The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-10
REMEDY FOR VIOLENCE

 violence. we should endeavor to under stand the fury of horror and indignation that sweeps over a community Tn the presence of the crime of such unspeak- able infamy, and one coming from the very pit. and which demands swift and relentless punishment.
 Tn the south especially it is regarded as a crime directed not so much against the innocent victim as against the white race intended to bring it into humilia- tion and one affecting its very Integrity.
 "As Colonel Roosevelt eloquently said. Dreadful though it is for the mob spirit to be aroused in a community by such crime. 1t would be even worse ca amity if the community did not feel the fury of indignation which produces the mob spirit.
 ''Vhat then is the reemdy? l believe that for rape, the most atrocious of all crimes, the death penalty should always be imposed. Where an assault IS com mitted and established. and it's consum- mutation only prevented by agencies other than the act of the assailant, the jury in it's discretion, should be allowed to inflict the death penalty.
 "The leaders of the negro race should preach crusade against the neegro brutes, that commit this terrible crime They are the most powerful agencies among their race for creating and con- trolling public sentiment among their people. and they cannot evade their re- sponsibility or afford to give any basis for the suspicion that they are luke warm in their condemnation of this atro- cious crime
 This is the language I used at Tuske- gee and in every speech I have made on the subject of lynching. I also said Tn those speeches the following, which quote from the manuscript that used in Boston, facing an audience composed of the dAscendan's of tho aNo''tlonlsts'
 ORIGIN OF LYNCH EVIL
 'The lynching evil in the south had ,ts origin in the revolutionary conditions created by reconstruction. When we re- member that at that period the negro largely outnumbered the whites, that tnis black population was sulen and ig- norant. that justice was notoriously SLOW and uncertain, and where the whites be- lieved that their safety and security alone depended on individual action. we can readily understand that assaults on teir womanhood by the baser element of the negro race aroused storm or and horror which demanded swift and terrible vengeance, The pe- culiar horror of the crime regarded Tn the popular mind as an assault upon the Integrity of the white race, the hu- initiation and shame which dhe living victim must always carry. living death, the tendency of the negroes to protect the guilty, and added to this wholly in adenuate copstabulary in the rural sections, the menace from the prepon- derapce of the negro race and firm con viction on the part of the whites that justice co,iiG not be secured in the courts were the conditions which gave rise to nch violence in the south.
 IT. the same speeches at Tuskesee and at Boston. I used tAe following lar rguauge:
 The ploblem imposed upon the south is to carry within he. Aorders in peace. in concord and equal justice two dls- tinct races. It has been truly sald she must carry them in peace. for dis tord would be disastrous to the interest of both. She must carry them separ-' ately, for assimilation would be de- basement. The integrity and purity of the blood of the white race. tha south will insist mus, at all hazards be preserved.
 Under no circumstances and condi- tions will the south ever consent to an., laws which won .d tend to create social equality between the raees.'
 Yet in the face of these spechs, witch were published all over the country. Mir Heflin has the audac'ty to charge me with 1eing disloyal to thc traditions and ideals Of the south.
 As governor of Alabama I carried nut by oath of office by protecting every man in the custody of the law against mob violence. Any intimation by Mir Heflin that am not as zeaious
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