New-York tribune., 1906-09-25

Reason and Justice are both abused by out
breaks of race persecution and mop violence
such as have just disgraced the city OF Atlanta
and the State of Georgia. 1t is easy to under
stand the fury, though impossible to approve
the action, of a body OF citizens who nave
taken redhanded a degraded brute and made
him pay without resort TO legal forms uhe
penalty Of an abhorrent crime. Allowance ror
mistaken motives may be made when mob
Iynches a bestal malefactor on capture and
identification. But no excuse can be invented
for making the crimes or alleged crimes OF a
few individuals preteXt for declaring ven
delta against an entire race. Manning and muir
dering the innocent the worst possible SuoStl-
tute for Furnishing the guilty, and race aVerslohs
have reached the point OF hysteria and oDseS-
sion when they can blind community seeking
to avenge wrong to all distinctions between
guiltlessness and culpability. To run amuck
and shoot Negroes just because they are Ne
groes is the acme Of blindness and unreason'
and no state or city subject to such attacks of
popular passion can boast a firm and enlight-
ened self-control or widespread sentiment OK
respect for justice and public order.
1t would be idle TO assert that people we
have conquered or are making any creditable
progress toward cOnquering the prejudices
which so frequently array black against white
In blind and atonal antagonism The South
cannot be censured as an especial offender IN
this respect, for the recent race riots In Spring
field, Ohio, and the race troubles we have inter-
mittently In this city prove that the same spirit
exists at the North. and, in fact still underlies
the attitude OF q large part of our white popu-
ation toward the Negro. We are not yet alto
gether disposed to treat the individual black
man according TO his own deserts and to sepa-
rate in our judgments the industrious, the de-
nd ha biphn1indpd from the GpOraVnd
the shiftless and the degenerate 1t might be
argued that the Negroes themselves do not give
US the aid they might in sitting the sheep from
the goats, that they do not themselves make
active enough war on their own vicious and
worthless fellows. In respect TO crimes COM
mitted against white women, the help of Negroes
in stamping them out and making them odiOus
would go further than any other one influence
in suppressing them. The Negro race owes 1t
to itself to remove this greatest bar to friend
her association and more even justice. Yet
when the best Negro sentiment Is already be-
ginning to work toward this end what a blow
to progress and what denial of reason is
the indscriminate vengeance enforced by the
Atlanta mob-a vengeance which made every
Negro IN sight, no matter what his character or
record. responsible for the offences committed
by three or four brutes Of his own color!
1t is q melancholy commentary on our power
of self-government that we must go on settling
our interracial troubles outside the regular and
orderly path of justice. Whiskey is responsible
for most of the serious crimes of the Negro.
Yet Atlanta and every other Southern city will
keep on toerating the sale Of poisonous intoxi-
cants in low "doggeries." State monopoly of
the liquor traffic. In South Carolina would
probably do some good in restricting the crime
which most inruriates white sentiment. The
needed change in the attitude of the races tow
ard each other may come in time but ii will
come slowly. How sadly needed it is and how
slowly it is coming may be judged from the
savage and inexcusable exhibition OF race an
tipathies which has just redeemed the streets
of Atlanta.