The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-16

Chautauqua, N. Y, Aug. 15.-The
closing address of the week of the as
sembly programme to discussion of the
mob spirit in America was delivered
to-day by Justice John Woodward of
Jamestown, N. Y, of the Supreme
Court of New York:
Justice woodward said in part;
Each of us, upon entering the body
polite, takes upon himself the obli-
cations to protect every man in the
right to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. We say to our neigh
Dor, and to our neighbours neighbor,
that in consideration of his aid and
assistance in protecting our rights
against aggression, we will undertake
to protect his rights under laws which
shall be equal in their scope and i'm
partial in thetf administration; and we
violate this covenant, both in letter and
in spirit, whenever we permit an in
dividual, no matter how humble or how
guilty of offenses against society, to
be deprived of his rights without that
due process of law, which is the her
itage of every man born, in this re-
public.
"The moment we admit the right
of a mob to administer punishment
or to adjust controversies under any
circumstances. we concede the failure
of government by law; we acknowl-
edge our lack of capacity for self
government, and we have started upon
the highway which has led other ma
lions down to melancholy tragedies and
to military usurpations.
when this great mutual covenant
is broken; when the parties to this
high contract stand Indifferent, or par
ticipare red-handed in the crime of
taking the life, the liberty or the prop
erty of a fellow coVenanter, without
reference to the law of the land, there
is an end of the security for which
we enter into a state of society, and
the time is not distant when the peo-
nile distressed and harrassed by the
iawlessness of the many, will welcome
a government which, while giving less
liberty, will give more of protection.
Revolving Crimes.
"There are crimes so revolving that
there can he no human sympathy with
the perpetrators, and it takes high
degree of civic virtues to resist and
condemn the assertion of the mob
spirit of savagery, which is altogether
too thinly CLOSED over by the ages
of civilized society through which the
Anglo-Saxon race has passed into it's
pilgrimage up to the present nights.
But right here must come the test of
popular government. We, must be
able to protect every man in his right
to a trial by jury We must be able
to perform the covenants which bind
society together, or our government
is a failure when we cannot insure
to the meaAest wretch who walks
the earth the protection of the law,
we cannot be secure in our own rights,
for, in the language of Lord Chatham.
in his speech on the address to the
Throne, Where law ends, tyranny be-
gins.
THAT lynching is not confined to
those crimes which shock our sensibil-
tiles to the extent, at times, OF paralyz-
ing our moral and civic consciences,
and that the tendency to lawlessness
is progressive. is strongly attested in
a recent dissenting opinion of the
chief Justice of North Carolina, who
says There is nothing that is more
subversive of good government than
lynching yet more men have been exc
cuted in this mode in North Carolina
in the last fourteen years than by
lawful process, and some, years twice
as many, as appears by the reports OF
the Attorney General The last mes
sage OF the governor of the state re-
ports eight executed by lynch law
in the last two years. OF whom three
only were lynched for rape, and in