Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-08-31
WALHALLA, 3. Sc!
WEDNESDAY. AUeUsTs1. 1904.
THE STATESBORO i.YNCHlNG.

marked articles on the StateSbOrO lynch
ing, with the following note attached:
Having read your editorial on the
Statesboro lynching, would like to see
these articles published in your col
umns." In compliance with this request
we publish below the editorial comment
of the Atlanta News. The other article,
an editorial from the New York Journal,
will appear next week:
There is phase of the Statesboro
mob not yet exploited, which is likely to
soften in very material way the judg-
mept of the people toward that lamenta-
ble tragedy.
The News has not hesitated to condemn
earnestly and forcibly the spirit and the
method of the lynchers. "he external
circumstances make it peculiarly lawless
and peculiarly regretabe.
But, if recent developments material
ize into facts, there is much which may
lift the Statesboro mob out of it's atti-
tude of lawless vengeance toward two
monstrous individuals into the scope and
'lignity of an organized effort to suppress
a secret revolution.
1t may be remembered that in 1850 and
1860 there were carefully organized GER
tain John Brown clubs through the
South, whose object was to retaliate by
assassination and murder for the slaugh-
ter of the Kansas fanatic who perished
at Harper's Ferry.
Evidences are not wanting that there
are such organizations existing through
out the South to-day. Four weeks ago
one of the ablest and most thoughtful of
Georgia statesmen told the editor of The
News that he had good reason to believe
that there were in existence all over mid
die Georgia chain of negroes organized,
carefully drilled and regularly inspired,
whose mission was the aggressive, and, if
necessary, violent assertion of social and
political equality.
1t is freely urged by some of the dia-
boncal negro newspapers in the North
and elsewhere that the negroes should
organize and answer in bloudshed and in
vengeance every imaginary persecution
which the Southern people impose upon
them az a race. Several of these diabOli-
cal suggestions have been put before The
News in print and we have expected the
fruitage of such fiendish counsel. Scat
tered broadcast among passionate and
almost irresponsible people, these brutal
and incendiary suggestions raise a pro-
life crop of murder and violence in the
negro race. The men who write them
are infinitely wOrthier of lynching than
the men who execute them, and the pa
pers which print appeals like these ought
20 be abolished by law or burned by an
outraged citizenship.
1t is stated now that the people of
Statesboro had good reason to believe hat
the Infamous Before Day Club" in that
locality was branch of this murderous
general organization, and that in this
conception OF their common danger they
realized that nothing short of the i'm
pressive spectacle of an aroused and i'll
dignant people would intimidate the
spirit of the lawlessness and murder that
was organized among the masses OF the
negro race.
The proof is not complete enough to
make this view conclusive and satisfac-
rory. But at this time, when all
of us are disposed 30 strongly to
condemn the people of Statesboro for
their period of anarchy, it is just AS well,
an simple honesty and common fairness,
that every reasonable incident should be
stated to the palliation of their otfense.
We are glad to give place to the above
article. 1t was sent as expressive of
views antagonistic to those expressed by
as, save in SO far az it relates to the
recent developments" which, ''it they
materialize into facts" will tend to lift
the Statesboro mob out of it's attitude of
lawless vengeance into the scope and dig.
nity OF an organized effort to suppress a
secret revolution" we have failed, after
careful reading to find wherein the views
are at variance with ours.
AS to the Before Day Clubs" we
need have no fear This instance of
horrible crime, committed supposedly
10y members of a Before Day Club"
has been promptly met and will
have two etfeCts-to impress upon
she criminal class the certainty of
punishment and to weaken the respect
Cor and confidence IN the law. Had the
crime been allowed punishment by the
proper authorities, the effect upon the
Criminally disposed would havG been even
greater and confidence in and respect for
Ehe law would have been stimulated.
We have always maintained that lynch
ing is a Southern institution only so far
AS the outragcs which call it forth are
Southern institutions. Confront the
North, East or West with the same con-
iitions that obtain in tho South, with its
large colored population and similar
crimes will be met ia the Same manner.
Imaginary dividing lines between sec
tions of this country are not the bound
aries between different types of human
mature. Recent lynchings at the North
:ane abundant evidence of this fact.
Bat such instances as that at States
1oro are out of the ordinary and deserve
the geverest condemnation at every hand
not as we said last week, because
death was unmerited by the fiends, but
because the law had imposed the death
penalty promptly, and it should have