Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-02-27
Governors Figures D5sprOve
Charges of Much Lymch5ng
AS Made Against Georgia
He Gathers Statistics From
Each COJnty-HaIf of Of
lenses Were for "URmen-
tionabIe" Crime - Number
Grossly Exaggerated

Statistics gathered from each county
i'm The state by Governor Harris emphatl-
cally refute the charge, published broad
cast throughout the United States that in
1916 an overwhelming majority of the
lynchings in the United States occurred
i'm Georgia.
Acting under the governors direction
his secretary, +. r. Jones' has obtained
statement from officials in each county
in the state showing how many, if any.
lynchings occurred there during last year
and the figures show thai there were
seven lynchings with twelve victims. 1t
is pointed out uthis connection that two
other states each had nine lynchings last
year.
AS a preface to the reports from each
county the executive offices Saturday is
sued the following statement:
NEWSPAPER REFERENCES.
During January Governor Harris read
several newspaper references to statis-
tics on lynchings in Georgia and the UNI
ted States that appeared to him to be
gross eXaggerations so far Georgias
record was concerned Some of them
charged Georgia with A 1ynchings in
1916 out of n total of Sc for the United
States.
The governor undertook to get the
facts in the case so that the truth might
be known. BY his direction letters were
written to the Tuskegee Normal and In
dustrial institute and to the Chicago Tri-
bune, both of which were known to COM
pile and publish statistics each year on
this subject, and to the ordinaries and
other officers and representative citi
zens i'm each of the 1872 counties in Geor-
gia. The Tuskegee institute and the
Chicago Tribune both very courteously
and promptly replied with lists of the
alleged lynchings for 1916 in Georgia and
the country at large. While differing
slightly as to details, both compilations
charged Georgia with Il persons lynched
last year. The Tuskegee institute nao
81 for the United States and the Chi
cago Tribune SIS.
THE appended statements from cor
respondents in all the counties show that
there were seven lynchings in Georgia
with twelve victims. The crimes sought
to be thus avenged were: Murder, three
lynchings with seven victims; criminal
assault or attempted criminal assault,
three lynchings with three victims; ZEN
tering a house for robbery or some 9TH
er purpose" one lynching with one vic
tim. 1t will be seen that the "unmen-
tionable crime" was responsible for
three. possibly four, of the seven occa-
sions of mob violence.
Three cases compiled by the statis-
ticians above referred to and not re-
ported by the governors correspondents.
turned out to be cases where parties
were killed white resisting arrest by the
duly constituted authorities, charges
against them being murder in each case.
Two other states of the union were
charged with nine lynchings each in the
statistics furnished.
This record has not been compiled for
the purpose of eXcusing mob violence in
any case, or of minimizing Georgia's
shortcomings in this particular or of ex-
aggerating the offense of any other state
or section. However, the governor does
not feel that he should allow continual
and exaggerated references to Georgia's
pre-eminence in this form of lawlessnesS
to pass unchallenged when proper CLASH
fication and careful compilation would
doubtless show other states in this and
other sections far more culpable than our
own SiXty-three homicides were re-
ported by the Chicago Tribune under the
head of strikes" and riots but the
localities were not given. And these
were only a few of those homicides that
could as readily be classed as lynchings
as the 58 so classed in the review of the
years events furnished the governor
1T is hoped that an enlightened con-
science among our people and proper
concpention of their duties on the part of
our guardians of the peace will combine
to render impossible all further lawless-
ness of this character"