The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1916-05-17
PRESS VERSUS LYNcHING.

Judge waiter II. Neoi6S VI Ilo WI
dele circuit in his charge to the Crisp
county grand jury Monday was rath-
err severe on the state press for the
agitation that has grown out of the
icreasing lynchings throughout the
state. He is right in his assumption
that such agitation does Georgia harm
abroad and especially in the sections
of the country where capital is made
of it but he forgets that the press is
the powerful agency through which
the people of the state are ultimately
to find a way for curbing this evil
If he honestly at heart is looking
for some means of diminishing this
crime against the state he ought to
thank heaven that the press is TAX
ing hold of it with considerable show
of spirit. Not one in hundred of the
papers seeing the dangers of the grow
ing lynching habit has been disposed
to ridicule or misrepresent. On the
other hand, most of the papers who
have had anything to say at ALL are
disposed to offer such suggestions as
come from an honest study of methods
of lettering conditions. Not one COM
ing under our eye is destructive or
inflamatory
The agitation of the past month is
the kind that can but elicit the hear
test commentator from even our bit
terest foes of the north for the whole
discussion has amounted approximate
ly to one great voice raised against
the lynching habit And when it be-
comes stylish for the people of such
a commonwealth as Georgia to make
a bed fellow of Lynch Law, when peo-
pie weigh so lightly human life as
do those who permit the innocent to
be done to death by a mob,-it is
time the press raise protest. The
evil has made it necessary for the
press to speak out and, yet withal,
the public protest is still in spirit
of kindly effort to accomplish good.
Judge George asserts that the lynch
ing evil is atmospheric. So it is. In
the molding of public sentiment there
must be some stroke of titan that
will eventually check and wipe out
the belief that it is right to take hui
man life without the law, else this
uncurbed danger will become a part
of the nature of a very people.
Almost at the very hour Judge
George was so expressing himself in
his own court, out in Texas a mob
raided a court room and seized ne
gro at the moment a jury pronounced
him guilty and later burned him in
the public square in the presence of
thousands of people. Within the last
two years mobs in Jones and Worth
counties, this state, went out for
blood and murdered innocent persons
without conjunction or conscience.
Is it not time the press raise pro-
test?
1t is but natural that a superior
court judge should resent unfriendly
criticism but the superior court judge
who really has it in his heart to help
save the people of his state from the
growing tendency to countenance
such lawlessness as finds roofing in
the lynching habit, will welcome such
an effort as the press of Georgia is
making.
Is it not time the judges, the press,
and the people all, were agreeing
among themselves that they will pun
ish the next mob that takes human
life without the law? If the hoodlums
and the ruffians who usually lead the
mob knew certain punishment was
ahead of them how much further
would they go? If the lyncher knew
he could not have the sympathy that
it takes to perpetuate him iQ his act,
would he dare risk his chances? "a
Let Georgia newspapers, Georgia
Judges, and the people who love to
perpetuate the dignity of the law con-
tinue their fight till mob rule is no