The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-17
ATTACKS ARE MOST UNJUST MT. Splght of Mississippi,
 Defends South. LYgcHIlNG IS HIS THEME Northern Method Differs from
 This Sections. Says -Roosevelt's Dining Booker Washington Is the Source of
 Much Harm-Mob Rule s Y in Springfield, o.
LYEcHlNG IS HIS THEME

Washington. March l6-In the House today, during the discussion of the Post office appropriation Dill, Mir Spight of Mississippi discussed the negro question, and declared unjust attacks on the people of the South wEc had been charged with brutality and barbarian toward the col ored race
 Comparing the lynchings and hurnings at the stake which had occurred la the South with those in the North, he sad that the people of the South In meti-g out punishment to a negro who had commit ted hendish crime never followed il up with violence toward detenseless wo- mon and children as had been done .n the North t,. -@
 He declared that President Roosevelt, by inviting Booker Washington to dine at the White House, had done more 70 .n- flame the passions of the negro and to give him perverted Idea Of his import ance and his near approach to social equality than anything that had been done for the last ten years. .t
 The House convenes.
 When the House met today it was agreed that on Sunday March 27, the House should devote itself to memorials on the life and character of the late Rep resentative Foerderer of Pennsylvania. r Consideration of the Postoffice appro. priation bill was resumed. Mir. Spight of Mississippi discussed the negro question in the South and said he desired to vin- dicate the section of the charge of bar barism. 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. ..
 We sometimes Kill them for outrageous crimes. he said, but never because they want to work
 Speaking of lyneh.ngs. he said that some times they have unnecessarily occurred in the North. He retasEed to the Wil- mington, Del, lyncfffng last year and to che subsequent attacks on the negro set clement. This never occurred in, the South, he said. ss5 'iWherr the guilty wretch has paid the penalty of his awful crime, that is an end of it." he continued. The mob Is sat isfled and does not wreak indiscrlminate vengeance upon the innocent because they belong to the same race as the criminal,
 Mob Rule in Springfield.
 He said that unlike the people of the North. the people of the South don't gc out with torch in one hand and gun In the other and pointing the gun at de fenseless women and children, shoot then as they nee TOT their llVeS.
 He said this had occurred in New York city in 1900, and he referred to a number of lynchings which had occurred In tho North, including three at Danville, Ill. and one at Springfield O.. and said:
 Such race prejudice finds no place IT Southern hearts"
 Mir. Spight spoke of the attempt of cer- i tain white persons to put the negro on a social equality with themselves. and re- 1 ferring- to the occasion when Booker Washington dined at the White House with President Roosevelt said that tnls one incident had done more to inhame the passions of the negro and give him a per vcrted idea of h:s importance ara hls near approach to social equality than any thing that had been done for ten years MT. spight continued: "So far as l am concerned I am opposed to mob violence as a general proposition. l do not tnlnK that lynchings for any other crime than the nameless one against womanhood ought ever to occur. In all others the courts of the country are ample ana gen orally with us swift to punish
 l But in the one class of crimes so bru- tai 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 perpetrator should follow upon tho ascertainment of the guilty facts.
 Should Be No Testimony.
 "The poor suffering woman who has been the victim of the devilish lust of q brute, white or black, should not be com pelled to appear In court and repeat be- fore a jury the horrible details Of the outrage"
 MT. spight recited that the burning al the stake of "such brutes' was not con l httt had occurred in the North as well.
 He said Booker Washington had sat down to dinner with the President 'as graciousiy as if he had been the Gov crnor of New York" He was, he contip- ued, sorry that Washington did not have more sense and self-respect than to ac- cept the invitation. It would have been infinitely to his credit had he declined. l "The more the negroes are put on a so- cial equality" he vigorously asserted the more dangerous becomes their posi- tion and the surer death bv violence will uvertaKe them sooner or later"
 Mir. Spight referred to the arrest in In- dianola, Miss. of white agents of d Gin cinnati picture company who were selling to tse negroes indecent pictures. In his opinion. the agents should have been lIynched
 The granting os subsidies to railroads for carrying the mails was vigorously op- posed by Mir. Robinson of Indiana who characterized them as a stain and blot upon the Dill.
 Robinson Finds Scandal.
 Mir. Robinson sad the Postoffice De partment was against subsidy and con sressional influence was perpetuating 1t The trend of events. he said. was in ia vor of honesty and clean administration iu the Pcstoftice Department, but he sai, when members put themselves on recorC against the Postmaster General in thI matter how do they stand in view of hi breport against themselves?" 3 The House had been agitated. he said and the country disturbed by the reror
 sent In rejecting on members. but h 7 said. speaking with much vigor. "here |
 real scandal, scandal that you ar
 forcing on the Postmaster General am his Department" He closed amid Demo
 cratic applause by asking If the Hous |. ,vss rolng 10 stand for It."
 |. Mir. sibley Pa.l contended that to den! a tbe subsidy would be doing manifes @ s..too to Rhe inkaresta of fha GOtnfh