The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-09-11
SOCIALISM AND LYNcHlNG
NEGROES.
BY r. A. DAGUE.

~ ~ -
At the time | write, the daily news
papers are printing accounts of how
win Stanley, a Negro, was burned at
the stake in the public square in a
Texas town. He had been suspected
OF killing a woman and three chill
dren, but no court had made any in
vestigation of the charges. For a
negro to be even suspected Of having
committed q crime often results in
his being lynched in some states. The
daily papers said of the burning of
Stanley;
IA p%erfunctory state investigation
may follow the lynching, but 1t is al
most a foregone conclusion that such
a probe will do nothing. 1t a not
without going into almost the whole
city, for fully 10000 we're in the mob
and got vengeance OIL Stanley. His
shriveled body. hanged in the public
square after the bonfire, was hacked
down today and turned over to a Ne
gro undertaken"
The claim is made that only by
such horrible punishments can Ne
groes be restrained from assaulting
white women and committing other
crimes. The Chicago Tribune is-quot-
ed by The Cleveland Gazette as say
ing that the statistics show that not
third part of the lynchings of Ne-a
groes are for assaulting women, but
the larger number are for other Of
lenses, often on bare suspicion. A
few years ago l read of the burning
to death of a Colored man who was
accused of killing a white man, but
the Negro said it was done in self
defense. The black nan vas chained
to a tree and a slow fire was started
at his feet. The victim broke his
chain and started to run. Several
men rammed pitchforks into him and
dragged him back to the tree. Other
men and boys got sticks having fire
on their ends. With these they
punched out his eyes and rammed
fire down his throat. I am not sur
prised that millions of Russians and
people living in other foreign coun-
tries honestly believe that Americans
are still largely only half civilized.
An Atroeious Barbarity.
The burning to death of a human
being is an atrocious b%arbarity. 1t
is not only revolving, but the evil eff
fects on the hundreds who witness
the fiendish act may be far greater
than the crime committed by the one
degenerate man accused. For 200 or
300 years, in America, Negroes were
bought and sold and treated like ami
mails. Their families OF all ages were
outraged by white men and the law
gave the victims no redress. No Ne
gro was permitted to testify in a court
against a white person. Many slave
owners had no more regard for the
chastity of their female slaves than
they had for that of their ows Young
or old, married or single, the female
Negro had to submit to the assaults of
white men. Millions of mulattoes
were born; they were largely the chill
dren of ~lustful, brutal men. That
many of such children are sexual de-
generates is easily accounted for by
students of the laws of heredity. They
inherited their passions from their ia
theirs. Now, when one of those de-
generate black men assaults a white
woman, or commits a lesser %offense,
or is only suspected, he is run down
by bloodhounds, beaten, lacerated and
bound to a stake and bubrned to
death, surrounded by a moi of howl
ing, frenzied, often drunken men, who
yell and dance like demons as the
fire laps itself about the body of the
victim while his creams of agony
rend the air. The lynching of human
beings, black or white, can not be
justified from any viewpoint. 1t has
been proven that in several instances
in which a white woman was assault
ed, the man who attacked her was a
white mar who had blackened his
face to avoid recognition, and an in
nocent Negro was lynched on suspic
ion.
The fiendish burning to death of
criminal does no good, but incalcula
: BILE harm. Such horrible public eX
hibitions do not deter others from
. IOOAALAAlllAAA6 NllllCor u w pant oSSds
of hate, cruelty. revenge and murder
that, later, will produce a luxurianr
crop of violence and crime. 1t is 6
law of nature that hate begets hat
red, violence leads to greater disor
ders, brutality and savagery INDUCED
in by individuals or communities, pu'
: in motion powerful, silent forces anC
influences for evil.
Going Backward.
Such crimes as the public burning
to death of a human being Toes tn,
world a thousandfold more injur.
than did the one bad act COMMITTEES
by the ignorant victim of the mob
r hate and vengeance. Especially tn
youth of both X who look upol
such horrible scenes, are incalulabl,
injured. An expectant mother shoul
never witness such atrocities if sh
would not wish to become the mater
nal parent of a brutal child with mul
derous impulses.
!. The moral pervert, whether blacl
or white, who assaults a female, ais
other dangerous criminals, should b
put in a prison, be required to wor
and should be given wholesome teach
ing and kind, patient and firm trea'
III mont Thara ara mnra1 a,A mamie