The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-08-08
THE RELIGION FOR THE NEGRO.

At the concluding days session of the Catholic
Federation, held in Atlantic City, n j.. this week,
among the resolutions passed was one condemning
mob violence and lynching. So far as it goes, this
is all right 1t is evidence of Catholic obedl-
encc to law and horror of mob barbarity. That IS
all the resolution amounts to. We unwilingly con-
TESS that all the resolutions put up and passed con-
demning mob violence have not had the slightest
effect in checking it. Two three lynchings
happened this week-one minus the siekening hor-
attached to burning at the stake Perhaps this
was because the victim was white man. Two or
three more lynchings arc likely to occur during
the next week. No dread of the horror following
capture stops the black villain from violating white
women no public sentiment, however strong, has
yet persuaded men from organizing into mobs,
breaking open jails and bringing out the despoll-
ers of virtue to suffer the most excruciating tor
ture. Something besides resolutions must be in
voked to put an end to anarchy. The law seems
impoteut to carry out its purpose and it will be
impotent so long as human nature revolts at un-
natural crime and visits vengeance greater than
the crime. The patience of submission to out
rage. yielding to the courts alone the right of trial
and the infliction of punishment, can only come
archy.
Booker Washington is doing great work for
his people, but all he can do or all any other man
of his race might do, will not expel the
bad drop of blood in the negro race. We
will not say all are afflicted thus-perhaps
only one in hundred. But one thing is
sgnifcant-the lustfu mania has developed or has
been noticeable only since the negroes emancipa-
ton from slavery. The old-tme darby is the same
innocent creature that lived on the plantation and
served his master with fidelity; the new negro is
the one who makes trouble Perhaps he is not to
be entirely blamed. A new South has taken the
place of the old. Children of white parents are
found at work in factories now, along with the
children of blacks. The contempt negro felt for
tho white who worked i'll the ante-bellum
days obtains in the present day in his associations
with white laborers. The virtue of the Georgia
"cracker" is not above reproach, and in the social
scale not much above the negro Altogether the
South is demoralizing to the black man. natur-
ally shiftess and indolent Schools have failed to
make him much better. What he needs is religion.
of the kind that is separated from boisterous ex-
hortation and calisthenic piety What he needs is
instruction in Catholic doctrine and morals
With all his faults, the negro yields respect to
the white because of his superior intelligence aud
standing in society. No sensible colored man will
intrude where his presence is Objectionable. AT
the same time he is grateful if one tells him his
soul before God is just precious as that of the
white man. 1t is the Catholic priest who can do
this better than the minister of any other faith
and it is the Catholic church of all others in
the South where the spectacle presented of both
races kneeling at the same communion railing.
What a field is thus presented for the reclama-
ton of race! What opportunity to stem the
tide of anarchy and mob violence through the teach
ings of our faith among people stepped in ignor
once and immortality!