Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-12-13

ln1unCuYe process tends TO threaten llS
very existence, for If the American peo-
pie ever become convinced that this
process is habitually abused, whether in
matters affecting labor or in matters af-
fecting corporations, it will be well-niSh
impossible to prevent its abolition"
The Negro Problem.
The negro problem is given considera-
Die attention, after calling attention to
the fact that no section of the country
is free from faults, and that no section
mas occasion to jeer ut the shortcomings
OF any other section, he turns to the sub
ject of lynchings. and especially as ap
plied to the negro of the south. He says
he greatest existing cause for mob law
is the preparation by the blacks of the
crime of rape, crime which he terms
even worse than murder. He quotes the
admonitions TO the white people spoken
by Gov Gambler, of Georgia, some years
ago. and by Gov. Jelks, of Alabama, re-
Gently, and then says:
Every colored man should realize
that the worst enemy of his race is the
negro criminal. and above all the ne
gro criminal who commits the dread
ful crime of rape; and it 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 all
possible earnestness and zeal every
such Infamous offender. Moreover, in
my Judgment. the crime of rape should
always be punished with death as is
tent TO commit rape should be made a
capital crime at least in the discretion
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 tes-
timony, and that the least possible
publicity 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 a loosening of the bands of civ
ilizatton; that the spirit of lynching
the community all the foul and evil
creatures who dwell therein. No man
can take part in the torture of a hu
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 it, and
therefore just so much additional
trouble for the next generation of
Americans.
LET justice be both sure and swift:
but let it be justice under the law.
and not the wild and crooked savagery
of a mob.
Need for Negro Education.
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 at other
times merely furnishes the excuse for
it's existence. 1t is out of the question
for our people a 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 an
other class. The free public school, the
good elementary education, lies at the
foundation of our whole political stu
alton. In every community the poor
est citizens. those who need the schools
most. V ould be deprived of them If
they only received school facilities
proportionately 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 de-
cline to allow the negroes in a mass to
without education. Unquestionably ed
ucation such as is obtained in our pub
lie schools does not do everything to-
wards making a man a good citizen;
but II does much. The lowest and most
brutal criminals. those for instance
who commit the crime of rape, are in
the great majority men who have had
either no education 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 lifted above mere brutal
criminality. OF course the best type
ken as a whole, is such education as
is conferred in schools like Hampton
and Tuskegee; where the boys and
girls. the young men and young wo-
men. are trained industrially as well
as in the ordinary public school
branches. The graduates of these
schools turn out well in the great ma
jority of cases, and hardly any of them
become criminals, while what little
criminality there is never takes the
form of that brutal violence which in
NiteS lVnCh In Every .
these schools-and for the matter of
that every oher colored man or wo-
iman--who leads a life so useful and
honorable. as to win the good will and
respect of those whites whose neigh-
Dor 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 relations
between the two. Great tho the bene-
fit of these schools has been to their
colored pupils and to the colored peo-
the benefit has not been at least as
great to the white people among whom
these colored pupils live after they
graduate"
Capital and Labor.
On the subject of capital and labor
the president takes the agitators of class
hatred to task and says ito preach
hatred to the rich man, as such,
to seek to mislead and nname to mad
ness honest men whose lives are hard
and who have not the kind of mental
training which will permit them to ap-
preciate the danger in the doctrines
preached is to commit crime against
the body polite and to he false to every
worthy principle and tradition of Amer
lean national life" Continuing on this
subject he says:
THE plain people who think-the
mechanics, farmers, merchants, work
ers with head or hand, the men to
whom American traditions are dear
who love their country and try to act
decently by their neighbors, owe it to
themselves to remember that the most
damaging blow that can be given pop
ular government is to elect an un-
worthy and sinister agitator on q
platform of violence and hypocrisy.
Whenever such an issue Is raised in
this country nothing can be gained by
fiinchng from it. for in such case dem
ocracy is itself on trial. popular self
government under republican forms is
itself on trial. The triumph of the
mob is just as evil thing as the tri-