The review. [volume] (High Point, N.C.) 1908-19??, 1918-10-03
MOB LYNcHEs DEMOCRACY.

| My fellow cOuntrymen: take the
liberty of addressing you upon a sub
ject which so vitality affects the honor
} of the nation and the very character
and integrity of our institutions that
l trust you will think me justified in
| speaking very plainly about it.
/ allude to the mob spirit which has
recently here and there very frequent.
ly shown it's head amongst US, not in
any single region, but in many and
widely separated parts of the country
There have been many lynchings, and
every one of them has been a blow
at the heart of ordered law and hui
name justice.
No man who loves America, no man
who really cares for her name and her
character, or who is truly loyal to her
institutions, can justify mob action
while the courts of justice are open
and the government of the states and
nation are ready and able to do their
duty. We are at this very moment
fighting lawless passion.
Germany has outlawed herself
among the nations, because she has
disregarded the sacred obligations of
law and has made lynchers Of her
armies. Lynchers emulate her dis
anxious to see every community in
America rise above that level, with
pride and a fixed resolution which no
man or set Of men can afford to de-
spise.
We proudly claim to be the cham
pions of democracy. If we really are
in deed and in truth, let us see to it
that we do not discredit our own.
say plainly that every American who
takes part in the action of a mob or
gives it any sort of countenance is no
true son of this great democracy, but
it's betrayer, and does more to dis
credit her by that single dfsloyalty
to her standards Of law and of right
than the words of her statesmen or
the sacrifices of her heroic boys in the
trenches can do to make suffering peo-
pies believe her to be their savior.
How shall we, commend democracy
to the acceptance. of other peoples, if
we disgrace our own by proving that
it is, after all, no protection to the
weak?
= Mobs a Stain and Reproach.
Every mob contributes to German
lies about the United States what her
most gifted liars cannot improve upon
by the way of calumny. They can at
least say that such things cannot hap
pen in Germany, except in times of
revolution, when law is swept away!
l therefore very earnestly and SOL
EMMY beg that the governors of all
the States, the law officers of every
community, and, above all, the men
and women of every community in
the United States, all who revere Am
erica and wish to keep her name with
out stain and reproach, will cooperate
not passively merely, but actively
and watchfully-to make an end of
this disgraceful evil. 1t cannot live
where the community does not coun-
tenance it.
have called upon the nation to put
its great energy into this war and it
has esponded-respond with a spir-
it and a genius for action that has
thrilled the world. now call upon it,
upon its men and women everywhere,
to see to it that it's laws are kept in
violate. it's fame untarnished. Let us
show our utter contempt for the things
that have made this war hideous
among the wars of history by showing
those who love liberty and right and
justice and are willing to lay down
their lives for them upon foreign fields
stand ready also to illustrate to all
mankind their loyalty to the things
at home which they wish to see es-