The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1903-08-18

Chautauqua. y. Y, August IL
is the mob conference now in pro-
gress here. The increase Of mob spirit
shown by feuds, ~lynchings, riots, as
s~asssinations and other lawless hap
penings gives great importance to this
conference. Among today'S speakers
was John Temple Graves, Of Atlanta,
Georgia.
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
eliminated. The remedy for 1ynching
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.
The problem of the hour is not how
to prevent lynching in the south, but
the larger question: How shall we de-
stroy the crime which always has and
always will provoke %lynchings.
The answer which the mob returns
to this vital question is already known.
The mob answers it with the rope, the
bullet and some times, God save us,
with the torch. And the mob is prac-
teal its theory is effective to a large
degree; the mob is today 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 commended, but
he holds him nightly in check. AS a
sheer, cold, patent fact, he said, the
mob stands today as the most poten-
tial ulwark between the women of
the south, and such a carnival or
crime as would infuriate the world
and precipitate the annihilation 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 n the spectacular element of a
trial and execution appeal to their
im~aginations.
Expecting the processes of the law
would not be adequate to eliminate
~lynchings. The repeal of the amend
ments and the establishment of the
negroes inferiority in law and society,
said Mr.. Graves, though desirable, are
" " liz IlCSlo 1C doo-
ed, 'is a thing of the senses and with
this race and with all similar races the
desire of the senses must De restrained
by the terror of the senses, if possible,
under the law" No influence of sup
preston so mighty and effective could
be brought to bear as a law making
the penalty for crime of rape. But,
this, like curfew edicts, separate laws
for White and black or the treatment
Of the crime or rape as separate and
outside of all other codes are but1ex-
| pedients, he maintained; there is no
| real remedy, but one. No statute will
| permanently solves this problem. Re-
ligion does not solve it Education
| complexities it. Politics complicates it.
THE truth which lies beyond and
above all those temporizing expedi-
| ents." he concluded, lis that separation
is the logical, the inevitable, the only
solution of this great problem of h
races.
Discussing the subject of mental
and moral ~contagion," DR.. J. NJ. Buck
ley of New York, after speaking at
some length of the various transient
and permanent changes that takes
place under different physical and
mental instances in human personality,
took up the question of crime, and
argued that all crime implied the ex-
istence Of society and its Gttritions,
that sin and vice could be committed
by a person alone in the world, but
not so crime. He showed the operation
Of his and how far through their ma
tural causes epidemics might spread.
In conclusion, he declared that az
laws of association bring on such gen.
era1 and feveriSh criminal tendencies,
so the laws of association must be
employed to antagonize them.
Woman will alwas be a conundrum