Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-05


volved only the question Of relent-
lessly punlshing bad men, and of Sc
curing to the good man the right to
his life, his liberty, and the pursuit of
his own happiness as his own qualities
of heart, head and hand enable him to
achieve 1t.
Every colored man shoufA realize that
the worst enemy of his race is the ne
gro criminal and above all the negro
criminal who commits the dreadful
crime of rape and It should be felt as
I'm the highest degree an offense against
the whole country, and against the col
ored race i'm 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 In
famous offender Moreover, I'm my
judgment, the crime of rape should all
ways be punished with death, as is the
case with murder; assault with intent
to commit rape should be made cap
ital 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
Loose CIVILIZATION
the other hand, should understand that
every lynching represents by just so
much a loosening of the bands of civ
ilization; that the spirit of lynching
inevitably throws into prominence in
the community all the foul and evil
creatures who dwell therein No man
can take part in the torture of hu-
man being without having his own
moral nature permanently lowered. Ev-
cry lynching means just so much NOR
al deterioration in all the children who
have any knowledge of it, and there
fore just so much additional trouble for
the next generation of Americans.
Let justice be both sure and swift;
but let 1t be Justice under the law,
and not the wild and crooked savagery
of mob.
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
its existence. II is out of the question
for our people as 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
chance for each boy or girl to get
good elementary education, lies at the
foundation of our whole political situa-
tion. In every community the poorest
citizens, those who need the schools
most, would be deprived of them if
they only received school facilities pro-
portioned to the taxes they paid. This
Is as true of one portion of our country
as of another. 1t is as true for the ne
gro as for the white man. The white
man, if he is wise, will decline to al
low the negroes in a mass to grow to
manhood and womanhood without ed
ucation. Unquestionably education
such as is obtained in our public
schools does not do everything towards
making q man a good citizen; but 1t
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
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
of education for the colored man, TAX
en- as a whole, is such education as is
Tuskegee; where the boys and girls,
the young men and young women, are
trained industrially as we'll as in the
ordinary public school branches. The
graduates 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 takese the form of that brutal
violence which invites lynch law. Ev-
cry graduate Of these schools-and for
the matter of that every other colored
man or woman-who leads a 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
relations between the two Great
though the benefit of these schools has
been to the colored pupils and to the
colored people, it may well be ques-
toned whether the benefit has not been
at least as great to the white people
among whom these colored pupils live
after they graduate.
Plea for Orderly Punishment
Be it remembered, Furthermore, that
the individuals who, whether from fol-
ly. from evil temper, from greed for
office, or in spirit of mere base DEM
agogy, indulge in the infammatory
and incendiary speeches and writings
which tend to arouse mobs and to
bring about lynching, not only thus
excite the mob, but also tend by what
criminologists call suggestion" great
ly to increase the likelihood of repe-
tition of the very crime against which
they are inveighing. When the mob is
composed of the people of one race
and the man lynched is of another
race, the men who in their speeches
and writings either excite or justify
the action tend, OF course, to excite
bitter race feeling and to cause the
people of the opposite race to lose sight
of the abominable act of the criminal
himself; and in addition, by the prom
inence they give to the hideous deed
they undoubtedly tend to excite in
other brutal and depraved natures
thoughts of committing it, Swift, re-
lentless and orderly punishment under
the law is the only way by which
crlminality of this type can permanent
ly be suppressed.
Capital and Labor
In dealing with both labor and cap
ital, with the questions affecting both
cor