The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-17
The NEGROES LOT
NORTH AND SOUTH.
SPIGHT IN THE HOUSE
TELLS OF THE TREATMENT THE
RACE RECEIVES.

m1ssisstDpt Member UphOIds Lynch
ing as Punishment for NameIess
Crimes-Says i'm the south Negroes
Are Sometimes Killed for Such
Crimes, but Never Because They
Want to WOrk-He Makes Conn
pnriBORB.
Washington, March 1e.--In tie HoGse
to-day during the discussion Of the
postoffice appropriation bill Mr.. Spight
of Mississippi discussed the negro
question.
He said he desired to vindicate the
South from the charge of barbarism.
In the South, he said, the negro had
been denied the right to vote and to
hold office, but not the right to work
for an honest living, as had been done
in the Northern states. I'VE some
times kill them for outrageous crimes"
he said, "but never because they want
to work"
AS for lynchings, he said that some
times they have unnecessarily occurred
in the South. He referred to the Will
mington, Del, lynching last year and
to the subsequent attacks on the ne
gro settlement. This never occurred in
the South, he said. when the guilty
wretch has paid the penalty Of his
awful crime, that is an end of it," he
continued "the mob is satisfied and
does not wreak indiscriminate VEN
geance upon the innocent because they
belong to the same race as the crimi-
nal"
He said that unlike the people Of the
North the people of the South don't
go out with a torch in one hand and
gun in the other hand, pointing the
gun at defenselesS women and children
and shoot them as they flee for their
lives" He said this had occurred in
New York city in 1900, and he referred
to a number of lynchings which had
occurred in the North, including those
at Danville, ILL.,, and Springfield, o.,
and said, Such race prejudice finds no
place in Southern hearts,
Lynching for One Crime.
Mr.. Spight continued: so far as l
am concerned, L am opposed to mob
violence as a general proposition. l
do not think that lynchings for any
other crime than the nameless one
against womanhood ought ever to oc-
cur. In all others the courts of the
US, swift to punish.
but in the one class of crimes so
brutal and destructive of all that is
dear to an enlightened people, no one
with a spark of manhood in him can
doubt that instant death to the per-
petrator should follow upon the ascer-
tainment of the guilty facts. The poor
suffering woman who has been the vic
tim of the develish lust of brute
xH-hif "a q o0n1nPll-
ed to appear in court, and repeat be-
fore a jury the horrible details Of thu
outrage"
Mr. Spight recited that the burning
at the stake of ''such brutes" was not
confined to the South, but had occur
red in the North as well.
As to Booker and the President.
Mr.. Spight spoke of the attempt
of certain white persons to put the
negro on a social equality with them
selves, and referring to the occasion
when Booker Washington dined at
the White House with President Roos-
eVelt, said that this one incident had
done more to inflame the passions of
the negro and give him perverted
idea of his Importance and his near
approach to social equality than any,
thing that had been done for the last
ten years."
He said Booker Washington had sat
down to dinner with the President
"as graciously as if he had been the
governor of New York" He was, he
continued sorry that Washington did
not have more sense and self respect
than to accept the invitation. It would
have been infinitely to his credit had
he declined THE more the negroes
are put on social equality" he Wig
orously asserted, 1.-THE more dangerous
becomes their position and the surer
death by violence will overtake them
sooner or later"
Mr.. Spight referred to the arrest
in Indianola, Miss, of white agents of
a Cincinnati picture company who were
selling to the negroes indecent pictures.
In his opinion the agents should have
been lynched.