The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1912-04-18
REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS.
Spirit Prevalent That Tends to the
Violation of All Laws.

Saturdays paper brought to the
people of South Carolina tWo-col-
umned accounts OF two separate man
ifestations of the laWless spirit which
now prevails in our State. The one
detailed the revolting incidents
which marked the lynching of two
negroes in Blacksburg. The other
is a signed description of the car
nival of vice and defiant lawlessness
which the races, aided and abetted
by a consenting government, have
inaugurated in the city of Charles
ton.
So far as concerns the localities of
these two crimes no section of our
State can point the finger of con-
demning scorn at another for it's
lawlessness. We frankly believe that
the spirit and decentralization which
make for gambling, for vice, for muir
der are pervasive, held in check only
by the lack of opportunity and oc-
casion. We doubt if there is a
single section of our State wherein
the occurrence of lynching would
come with the shock of surprise to
the rest of the State. The fact is
the lawless taking of human life,
whether by individuals or mobs, has
become so common that it now re-
quires the shooting down of a whole
court at Hillsville, Va, to stir the
country to the sensational pitch
which some years ago attended every
case of lynching.
In regard to the present carnival
of gambling and other vice in Char
lesion, we dare say from observation
and from reputable testimony that
conditions similar in kind and differ
ing only in degree exist at nearly all
cur periodic fairs and carnival occa-
sions. The result in Charleston,
moreover, abundantly confirms the
position taken by those members OF
the legislature who advocated drastic
and immediate legislation against the
race track. Their one mistake, how
ever, was in confning their attack
to the organized race course. Our
local race courses are no less de-
moralizing as schools for petty gamb-
ling.
However humiliating the conclu-
sion one must realize that there is
widely prevalent in our State a spir-
it and tendency which make for the
open and defiant violation of law,
which have served to raise our pro-
portionat'e rate of homicide to the
top of the statistical tables for civil
lied countries, which have so multi
piled lynchings among us as to rob
them of their one-time element OF
horrifying surprise.
We are, however, but reaping the
inevitable peril of our own sowing.
Neither a community nor State can
long condone the violation of our
laws-as we have done widely and
repeatedly in the case of our law
regulating the sale of Whiskey-
without encouraging in many con-
tempt and violation of any or all law.
No people can put into official oppo-
sition men who defy law or condone
it's violation without suffering lntec-
ton from the example and virus OF
lawlessness. When many OF our
people, including not few leaders,
approve and even advocate lynching
for one crime, however heinous, they
are signally blind to the contagious
nature of lawlessness and crime II
they expect lynching to stop with
this crime. In one way or another
we are constantly sowing laWless-
ness and irreverence. What other
reaping may we expect than an in
creasing measure of like lawlessness,
irreverence and crime? First the
blade, then the ear, then the full
corn in the ear. And discouraging
as it is, humiliating as it should be,
it looks very much as if the ear OF
this harvest of evil is filling, is IN
some parts full, to the grain.-Sou-
thern Christian Advocate.