The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-12-28


 for centuries; our statute book is sim- ply the recorded will of the people. crystaIized into legal forms through long and painful years of trial and ex- perience. The rights we enjoy to-day cost our ancestors many severe strug- gles with unwilling monarchs. These rights have come down to us through a baptism of heroic blood. Hence they ought to be regarded as sacred, price- less legacy.
 Men, therefore, who corrupt the ball. lot, who prostitute our courts, or who trample our laws unded their feet, should be regarded and treated as ene- mics. of our country, as violators of hu- man rights, as murderers of laws and constitutions. Such men are essential ly alike in their lawlessness. The man who corrupts the elective franchise de- feats the end of free ballot by using a voting mob; he who defeats the ends of justice by prostituting our courts uses judicial mob Cie I may use that expressionl; and he who advocates taking the law into the peoples hands" encourages the lynching mob. These classes are largely responsible for the present reign of lawlessness in our country.
 The reports of lynching for the first few years always assigned as the cause the usual crime" But it is no longer the usual crime that calls forth the vengeance of the mob. If men may be lynched for rape, may they not also be lynched for murder? Very little req con soffafiac flaa ,,aoh s.a foof # dnae mt reason; it draws no fine distinctions. Vengeance is its motto. When the mob wanted to lynch a murderer it did SO. And then the list of lynchable crimes grow longer and longer, After awhile misdemeanors were added to the list. and negroes have been lynched for tri- I fling offenses, for which our laws do not even provide penalty.
 | Men who trample on the laws of course have no respect for courts; and So the mob enters even the temples of justice to execute it's 1awless will. It takes prisoners from officers and jails, when the hanging of such prisoners by the orderly processes of the law are as certain as anything human can be. The mob usually confines itself to kill- l HE aHu 8OCCdSlOlidlly puFIlAilS Hc6EOESt but now and then arwhite man is the victim. Tn South Carolina three white men have been lynched by white men and one by negroes, which is, so far as I know, the only case in which negroes have lynched white man. But ne- groes have lynched a number of ne- groes.
 It is high time to inquire whither are we drifting. It seems to me that we lhave now drifted so far that all thoughtful persons ought to see plainly that the only position for law-abiding and law-respecting people to take is this: That lynching for any crime whatever is itself crime against our fertilization. We cannot put down crime by committing other crimes. Lawiessness breeds lawlessness; ha- tired begets hatred; revenge incites re- venge. If we SOW the wind we may ex- lpect to reap the whirlwind. If we SOW lawlessness, hatred, revenge, cruelty and brutality we should not expect to Ienjoy the fair fruits of civilization We should rather expect to raise the hy- ldra-headed monster of anarchy and barbarism Letter of Julius D. Dreher Hate President of Roanoke College, in tha Cellr1hia lS CD State.