The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-12-05

= AANA CAAN
with black men as with white men; 1t
s the same rule that must be applied
N dealing with rich men and poor men;
hat is. to treat each man, whatever
his color his creed or his social posi-
ton, with even-handed justice on ms
real worth as a man. White teCple |
owe it quite as much to themselves as
to the colored race to treat el. theI
colored man who shows by his lie that
he deserves such Treatment; Ter II IS
surely the highest wisdom 20 e courage
in the colored race all those individuals
who are honest, industrious, laW-ahld-
ing, and who therefore make Scou ara
safe neighbors and citizens. ReW9rd
or punish the individual on his merits
as an individual. Evil will surely come
in the end to both races if we substl-
cute for this just rule the habit OF
treating all the members of the race,
good and bad, alike. There is no ques-
ton Of social equality" or negro
domination involved; only the ques-
ton of reentlessly Furnishing bad men,
and of securing to the good man the
right to his life, his liberty and the
pursuit of his happiness as his own
qualities of heart, head and hand ena-
BILE him to achieve it.
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 1T should be felt as
in the highest degree an offense against
the whole country, and against the col
ored 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 infa-
nous offender. Moreover in my judg-
ment, 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 discretion of the
court; and provision should be made by
which the punishment may follow inn
mediately upon the heels of the Of
ense; while the trial should be so con
Quoted that the victim need not be
wantonly shamed while giving testirno-
ny, and that the least possible publicity
shall be given to the details.
The members of The white race or
the other hand should understand tina
every lynching represents by just Sc
| much a loosening Of the bands Of civil
ization; that the spirit Of lynching In
evitably throws into prominence in tn
community all the foul and evil crea.
lures who dwell therein. No man car
take part in the torture of a human be
ing without having his own moral ma
ture permanently lowered. Ever!
lynehing means just SO much moral de
terioration in all the children who haV'
any knowledge Of 1t, and therefore jus
SO much additional trouble for the mex
generation of Americans.
Let justice be both sure and swift
but let it be justice under the law, AM
not the wild and crooked savagery of I
mos.
There is another matter which has {
direct bearing upon this matter o
lynching and of the brutal crime whic
sometimes calls it forth and at othe
times merely furnishes the excuse fol
its existence, 1t Is out of the question
for our people as a whole permanent
to rise by treading down any of thei
own number. Even those who them
selves for the moment profit by suel
mad treatment of their fellows will II
the long run also suffer. No NOR,
4 short-sighted policy can be imagined
than, in the fancied interest of on
class, to prevent the education of an
other class. The free public school, III
chance for each boy or girl to get
good elementary education, lies at tn
foundation of our whole political situa
ton. In every community the poores
citizens, those who need the school
most would be deprived of them
they only received school facilities pre-
portioned to the taxes they paid. TIL
is as true of one portion of our countr
as of another. 1t is as true for the ne
gro as for the white man. The whit
man. if he is wise, will decline to alloy
the negroes in a mass TO grow to man
: hood and womanhood without educa
ton. Enthusiastically education sue
as is obtained in our public school
does not do everything towards maxim
man good citizen; but it does mucl
The lowest and most brutal criminals
Ithose for instance who commit tn
crime of rape, are in the great majorit
men who have had either no educatio
or very little; just as they are almos
invariably men who own no property
for the man who puts money by out {
his earnings, like the man who &C
uuires education, is usually lifted abov
mere brutal criminality OF course tn
best type of education for the colore
, man, taken as a whole, is such educs
ton as is conferred in schools Xix
Hampton and Tuskegee; where tn
boys and girls, the young men an
young women, are trained Industrial
as well as in the ordinary public scho
= branches. The graduates of thes
/ ech1ols turn out well in the great me
jority of cases, and hardly any of thei
! become criminals, while what littl
: Criminality there is never takes til
form of that brutal violence which il
vites lynch law. Every graduate {
these schools-and for the matter {
; that every other colored man or VIC
man-who leads life SO useful an
honorable as to win the good will an
respect of those whites whose neighbo
he or she is, thereby helps the Who'll
colored race as it can be helped in n
: other way; for next to the negro him
self, the man who can do most to he'll
J the negro is his white neighbor VIII
lives near him; and our steady effor
should be to better the relations be
tween the two. Great tho the benef