The Tupelo journal. (Tupelo, Miss.) 1876-1924, 1906-09-14

| ia brings TO q FOCUS the recOg-
milton of a torrid wave Of lust
and fiendishness on the part of
the negro criminals Of the state.
1t is difficult to discuss with
any tranquility or with any reas-
on a crime like this. The mere
suggestion of the slightest famil-
iarity on the part of a black and
filthy negro with a refined gen.
tie woman Of the Caucasian race
is enough tostir the blood to fever
| heat, but the monstrous and un-
speakable horror Of the more seri-
GUS and brutal assault, simply
wakes to a frenzy and will always
stir to frenzy the Caucasian blood
In the discussion of this great
question in times past, the editor
of the Georgian has passed
through all stages of feeling from
reason to hysteria, and we have
thought enough and seen enough
and left enough Of this fearful
shadow upon our civilization
to have some ideas that are dis
tinctly definite and that ought
to be essentially practical.
The people of this great republic
who are disposed to criticise the
South scarcely realize that it's
people are living in a state
of constant siege and danger.
The women of this Southern
country to whom no age or civili-
zation has ever produced su-
perior and scarcely an equal, are
prisoners to danger and to fear.
The women in the North and in
the East may walk after night
fall from street to street and al
most from township to township
without an escort and without
alarm. But it has come to pass
in the slow process of this in
creasing terror that there is not
a woman, wife, mother or sister
who would be permitted in the
South to walk after sunset un
attended through the quiet street
of suburban towns. And even
in midday, men who leave their
homes unguarded. leave with ap-
prehension and provide every
means of protection and self
defense which care and appre-
hension can devise.
This state of affairs is fright
full and appalling and it cannot
and must not endure any longer
in these states which have won
the right to better things.
Here for instance in the very
center of the South's best civ
ilization, right in the heart of
progress and developement, in
the open suburb of Georgia's
capital city, and the metropolis
of the South, we have had five
open and monstrous attempts at
rape within the last four weeks.
No dark region, no benighted
portion of the state, no swamps
nor morasses to hide the offender
no turpentine camps or sugar
plantations to gather the lawless
and to develop the criminal in
stinct, but right here under the
shadow of Georgia's capital and
in the very heart Of the South's s
highest intelligence these mon
strous crimes have had fast and
frightful recu rrence.
Every one of the fiends who
has been apprehended has been
delt with swiftly and sternly by
an out ragged society that could
not and did not wait for the slow
processes of the law. Every
rapist that has been caught has
been shot or hanged without hes
itation and without remorse.
And yet with the open blazon
of this swift and fearful punish
ment the crime has been repeat
ed or attempted almost before
the echo of the last outrage had
died away.
Does lynching prevent rape?
1t would seem not within twenty
days after the burning of Sam
Hose at Newman Ca, there were
three attempted assaults within
a radius of hundred miles of
his monstrous crime and it's swift
and awful punishment!
1t becomes evident that we
must find another remedy than
lynching for the suppression of
these outrages upon women of
the South.
Now mark you, the crime of
rape is confined almost exclusiv-
ly, if not exclusively, to the
negro race. The lust of the
white man makes no menace of
violent expression toward the
women of the South. The negro
has monopoly in rape. If the
negro were no longer a part of
our population, the women Of
the South would be freed from
their state Of siege and would be
at liberty to go where they pleas
ed and when they pleased. But
under the black shadow Of the
fiendish passion of these ebcny
devils our women are as com.
lnlatalv slavesas if they were in