The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1915-09-21
LYNCHING Is AS CRIMINAL
WHEN THE VICTIM Is
GUILTY AS WHEN HE
Is NOT.
The Progressive Farmer.


be a journal not only OF good farm
ing but of good citizenship. We can
not refrain from saying, therefore.
that in the now famous lynching in
Georgia recently the whole South,
despite all explanations. had it's rep
utation as law-abiding section
woefully injured.
The question as to whether the
man lynched was guilty, guilty as
any fiend in history. or not guilty at
all-this doesn't affect the situation
one iota. We were, as a matter Of
fact. quite prepared to sympathize
guilty, wished to see the law inflict
on him it's direst penalty. But the
point is that il should have been the
law that punished him and not a
mob.
We need here in the South to teach
and preach with a thousandfold
greater emphasis that no matter
what the crime may be or what race,
creed or color the criminal may be,
no situation can ever justify a mob
in usurping the functions Of AL
mighty God and taking human life.
We need to teach that it wasn't an
individual. guilty or not. that alone
was lynched, wherever and whenever
in the past hate-crazed men have
taken the blood of a fellow-being on
their souls; what was lynched was
also the sovereignty of the ancient
Commonw ealth we have sworn to
support and the civilization of the
white race as represented by our
judicial system. Whenever the vilest
wretch has yielded up the life God
gave him to any but the sovereign
law
Then I, and you. and all of us fell
down
Whilst bloody treason fourish'd
over u.s."
AS the writer said in an article in
The Atlantic Monthly years ago:
1T is not the criminals right, but
the courts rights that we need to
In his heart of hearts
every man must say with the lynch
ers, that the rapist is brute who has
all human rights. But the
law that we have set up in Gods
and tho nf ol tlD
has the highest and
noblest of rights, and it is the laws
right to try the criminal, not the
right to lawful trial,
that is violated whenever and wher-
ever an irresponsible minority usurps
the powers which the whole people
have vested in our courts of justice.
We need to teach that If Satan him
self should commit a crime, we
should try him in legal form-not for
Satan's sake, but for the sake of law
and order and civilization; not that
he would have the right to a court
trial but that our courts alone
would have the right to try him; and
that trial by any other body is, and
will ever be, unsurpation and minor
ity rule,-un-American, undemocra-
tic. and unendurable."
The mob spirit in the South must
be put under foot. Though the courts
and the pardoning power (Which is
also part Of our judicial system)
may sometimes make mistakes. to
substitute the mob for them is as
foolish as to burn the house over
our heads because of leak in the
roof Our judicial system is the foun-
dation of our civilization. Every lyn
ching weakens that foundation and
brings us so much nearer the time
when no man can sleep in safety in
his bed if any mob, however de-
praved. thirsts for his property or
his life.
Lynching the largest sense
is just as wrong when the victim is
guilty as when he is not. For it is
the subversion of law, the under
mining of the foundation OF civiliza-
tion, that constitutes its deadliest
md most damnable quality. Let us
men of the South have done with the
mob spirit, now and forever, and
with all making of excess for it.