Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-02-04
CeorSia's Lynchins Recora.

Georsia's Lynchins Recora.
Georgia has as good people as
are born and reared in any state
in the union, but this better ele-
ment has allowed itself to be
''rough -shodded' aside while q
certain other element has made
the state a glaring example of law.
lessness and bloody debauchery of
justice.
Georgia led all of the union in
the number Of lynchings last year,
breaking the record with 18 Of
these illegal executions, doubling
the records of the two states. next
after her-Alabama and Mississip-.
W-each of which had nine.
EWould it not seem that the state
that has produced some of the
greatest men of the South would
be so ashamed of this stain upon
her legal escutcheon that she would
set up the sign of ''Never again"
over the work of masked mobi
And yet, with the new year just
three weeks old, she sees five, Of
these base hangings already set
down in her account book. And
all fire of them took place at the
same time. 1t seems that a .Geor-
gia mob cannot do its lynchings
in broken doses, but must have
an orgie of murder. madness with
victims galore. One sheriff is
slain while he is supposed to have
been performing his duties; and
Immediately five negroes are
strung up to trees and riddled
with bullets by members of an in.
furiated mob. This is the uncivi.
lized code of Mexico, not the code
of an enlightened people, and If
Georgia intends to keep up this
practice it is a pity she cannot be
moved down to the border and
annexed to the hot tamale and
hotted tempered country of the
lawless Mexicans.
If the pace of five lynchings in
three weeks is kept up, the state
will land itself outside of the pale
of civilization long before the sum.
mer sOlstice.
And the pity of it is that the
rest of the South must bear part
of the ignominy. AS the South is
"solid," so the glory of one state
sheds a luster over all, and the
shame of one darkens the fair
name of the others. So closely, is
the section bound together that,
like a family, the disgrace of one
member reflects upon all. Geor-
gia is not at liberty to keep up or
to make a new record for herself
in lines of lawlessness, because she
cannot keep the shame of it all to
herself.
The people of the state of high
ideals and love of justice-and
these people are largely in the
maiority-owe it to themselves,
to the rest of the South, to the
states of the entire union and to
the civilized world at large to rise
up and punish and put down that
smaller portion of the population
who spit upon the law and look
at life through the moose of q rope
that no court or judge has pre-,
scribed. The rest of the South
demands this.
Around those five dangling bod,
les the good people of the state
should draw "the awful circle" of
the established law, across which
no man might step and go un.
whipped with the scourge Of re-
tribution.
Those five stains are already
upon the Judgment book of pub.
lie opinion, and cannot be erased.
But If Georgia allows SO much as
ona more to be added to the list
she will draw upon herself a far
reaching opprobrium that will be
hard to bear or to live down.
Right here is the place for her to
write ssfinis'' to the story of her
lynchings. Commercial Appeal.
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