Arizona republican., 1906-12-05

I CduSt hlNn lllt LAW
 against criminals of any color"
 Moreover, where any crime commit ted by member of one race against : member of another race is avenged
 in such fashion that it seems as if not
 the individual criminal. but the whole
 race, is attacked, the result is to ex-
 asperate to the highest degree race
 feeling There is but one safe rule in
 dealing with black men as with white
 men: it Is the same rule that must be applied in dealing with rich men and
 poor men; that is, to treat each man,
 whatever his color his creed, or his
 social position, with even-handed jus
 tice on his real worth as a man. White
 people owe it quite as much to them
 selves as to the colored race to treat
 well the colored man who shows by his
 life that he deserves such treatment. for it is surely the highest wisdom to
 encourage in the colored race all those individuals who are honest industrious, law-abiding, and who therefore make good and safe neighbors and citizens. ! Every colored man should realize | that the worst enemy of his race is the
 negro criminal. and above all the negro | criminal who commits the dreadful 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 ! al ha r,rrnfGhal rt-ifh daafh in
 the case with murder: assault with intent to commit rape should be made 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 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 the loosening of the bonds of civ ilization; that the spirit of lynching in-
 evitably throws into prominence in the community all the foul and evil crea- lures that dwell therein. No man can take part in the torture of a human 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 there fore just so much additional trouble | for the next generation of Americans. 1
 "Let justice be both sure and swift; l but let it be justice under the law, and l not the wild and crooked savagery of | a 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. It 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 of their fellows will in the long run also suffer. No more 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 10 get a good education, lies at the foundation of our whole political situation. Tn every community the poorest citizens those who need the schools most. would be deprived of them if they only re- ceived school facilities propOrtioned to the taxes they paid. This is as true of one portion of the country as of an- other It Is as true fo- the negro as for the white man. The white man. f he is wise. will decline to allow the negroes in a mass to grow to manhood l and womanhoon without education. Tnquestionably education such as is obtained in our public schools does not 10 everything towards making a man , good citizen: but it does much. The owest and most brutal criminals. those
 or instance who commit the crime Of . ape. are in the great majority men ', who have either had no education o- r rery little: just as they are almost invariably men who own no property. q or the man who puts money by out of lis earnings, like the man who acquires .ducation. is usually lifted above mere | brutal criminalty. Of course the best !, vpe of education for the cOlored man . aken as a whole. is such education as I s conferred in schools like Hampton  md Tuskegee; where the boys and |. ,irls. the young men and young women, , Ire trained industrially as well as in he ordinary public school branches. The graduates of these schools turn ut well in great majority of E ases. and hardly any of them become
 while what little criminality here is never takes the form of that ,rutal violence which invites lynch law. Every graduate of these schools-and K or the matter of that every other col red man or woman-who leads a life Q useful and honorable as to win the ood will and respect of those whites whose neighbor he or she is, thereby elps the whole cOlored race as 1t can e helped in no other way; for next 0 the negro himself, the man who can To most to help the negro is his white eighbor who lives near him; and our teady effort should be to better the elations between the two. Great hough the benefit of these schools has cen to their colored pupils and to the olored people. it may well be ques- toned whether the benefit has not