The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-12-19
LAW AND LYNCHING

Perhaps the Ocala Star would like
to bring about conditions in Florida
ike those which have prevailed at
Shreveport, La, where five negroes
have been Iynched within the past ten
days, and eight within the year, but
we think not.-Miamf Herald.
If the Herald had read the Star as
carefully as the Star generally reads
the Herald, it would not have printed
the above rather childish paragraph.
The Star is not sufficiently posted
on the local conditions of Shreveport
to make any comments. If the people
0f that vicinity are prosecuting ne
groes simply because they are ne
groes, they are committing a great
injustice, and one that the whole
power of the state should be exerted
TO stop.
There have, however, been at all
times and in all countries, nests of
bad characters, who have made them
selves the terror of their more thrifty
and law-abiding neighbors by depre-
dations on their property and even at
tacI1s on their lives. Blackmore tells
comprehensively of such nest in his
widely-read work, Lorna Doone."
There are nests of ''Doones" in all
parts of the world, and when the law
rs powerless against them, the neigh
,bors must either clean them out or
submit to their depredations. Such
people have an advantage in civiliz-
ed state that they would not have in
a barbarous country. IF one of their
number is arrested, they can, by Civ
ing false evidence, procure his inn
uunity from punishment. Such
bunch was the gang of Italians which
terrorized New Orleans for years, and
from which the citizens finally rid
themselves by an outbreak in which a
number of the bad characters were
fynched. The negroes near Shreveport
may be just such another set. The
Star thinks the people of Louisiana
and Shreveport are competent to deal
with the situation without any advice
from Florida, who has beam or two
IN der own eye.
The Star regrets to say that in
some parts of the United States there
Is a disposition to prosecute negroes
Just because they are, negroes. This
disposition, however, is more pro-
uI0unred in the north than in the
South. As is very well known, in sew
eral large northern cities, race wars
have been made on negroes and entire
communities have been compelled to
leave their homes. Atlanta is the only
southern city that has ever made a
wholesale attack on negroes, and
there is plenty of reason to believe
that the said attack mostly proceeded
from the large northern element that
Tnhabits that city. In the South,
while the people are occasionally driv-
EN- TO frenzy by some outrageous
crime, they always try to find the
guilty party or parties. They never
try TO take wholesale revenge on all
the negroes in reach.
Everybody who reads the Star
knows it has always upheld law and
order. 1t has expressed the opinion
that Iynching the perpetrators of
some great crime is not as productive
OF lawlessness as letting the perpe-
traitors go free thru technicalities and
delay and it will express the same
opinion again. 1t has plenty of good,
Iaw-abiding citizens to back it up in
the opinion.
While we are on the subject of law
Iessness, the Herald might investi-
gate and report on the gilt-edged
gambling dens said to exist along the
east coast.