Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1906-12-04
and hand enable him to achieve it.

gro criminal, and, above all, the negro
criminal who commits the dreadful
crime Of rape, and 1t should be felt
as in the highest degree an offense
against the whole country and against
the colored race in particular for a
colored man to fail to help the officers
Of the law in hunting down with ali
possible earnestness and zeal every
such infamous offender, Moreover, in
my judgment, the crime of rape should
always be punished with death. as is
the case with murder. Assault with
intent to commit rape should be made
a capital crime, at least in the discre-
ton Of the court, and provision should
be made by which the punishment may
follow Immediately upon the heels of
the offense. while the trial should. be
SO conducted that the victim need not
be wantonly shamed while giving testi-
mony and that the least possible pub
licfty shall be given to the details.
The members of the white race, on
the other hand. should understand that
every lynching represents by just so
much loosening Of the bands of civ
ilization; that the spirit Of lynching
inevitably throws into prominence in
the community all the foul and evil
creatu who dwell therein. No man
can take part in the torture of hui
man being without having his own
moral nature permanently lowered.
Every lynching means just so much
moral deterioration in all the children
who have any knowledge of 1t and
therefore just so much additional trou-
BILE for the next generation Of Ameri-
cans.
Let justice be both sure and swift,
but let 1t be justice under the law and
not the wild and crooked savagery Of
mob.
Negro Should Be Educated.
! There is another matter which has a
direct bearing upon this matter Of
lynching and of the brutal crime which
sometimes calls it forth and ut other
times merely furnishes the excuse for
its existence. It is out of the question
for our people as whole permanently
to rise by treading down any of their
own number. Even those who them
selves for the moment profit by such
maltreatment Of their fellows will in
the long run also suffer. No more
| shortsighted policy can be imagined
. than in the fancied interest Of one class
] to prevent the education of another
class. The free public school. the chance
for each boy or girl to get good ele:
mentary education, lies at the founda-
ton of our whole political situation:
In every community the poorest citi.
zens, those who need the schools most,
would be deprived Of them If they only
received school facilities proportion
ed to the taxes they paid. This is as
true of one portion of our country as
Of another. 1t is as true for the negro
as for the white man. The white man,
If he is wise, will decline to allow the
negroes in mass to grow to manhood
and womanhood without education.
Unquestionably education such as is
obtained in our public schools does not
do everything toward making man a
good citizen, buf it does much The
lowest and most brutal criminals
those, for instance, who commit the
crime of rape-are in the great major
ity men who have had either no edu-
cation or very little, just as, they are
almost invariably men who own no
property, for the man who puts money
by out Of his earnings, like the man
who acquires education, is usually lift
ed above mere brutal criminalty. OF
course the best type of education for
the colored man, taken as whole, is
such education as is conferred in
schools like Hampton and Tuskegee,
! where the boys and girls. the young
men and young women, are trained in
dustriaily as well as In the ordinary
public school branches. The graduates
3 of these schools turn out well in the
great majority Of cases, and hardly
any Of them become criminals, while
! what little criminality there is never
! takes the form of that brutal violence
which invites lynch law. Every grad
uate of these schools-and, for the
I matter of that, every other colored
man or wornan-who leads life so
useful and honorable as to win the
: good will and respect of those whites
! whose neighbor he or she is thereby
helps the whole colored race as it can
be helped in no other way. for next to
the negro himself the man who can do
! most to help the negro is his white
{ neighbor who lives near him, and our
/ steady effort should be to better the
1 relations between the two. Great
though the benefit OF these schools has
been to their colored pupils and to the
! colored people, 1t may well be ques-
toned whether the benefit has not
Il been at least as great to the white
people among whom these colored pu-
pills live after they graduate.
s@ Be 1t remembered, furthermore. that
i the individuals who, whether from fol
& ". from evil temper. from greed for
Office or in a spirit Of mere base dema-
gogy, indulge in the inflammatory and
4 incendiary speeches and writings which
tend to arouse mebs and to bring about
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