Norwich bulletin., 1920-08-28
LYNCHING GREATER THAN INVESTIGATING CRIME

However great may be the crime which causes 1ynehing. the crime of lynching is greater than the crime which caused it, declares the Manufacturers Record. j. The criminal, vile as he may be, com fnits a crime against an individual, and in that way against society. But socie- ty, when through the mob it lynches a man, commits a greater crime, for it lynches the law and the sovereignty of the state. The mob crime is far great er, in it's effect for evil than is the crime for which the criminal was lynched. The mob spirit feeds on the lust of blood. It creates a spirit of anarchy, and where eyer men commit the crime of lynching they are sowing the seeds of dissolu- tion of society and of rottenness at heart of the community in which they live,
 The natural impulse of every decent man is to do exactly as the mob does when it. lyflches anan but the natural impulse is wrong. Men who give way to such spirit of immediate revenge make murderers of themselves and plant in the hearts of their children and of the com munity the spirit of murder. The fear ful record of hemieides throughout the south is but the inevitable outgrowth of the unpunished mob which has lynch ed the law and lynched the sovereignty of the state
 Human life is held too cheaply in all parts of this country. The lynching spir- it is not confined to the south, but where ever it breaks forth 1t is a crime against civilization, and there can be no regen- eratiofl of society until every member of every mob which lynches a man is punished to the extreme penalty of the law If counties and states will not do this. then it will become absolutely in- I1,,r,, fadn a see than everyt\ \ere have the right of trial and of protection under the law until they are punished under the law. E It matters not how deep may be the pas sons stirred by the vileness of the 'crim- ina1 the lynehing of the law cannot be excused on any ground whatver. There are excuses which can be given without number, but the excuses are not equal to the crime. No man can possibly con- slider the criminality which produces most of the lynching but by no means all of 1t. without feeling that he would be glad to take part in the lynching, but the yielding to that spirit is. in itself crime
 The Greeneville 6. C.) News empha- sizes these facts with very great force in a recent editorial, in which it said:
 About week ago, negro was seized by 8 mob at Roxboro, N. C., and hur- riedly lynched on the charge of attempt ed assault on a white woman. No op- portunity was given him to clear him. self of the charge. Now, it appears from the testimony of white man, a con- tractor for whom the negro was working, that he was innocent of the charge At the time the crime was committed. ac- cordng to the contractors published statement. the negro was at work on his job and didn't get off to go down until three hours later. If that is true, and it seems to be, the mob not only mur- dered man but it murdered justice
 "The North Carolina press and public are seething with the story. The Char lotte Observer cries out that the honor of the state is at stake. There is more than that at stake. The honor of the state is besmirched and the ma ajesty of the law trampled upon when even guilty man is lynched. In this case jus. tice, honor and law were lynched alon1 with the man. The mob is quadruple murderer.
 After all there is no honor without justice. Honor has been defined as the finest sense of justice that the hu-