The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-30
A rArn rprroRIAr..

nG ENGW lOIk aAHt to - ANOEee%N~e-~~ paper and like most of its cult Is not always disposed to Iook-yith unbiased eyes on matters wsfch in any way might have a sectional bearing. In recent issue, however, 1t has an edito- rial which we copy entire. because it differs from most of those printed in Northern Republican newspapers of late. Under the heading. "Headway Against Lynching," The Mail says:
 Signs multiply that the country is Esttins snqgSh Of neeeo ses Sas asetusy been acquitted of an assault. althougn another negro swore that he saw nim commit it. The assaulted woman was not sure of her Identification of the man: he was acquitted for want of trustworthy proof. and set free. NOT was he picked up by mob ana hung as soon as he was liberated.
 justice is possible in every case of the kind. It proves that one community IS sane and calm
 not to he treated as a sectional crime. It is less common in the North than in the South, for several reasonsi ana when we have said that the crime from less common in the North than 1t Is in the South, it Is unnecessary to state any of the other reasons. But only day or two ago a man charged with the murder of white woman, near Mount Vernon, Ohio. was saved from a lynching mob only by a very enter prising Sheriff who rushed in with an automobile and carried him off.
 Ohio certainly ought to do as well as Mississippi in the matter of avoid ing lynchings They are. increasingly a. disgrace. for the public conscience has been aroused against them Ev- cry ounce of legal pressure that can be brought against them should be ap- piled. The Supreme Court or the Unlted States now has before 1t case in which
 white sartsnds man of thst Aaoamaji 1jinitsd States Circuit Court in his State. which in dicted him for connection with lyncn- ing had no Jurisdiction in such cases. Court will sustain his contention; and If it does the decision will devolve upon the State courts more rigidly than ever the duty of punish'ng the crime
 The reason given by The Mall why lynehing is less common North than South Is a true one, but 1t does not go quite far enough. It is true that the crime which usually provokes lynching in the South is less common in the North, but 1t is true only because they have not such a large colored popu- lation up there. Populate all the Northern States with as large a per centage of negroes as the South has, and of the same general class, and we think there is no risk in saying that lynching would be more common there than here.
 But 1t is not so much as a question of section or of original crime that we should consider the subject. but of the effect that lynching has on the moral sense oof the people. While for cer- tain awful crime frequently committed by negroes in the South. many good people would look with tolerance on lynching as punishment, we are all compelled to admit that this method of executing justice does not always stop at the one crime. The mob spirit grows with what 1t feeds on, and when one negro has been lynched for out raging a white woman, another will be lynched for murdering or attempt Ing to murder a white man. and an- other for robbery or house-breaking. When a stone is started rolling down hill 1t gathers momentum at every rev. olution and finally becomes irresist- able.
 It Is pretty much the same with mob law. In any case mob is blind unreasonlng aggregation of frenzied humanity. For the time being 1t Is not composed of individual, reasoning beings, but of blood-mad wolves who have but one object in view, and that is to take life. If the men who com pose such a mob were taken off and reasoned with separately, nine out of ten of them would probably favor al- lowing the law to take It's course. It is something like a pot of burning coals: while they are in contact with each other they burn fiercely, but if separated each will lose its heat and become harmless.
 The great evil of lynching Is not all together because of the fact that hu- man life is taken, but because 1t inev- itably breeds contempt for all law. A man cannot deliberately commit mur- der if he has a proper respect for the laws of the land. nor can an aggre- gation of men take the life of another without holding the law in contempt. As The Mail says in its allusion to the acquittal of a negro in Mississippi charged with an infamous crime, "where such an episode is possible, jus tice is possible in every case of the kind" That is the point. Human jus tice is not tnfallible. but prompt execu- ton of the law and general obedience to the law are the two main pillars of a peoples safety.
 A man at Fort Gipson, I. T., owns