The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-12
.LYNCHING JUSTIFIED
is PROPER REMEDY FOR RAPE,
SAYS JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES.
SPOKE AT "MoB CONFERENCE"
QUESTION NOT TO PREVENT
LYNCHING BUT TO PREVENT RAPE.

Mob Is Practical, He Says, and An
sNTers With Rope, Bullet and,
Sometimes, Torch-EliminatiOn of
the ''Crime" Possible Only
Through Separation of Races.
Lyncher Does Not Exterminate
Rapist, Speaker Maintained, but
Holds Him Nightly in Check.
Mob "A BulwarI< Between Women
of south and Carnival of Crime.
Chautauqua. N. Y, Aug. 11.-Unique
among all summer gatherings is the
Mob Conference" now in progress
here. The increase of mob spirit shown
by feuds, lynchings, riots, assassina-
tons and other lawless happenings
gives great importance to this confer
ence. Among to-day's speakers was
John Temple Graves of Atlanta, Ga
Mr.. Graves spoke on The Mob
Spirit of The South" He defended
lynch law as a remedy for the crime
of rape, holding that though lynching
is a crime it is justified by the crime
which provokes it and will never be
discontinued until that crime is elini-
mated. The remedy for lynching must
be the elimination of the crime OF
rape and this, he maintains, could be
done only by the separation of the
two races in the United States.
Problem of the Hour.
THE problem Of the hour is not how
to prevent lynching in the South, but
the larger question: How shall we
destroy the crime which always has
and always will provoke lynching?'
The answer which the mob returns to
this vital question is already known.
The mob answers it with the rope,
the bullet and sometimes, God save
US, with the torch. And the mob is
practical; it's theory is effective to a
sternest, the strongest and the most
effective restraint that the age holds
for the control of rape"
The lyncher does not exterminate the
rapist. Mr.. Graves contended, but he
holds him nightly in check. As a
sheer, cold, patent fact he said, the
mob stands to-day the most potential
South and such carnival of
crime as would infuriate the world
and precipitate the humiliation of the
negro race The masses of the negro,
he held, are not afraid of death COM
ing in a regular way. They love dis
play and the spectacular element of
trial and execution appeal to their
imaginations.
Expediting Law Not Adequate.
Expediting the processes of the law
would not be adequate to eliminate
lynching. The repeal of the amend
ments and the establishment of the
negros inferiority in law and society,
said Mr.. Graves, though desirable, are
not sufficient, "for the negro" he add
ed ''is a thing of the senses and with
this race and with all similar races
the desire Of the senses must be re-
strained by the terror of the senses, If
possible under the law.
No influence of suppression so
mighty and effective could be brought
to bear as law making amputation
the penalty for the crime of rape. But
this like curfew edicts, separate laws
for white and black or the treatment
of the crime of rape as separate and
outside of all other codes are but ex-
pedients, he maintained: there is no
real remedy but one.
NO SIdIuL6 Will oOlNC
this problem. Religion does not solve
it. Education complexities it. Poll
tics complexities it.
THE truth which lies beyond and
above all those temporizing expedi-
ents," he concluded. "is that separa-
ton is the logical, the inevitable, the
only solution of this great problem of
the races"
DIR. Buckley's Address.
Discussing the subject of Mental
and Moral Contagion." DR.. ]. NJ Buck
ley, of New York, after speaking at
some length of the various transient
and permanent changes that take place
under different physical and mental
influences in human personality, took
up the question of crime and argued
that all crime implied the existence of
society and it's attritions, that sin and
vice could be committed by person
alone in the world, but not so crime.
He showed the operation of this and
how far through their natural causes
epidemics might spread.
In conclusion, he declared that as
laws Of association bring on such gem
eral and feverish criminal tendencies,
so the laws of association must be EN-
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