The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1904-02-26
THE mURDERoUs SPIRIT.

THE MURDERoUs SPIRIT.
"In every Southern state the murder
Gus spirit needs to be checked, says thu
Nashville American Why not il every
Northern state as well. There are q
greater number of murders committed
Moth than South OF the Ohio river, and
murder is murder anywhere it is com
mitted.
"Note the class among which most
murders occur" continues The Ameri-
can. 1.-The greater per cent, population
considered, occurs among negroes.
Come next, cheap and degraded whites,
and those Of the lower strata or who live
in and breathe an atmosphere intolerabie
to gentlepen The question of courage
does not figure. The lowest negro may
display as much of brute courage in the
frenzied anger of murderous row as
the white murderer who boasts OF his
bravery. 1t is matter of immoral
living and thinking. of bestiality and
dishonesty, of brute anger and cowardly
passion unrestrained by fear of punish
ment which is too often too easily es-
capped. Let the law be enforced against
murderers; let it break their necks
promptly and murders will seldom
occur"
The above is very we'll said, and as
far as 1t goes is very true. The thought
of murder, or even of justitiable homi-
cide-the killing of another in self
defense-is intolerable to any man OF
refineme nj or culture or christian belief.
And the question Of courage does not
figure. The pistol habit is a cowardly
one; and brute courage is vice, and not
q virtue; and to 'break their necks" is
one way to restrain the brute anger and
cowardly passions of the depraved and
murderous class.
But the strongest point the American |
makes is that murder sis a matter Of
immoral living and thinking" and right
there is where the law is weak. You
cannot hang a man for Immoral living |
and thinking;" but you need not license
it. And is it entirely fair for the State
to take one of its citizens and hang him,
after raising him up to Immoral living
and thinking?"
The State licenses the Saloon. The
Saloon is an immoral place. In the
Saloon, through the Saloon, by the
Saloon, the boy is taken before the years
of discretion, and trained to simmoral
living and thinking" His parents per-
haps were trained in the same school.
Hate and passion, drunken swag-
ger and ribald oaths permeated
md polluted the atmosphere of his
oabyhood, and have been his en-
'ironments all of his life. The ''hul-
abaloo" songs Of the bar room were the
ullabies of his babyhood; the coarse
oke and vulgar gossip of the drink
ounter, the court language of his boy
lood. Deep down in dive where the
warm love OF Christianity can find no !.
hiding place; screened and shattered
off from the world of culture
nd refinement, his soul dwarfed for :.
he lack of light, his heart hardened by
be every day cruelties he sees and
Iears, his nature degraded and every
bre of his being fired to evil thinking,
10 becomes early in life revoutionist .
t heart, and looks upon Law as the .
yrant's mandate and upon law officers
y his sworn enemies. And like the tiger T
rom it's jungle he embraces the first
pportunity to satiate his hate and
And when he has
ommitted this graduating scene from
his school of vice, he is called
lurderer; and the same Law which has
censed ana protected this school all !
ne while, and contributed to his train
lg, will disown its pupil and grow
CAUTIOUSLY indignant at the natural
of its own wickedness and
lilly, and take the poor culprit by the
eek and hang him until he is dead. !,
Would it not Ia better far better, to
top these hatch holes of wickedness?
You'd it not be better, far better, to out =
w, rather than to license, these schools
crime? Would it not be better, far :
etter, for the State to take the child in :,
is infancy and train him in the way he :,
,ould go and make useful citizen Of n,
i'm, rather than to license and encour- b,
20 nefarious traffic whose ways "
. ways of discord and strife. whose "
andmaid is the harlot, and whose end
DEATH An
A large per cent--just what per cent
3 do not know-but certainly large VI
,r cent of the murders comm;ttad a, ~