philippines; worse
to the victims and far more brutaliz-
ing to those guilty of it. The men
who fail to condemn these lynchers
and yet clamor about what has been
done in the Philippines, are indeed
guilty Of neglecting the beam in
their own eye while taunting their
brother about the mote Of his
This newspaper feels bound to
confess that it sympathizes with
the men and women of the South
who resent Mr.. Roosevelt's Decora-
ton Day speech.
The substance of Mr.. RooseveIt's
utteranee as Southerners under
stand it is practically this:
You Southerners lynch men and
burn them alive. You ought there
fore, not to criticise officials in the
Philippines who administer the
water cure shoot unarmed men oc-
cassionally, but never burn them
alive, except by accident" !"
1t is true that in the South human
beings are burned alive, it is also
true that no man regrets more
earnestly than does the Southerner
these horrible demonstrations of
the savage force of human resent
Iment. 80
| Bat 1r-is rot true that the 1yncn-
| ing of the criminal in the South can
be properly classed with the whole
sale torture and execution of men
and women in the Philippines.
The Filipino who defends his
home against the armed forces of
the United States may be mis-
guided man.
| We sincerely believe that he is
opposing a force which in the end
will benefit his fellows.
But we desire to state, on behalf
of the South, that the Filipino de-
Tending his home, refusing to betray
his comrades to certain death at the
request of a foreign offlcer,i very
different person from the criminal
in the South who has outraged
and murdered helpless girl.
We believe that we do the Presi-
dent of the United States good SER
vice and we seek to impress upon
him the fact that the Southerners
who defend themselves, even vio-
Iently against horrible danger to
their women, are. not criminals.
The murderers whom they treat
occasionally with a severity regret
table, but not incomprehensible,
should not share the sympathy that
we extend to distant, peaceful island
ers, struggling in ignorance against
that they feel to be a foreign in
vansion,
The fact that the speech of the
President here referred to is indors-
ed and defended only by those
newspapers which have long made
a record as bitter haters of the
South is sufficient answer to its
virulent sectionalism. What may
or may not be the faults of the
South or of other sections of the
country, they Cannot condone Of
fenses committed by the army in
the Philippines, offenses which had
the sanction of the President in
thus attempting to muddy the
waters Of the Philippine discussion?
| If he was satisfied with the actions
attributed to the army, why not
defend them irrespective Of what
may or may not have happened
elsewhere? No sane man can be
induced to attribute the atrocities
that are reported from the Philip
pines to the lyncfings that have
occurred in this country. The two
things are not even remotely con-
nected. The Philippine atrocities
were urged, if not actually ordered,
| from Washington, instructions be-
| ing issued to the army that would
/ 4 4 u Is -.