The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1903-08-07

A Race War Observation-Disclosures
Sentiment in the North.

Letter of Professor William James, in
The Springfield Republican.
Three years ago l said that unless
heroic measures We're adopted we
should SOC have civil wal between the
races. The Evansville riot is an exam
pie Of what we may expect tomorrow
wherever negroes are numerous. and
very little later in such cities as New
York and Boston and Philadelphia.
The north is already almost as fully
i~nOculated as the south. and the young
white American of the lower classes is
becoming educated everywhere with
appalling rapidity to understand that
any negro accused Of crime is public
spoil, to be played with as long as the
fun will last. Attempts at general
maSsacres Of negroes are certain to be
the next thing in order. and collective
reprisals by negroes are equally GER
tain.
Negro lynching is already a permit
ted exception in the midst of our civil
ization. Bloody orgy and diseased idea
emotion have struck ar unholy part
nership, impunity is agreed upon. and
an anonymous mob is the n0wer to
which the license is accorded. The
newspapers are doing all they can to
convert the custom into n Stabiish-
ed institution. I first learned Of the
recent negro burning at Wilmington
by seeing the scare hea Of a paper
which a man on a seat before me in
a car was reading. "Charred in Chains.
Lynching Well Done" was printed in
tall CAPITALS in this Boston daily. One
of our most influential New York
weeklies, formerly an independent
journal. printed an editorial on the
same atrOcity. Of which the only influ-
ence on a susceptible mind could be
to make it seem eXcusable. Every
where We find educated men and wo-
men making light of the baseness,
as being after all, only a rude sort of
Justice. just as old fashioned Chris
tians used to say that Jews must con-
tinue to be baited for the honor of our
Saviour. Negro lynching claims more
and more tn character of a public
right. 1t appeals to the punitive in
stinct. to race antipathy, and to the
white mans pride, as we'll as to the
homicidal frenzy. One shudders to
him what roots a custom may strike
when a fierce animal appetite like this
and a perverted ideal emotion com
Dir together to defend it.
One or two real fanatics there may
be in every lynching. actuated by a
maniacal sense of punitive justice.
a kin of "reversion" which
civilization particularly requires to ex-
tirpate. The other accomplices are
only average men, victims of the mo-
ment when the greatest atrocities are
committed. of nothing but irresponsi-
BILE mob cOntagiOn, but invited to be-
come part of the mob and predisposed
to the peculiar sort Of contagion. by
the diabOlical education which the in
cessant examples of the custom and of
its continued impunity are spreading
r-:AI ---c
| population. Was ever such a privil-
eye offered? Dogfights. bullfghts,
| prizeffights. what are they to a nan
hunt n a negro burning? The illit-
crate whites everywhere. always fret
ting in their monotonOus lives for
some more drastic excitement. are
feeding their i~maginations in advance
on this new possibility. The hoOdlumS
in our cities are beng turned by the
newspapers into as knowing critics of
of the lynching game as they long
have been of the prizefght and foot
ball. They long to possess .''sOuvenirs."
They agree on the belief that any ac-
cused negro is their ~perqusite and
property. n that to burn him is only
the newest form of white mans bur
den. How far this education has al
ready proceeded we are likely to learn
any day in a startling tanner. And
the ~SupineneSS our officials and the
mealy mouthed utterances Of our jour-
nelS seem to be to reveal an incredi-
bic misunderstanding of the real situa-
ton. No student Of history or mower
of human nature cOuI- fooled for
a moment.
l unhesitatingly stand by my proph-
ecy, for there is nothing nov in sight
to check the spread Of IN epidemic far
more virulent than the cholera. The
fact seems that local iuries
will not indict or condemn; so that un-
49, -.
ily enacted, and unless many leading
citizens are ~hung-nothing short of
this will check the epidemic in the
slightest degree. and de~nunciations
from the press and pulpit only make
it spread the faster-we shall have ne
gro burning in a very few years on
Cambridge Common and the Boston
| Public Garden.