The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1903-08-14

publication of which was authorized,
President Roosevelt commends Gov
ernor Durbin of Indiana for the atti-
tude he assumed recently respecting
lynchings. The president also en-
braces the opportunity to express his
own views in reference to lynching
and mob violence generally, saying
mob violence is one form of anarchy
and that anarchy is a forerunner of
tyranny. The president vigorously
urges that penalty for crimes that in
duce a resort to lynching shall be APP
piled swiftly and surely but by due
process of the courts, so that it may
be deemed strictly that the law is
adequate to deal with crime by freeing
it from every vistige of technically
and delay"
Part of Letter to Durbin.
President Rosevelts letter in full to
Governor Durbin follows:
Oyster Bay N. My Dear Gov
erffor Durbin: Permit me to thank
you as an American citizen for the
way in which you have indicated the
majesty of the law by your recent &C
ton in reference to lynching. I feel,
my dear sir, that you have made all
men your debtors who believe, as all
far seeing men must, that the well be-
ing, indeed, the very existence, of the
republic depends upon that orderly
liberty under the law which is as in
compatible with mob violence as with
any other form of despotism. OF
course, mob violence is simply one
form of anarchy and anarchy is now,
as it always will be, the hand-maiden
and forerunner of tyrrany.
81 feel that you have not only re-
fected honor unto the state which, for
its good fortune, has you as its chief
executive, but upon the whole nation.
1t is incumbent upon every man
throughout this country not only to
hold up your hands in the course you
have been following, but to show his
realization that the matter is one Of
vital concern to us all.
"All men must feel the gravest
alarm over the growth of lynch
, ing in this country and especially over
the peculiarly hideous forms so often
taken by mob violence when colored
men are the victims, on which occas-
) ions the mob seems to lay most weight,
not on the crime but on the color of
the criminal. In a portion of these
cases the man lynched has been guilty
of a crime terrible, horrible beyond
description, a crime so horrible that
as far as he himself is concerned he
has forfeited the right to any kind OF
> sympathy whatsoever.
"The feeling of all good citizens thai
. such a hideous crime shall not be hid
. eOusly punished by mob violence is
Z due not in the least to sympathy fol
the criminal, but to very lively sense
d of the train of dreadful consequence
Il which follow the course taken by thu
i mob in eXacting inhuman vengeance
for an inhuman wrong. In such cases
moreover, it is we'll to remember tina
the criminal not merely sins agains
s humanity in objectionable fashion, Blu
~ sins particularly against his own rae
iS and does them a wrong far create
u than any white man can possibly d.
colored people throughout the Ian
-e should in every possible way shoV
80 their belief that they, more than a.
4 others in the community, are horrife
III at the commission of such a crime an
are peculiarly concerned in takin
every possible measure to prevent it
recurrence and to bring the crimins
to immediate justice. The slightes
n lack of vigor either in denunciatioR c
d. the crime or in bringing the crimins
e. to justice is itself objectionable.
IS Moreover, every effort should b
ar made Of justice in the case of such a
H. awful crime. But it can not be niece
lg sary in order to accomplish this to d
be prive any citizen of the fundament;
d. rights to be heard in his own defens
IT. which are so dear to us and which i
in at the root of our liberty. 1t certainl
he ought to be possible, by the prOpC
is administration of the laws, to secul
ed swift vengeance upon the crimina
De- and immediate efforts of all legi
he lators, judges and citizens should
he addressed to securing such reforms
he our legal procedure as to leave I
ip- vistige of excuse for those misguid'
er. men who undertake to reap vengean'
through violent methods.
''Men who have been guilty of
hit crime like rape or murder should
ng visited with swift and certain punis
he ment"
ed