The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1906-09-05
The Lexington. Dispatch.
Wednesday, September 5, 1906.
WAY 70 PROTECT
OUR WoMEN

w s. w SIaA IN I.
The following editorial from thep pen
Of John Temple Graves in the Atlanta
Georgian is one of the strongest appeals
for the protection of white women
from negro fiendish lust that has ever
been printed. The suggestions and
the theories offered for the stamping
out of these negro criminals are good
and sufficient and should receive the
serious attention of the Saxon race:
Whether Hoke Smith had lost or
won the battle of the ballots the race
question will live on, and in it's vary
ing emergencies it must be met until
it is finally answered in the only and
inevitable way.
We have learned the great truth
that lynching does not stop the crime
against our women. We have reach
ed by elimination the conclusion that
other experiments must be tried to
intimidate the criminals of the negro
race. One of the most hopeful of
these experiments seems to be stat
ute authorizing the mutilation of the
criminal and the branding him on the
forehead with the letter 'tR' signifi-
can't of his crime and making him an
object of suspicion for the rest of time.
But beyond these and above these
and more potential than all others, is
the stern and insistent demand of our
white civilization that the leaders of
the negro race shall give us from this
time forth that cooperation which
they have heretofore refused. The
South is growing Indignantly tired of
negro TRADES in central cities against
the lawlessness of lynching. We are
tired of negro platitudes and resolu-
tions against the injustice of the South
toward the negro. And we have ut
terly lost patience with those pacific
preachments which cry out for law
and order on the part OF the white
man, while they spend no time nor
breath nor effort in laundering to
their own people the earnest and pas
sionate denunciation of these crimi-
mails who make the chief tension and
deadly friction between the races.
Now see here: The South has for
% years befriended the negroes in
every practical way. We have helped
to build their churches, we have help
ed to sustain their schools, we have
buried their dead and helped to main
tain their living some times in idle
ness and some times in want. But
now as one unit in the mass of South
ern sentiment, The Georgian lifts its
voice and protests that henceforth it
will give no dollar and lend no aid and
no cooperation to no negro institution
until its officers, its preachers, its
teachers and its editors shall join with
us in laundering into the ears of the
negro race the warning and denuncia-
ton of this horrible crime.
Without passion, or at least without
passion which is not richly due and
justified, we ask our brethren of the
Southern press and our Caucasian
friends and brethren everywhere to
take this firm and unalterable stand
that they will help no negro church,
newspaper or school until they know
that its preachers, it's teachers and its
editors in those institutions are thun-
dering the doctrine of hell and damna-
ton to the assailants of white women.
Now this is fair. 1t is just and it is
right.
The South is living under shadow
which no man can estimate. Men
whose public duties call them to pub
lie meetings are held at home because
they are actually afraid to leave their
families alone even in the shelter and
sanctity of their own homes after
nightfal. Men cannot go to church
for the same reason. And this, please
God, is the South. We are free
people and great country. Are we
to live forever under this shadow and
under this terror? Are we to sit still
and help to build up these negro in
stitutions when they are silent and
apathetic toward the peril in which
their criminals put the best element
of our race? Are we to cooperate
with these people to build up institu-
tions in which they do not preach the
enermity of these of6enses? Are we
to be forever held in a state of seige
with our women trembling in fear and
terror when they are alone? Is the
liberty which our fathers bought with
their blood to be surrendered to the