The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1913-12-30

Columbia State.
The merchant who was murdered
last week in Barnwell was the vic
tim of the pistol carrying habit. Had
the gang of negroes who killed Mr..
Best not had pistols, he would not
have been slain.
Negroes are not by nature an ag-
gressive and fighting people. When
two or three of them are gathered
together and have guns in their
pockets, they are as dangerous as
wild beats The same may be said
of the irresponsible and depraved
class of any race.
Almost immediately after the white
people came again into control of the
state, in 1877, they began to enact
laws for the suppression OF pistol car
rying. The leaders OF the white peo-
pie, seeing that there was a majority
of negroes in the state, further saw
that the safety of all the people de-
manded that the bearing of firearms
be restricted, and that is why the law
against carrying concealed deadly
weapons was placed in the statute
books. They foresaw exactly such
tragedies as that last week In Barn
well-and there have been many
like 1t.
Ordinarily, the negro gives no
trouble. His disposition is tractable
and 1t does not enter INTO his mind
to attack or to resist the white man.
Give him a pistol and Immediately
he wants to use 1t. let him have a
little whiskey and two or three or a
dozen companions and he does not
think of consequences. When armed
negroes are assembled in a village
like Barnwell, after dark, no man is
safe from them. They do not think
of electrocution, or even lynching, as
a consequence of doing murder. They
have their pistols and they shoot.
wholly Indifferent and thoughtless at
the time as to what may follow.
The murderers of the Barnwell
merchant ought to be and doubtless
will be punished, but that is not go
ing to make life safe in Barnwell viii
lage so long as armed negroes may
congregate in the town.
While the pistol carrying habit pre-
walls among white men II will be COM
mon among negroes. While pistols
are freely sold to white men, they will
be sold to negroes, too.
The armed white man will always
be more than a match for the armed
negro and there is not the slightest
danger that the negro will get the up
per hand. The negro doesn't want
the upper hand. He merely shoots
when he has a pistol because he has
pistol to shoot with and subsequent
events do not interest him. 1t fol-
lows necessarily that the pistol carry
ing practice will cause every year the
sacrifice of white mems lives at the
hands of negroes, however the lives
of larger number of negroes be sac
rificed.
Were the spirit of obedience to
law general in South Carolina there
would be no pistol carrying. The eX-
ample of obedience to law will have
to be set by white men--not by ne
goes. The negroes are not going to
lead the white people in any good
movement that promotes peace and
public order, but they are going to
initiate the whites in whatever crimi-
nality the whites engage in and con-
! trive some of their own besides. Had
the pistol carrying habit been abol-
ished by the white people in South
Carolina years ago, 1t would not be a
habit of Barnwell negroes and the
Barnwell merchant would not now be
in his grave.
| We may tolerate pistol carrying,
we may wink at the commission of
crimes, we may in desperation appeal
to the lawlessness of lynching to save
us from other lawlessness which we
do not punish by law, and we may lis
ten to the please for mercy until pun
ishment of crime becomes farcical,
but we shall pay the price. That
price is five or six hundred human
/ lives every year--more than were
! lost at Kings Mountain or Cowpens.