The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-03-17
SPICHT ST|RS UP
 SOUTHERNERS Does Some Plain Talking on the Negro Question HE JUSTIFIES LYNCHINGS Says Booker T. Washington Should Have Had More Sense Than to
 Dine With President
 Roosevelt.

hS UiAH TTCeldCNk
 Roosevelt.
 Washington, March 16-(Special. )-Hep- resentative Spight of the second Mississ- l ippl district worked the southern mem- bers of congress up to high pitch of en- thusiasm in the house today on a speech he delivered on the negro problem He boldly advocated lynching under certain circumstances and did not mince words in his references to the negro race. 1 He declared unjust the attacks on tho people of the south who had been charged with brutality and barbarism toward the | colored race. Comparing the lynchings | and burnings at the stake which had occurred in the south, with those in the north, he said that the people of the south is meeting out punishment to negro who had committed a fiendish crime never followed it up with violence toward defenseless women and children, as had been done In the north.
 He declared that President Roosevelt, by inviting Booker Washington to dine at the White House, had done more to in- flame the passions of the negro and give him a perverted idea of his importance and his near approach to social equality, than anything that had been done for the last ten years.
 Will Protect the Women.
 "The men of the south" concluded Mir. Spight. Twill protect the honor of their women if II requires the extermination of the negro to do it. All the Roosevers that live now. ever did. or ever will live. can never induce the proud, pure blooded Anglo-Saxo of the south to accept any such damnable hear-say social equality" Subsidies to railroads for special mail fa- cities came In for a considerable discus sion by Mir. Robinson of Indiana and Mr. Gaines of Tennesse, the latter eharacteriz- Ing them as a "legalized stealn Rural mail carriers found many friends on the floor who advocated increased pay for them, and the privilege for acting as agents for newspapers and trades people.
 Will Be Memorial Day.
 When the house met 1t was agreed that on Sunday. March 27. the house should devote itself to memorials on the life and character of the late Representative For derer of Pennsylvania.
 Consideration of the postoffice appro- priation bill was resumed
 MT Spring of Mississippi discussed the negro question in the south and said he desired to yndicate the section of the charge of barbarism. Tn 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 outrages and crimes,' he said. "but never because they want to work" Speaking of lynch- ngs. he said, that sometimes they have nm II f,, tt. referred to the Wilmington, Del. lynch Ing last year and to the subsequent at taeks on the negro settlements. This never occurred in the south. he said.
 Mob Is Then Satisfied.
 "When the guilty wretch has paid the penalty of his awful crime that is an end of It." he continued. The mob is satis- fled and does not wreak indiscriminate vengeance upon the innocent because they belong to the same race as the criminal" He said that unlike the people of the north the people of the south don't go out with torch in one hand and a gun in the other, and pointing the gun at de- fenseless women and children and shoot them they flee for their lives."i 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 three at Danville. H.. and one at Springfield. O.. and said: Such race prejudice finds no place in southern hearts,"
 Mir Spight continued:
 50 far as I am concerned, I am op- posed to mob violence as a general propo- sition do not think 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 and generally with 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 spark of manhood in him can doubt that in- stant death to the perpetrator should fol- low upon the aRcertainment of the guilty facts. The poor, suffering woman who has been the victim of the devilish lust of a brute white or black, should not be compelled to appear in court and re- peat before jury the horrible details of the outrage"
 Mir Spight recited that the burning at the stack of such brutes" was not con fined to the south, but had occurred in the north as we'll
 MT. Spight spoke of the attempt of certain white persons to put the negro on a social equality with themselves. and referring to the occasion when Booker Washington dined at the White House with President Roosevelt. said that this one incident had done more to infame the passions of the negro ana give nlm perverted Idea of his importance and of his near approach to social equality than anything that had been done for ten years.
 Comments on Washington Incident.
 He said Booker Washington had sat down to diner with the President as gra- cously 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 more to his credit had he declined.
 ''The more the negroes are put on a social equality" he vigorously asserted, 'the more dangerous becomes their posi- ton and the surer death by violence will overtake them sooner or later.'
 MT Spight referred to the arrest in In dianola Miss, of white agents of Cfn- cinnatf picture company who were sell nig to the negroes indecent pictures. In his opinion the agents should have been lynched.
 The granting of subsidies to railroads for carrying the mails were vigorously opposed by MT. Robinson of Indiana, who