The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-11-12
AN EARNEST APPEAL.
Miss Lillian Clayton Jewett Asks
Influence of Vermonters to
Suppress Lynching.

Having implicit confidence in my
country as to its righteousness, its
true appreciation of moral ideals, ]
come to Vermont to ask it's citizens
for their sympathy and to create n
healthy sentiment against one of the
most dismal crimes of any age. But
for the healthy sentiment which the
late Emile lola poured into the ears
of the world, Coptain Dreyfus would
have been on Devil Island today.
believe that the national conscience
should be aroused, not only in the
State where we find ourselves, drift
ing from righteousness into peril, but
in those States where the moral ideals
of law and politics are enjoyed, and
which are used to shape the moral and
future destiny of our country.
The purest government is sure to be
destroyed if the possibilities that are
thrust upon us are now accepted. Now
what of these possibilities have we
already accepted? Here is the fifteenth
amendment of the United States Con-
stitution and second section:
Article 10, section L. The right of
citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on ac-
cont of race color or previous condi-
ton of servitude.
Sec. 2. The Congress shall have
power to enforce this article by APP
propriate legislation.
Now in spite of this most sacred
attitude, we have allowed State after
State to openly, even contemptuously,
nullify that amendment-an amend
ment which declares all men free and
fI,, ,;.1 oh Cd thn
blood of our sons like water, and
poured out our treasury without limit.
The American people today are ignor-
ing the awful results which such law
lessness always brings in its train,
destroying the safe guide of the people
in their supreme affairs. The thirst
for human blood in America and the
methods for securing it are most hor-
rible and nauseating, and the enor-
nifty of the crime is yelled only by
the word "lynehing, standing out in
open defiance against the laws of God
and man, allowing the lawless to in
crease and to invite upon us a condi-
ton sure to destroy the holier society
of m IN and to overthrow the conf
dence of nation toward great po-
litical party
Our late and well beloved President.
Mr.. Mckinley, closed his congatula-
lions in his opening address at the
Buffalo exposition with that of Peace
on earth, good will to men. " We
ought with all sincerity and earnest
ness to accept this principle and real
ize as never before the true meaning
of the common brotherhood of man on
earth and the common fatherhood of
God in heaven. The attitude toward
the negro, to pillage his citizenship,
as well as his life, is disgrace to the
United States, against which the ma
ton should protest. 1t is direct s.
sault upon the country. 1t is direct
assault upon great political party as
well as upon the churches and the
Christianity which those churche rep
resent In the course of my travels ]
am amazed at the small per cent of
the people who know how truly pitt
able are the conditions l represent and
which are traced to all parts of our
civilized country, but, of course,
more frequently in the States south of
us.
AS mass the American people are
Just, sincere and plentiful in mercy,
if once intelligently aroused AL
though | can offer no solution for the
Oub vi bllC CAlSblIS NOhhl-
tions, / do feel that enforcement of
the law is the truest. the easiest and
most essential move in getting at it.
Our United States Constitution COW
ers all laws, but from what we gather
from thesnewspapers and statistics all
laws do not cover the Constitution,
and it is to the direct attack upon
the safety of our country that | would
particularly call your attention. Hon.
Wayne MacVeagh, in his "Phi Beta
Kappa grafton before Harvard men,
at Harvard's last commencement, re-
fers to the fact most wildly. He
says: "There is a great problem
which we are refusing to consider,
and by which refusal the ethical ideal
of law is also being destroyed. 1t is
the problem presented by our negro
population, now approaching ten mil
lions of souls. We gave them the
suffrage and we have allowed some of