The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1920-07-31
"WHATTHEHELL'S THE DIFFER
ENCE?"

(By Associated Negro Press)
ION WITH THE LYNCHING, LET
JOY BE UNCONFINED." If he has a
darkened skin, hang him up. That
seems to be the 1920 rule of Americas
great national pastime-Lynching!
You think it's a joke? Read the
newspapers, the reports of the sheriff
in Paris, Tex; of the grand jury in
Duluth Minnesota, and the employer
of Ed Roach in Persons county, North
Carolina. All three places they lynch.
ed, murdered, assassinated, coversA
the sacred dust of their proud com
monwealths with the blood of inno-
cent men.
Yep, the fellers just have to have
their little sport, you knOw-sOme-
thing with thrill" in it. So they're
yanking EN- out sight unseen" these
days, "losers weep, and finders keep"
It's great sport.
ALI you have to do is to get some
excitable woman to fly into Mysteries
and give the alarm that "a niger as
saulted me- and the fun begins. The
old school day game of BLACK Sheep"
is mere piffle beside of the great
American sport.
The gang gathers in the public
square. or the main street, and get
their heads together. In the mean.
time, the policeoften called The
Law. round up several suspicious
characters" and take them to the
local "Kal-a-boose, ,"-p h n ii C ly
speaking. The gang" now by mys-
tical transformation, is renamed "the
mob" then "gets wind" that they
got the niggers in jail" On to the
jail, "overpowering tht sheriff and his
trusted deputies" the leaders enter
the sacred portals, and out come the
victims.
Victims" indeed 1t matters not
how law-abiding the men have been;
how industrious, how peaceable. 1t
matters not whether they have wife
and children, or followed our coun-
try's flag into the jaws of death, into
the mouth of hell, their skin is dark,
and somebody's got to suffer.
On. on they go. yelping like hounds,
shrieking like hyenas, cursing, laugh
ing, singing, shooting. The tree is
reached, the rope is thrown over the
limb, the victim cries, he prays to
'the God of our fathers" the din and
jeers increase, the rope breaks, it is
tied and over the limb again it goes,
and up, up goes the totured human,
volleys of shooting, the torch, the
bonfire,-the deed is done. An inno-
cent American citizen has met his
fate.
There but remains the final act, the
gathering of the motley crowd at the
spot on the following day to secure
curios and relies, few lines in the
newspaper that quiet lynching took
place after dark last night, and no one
can be found who knows anything
about it,"
This all happens in the United
States of America? Well say it does,
constantly Where? Anywhere, but
the game was born in the South, and
the South furnishes it most profess
sional players.
In Washington, the District of Co
lumbia, great men with high brows,
bald heads and gray hair, meet in a
wonderful building which is located
on historic spot called capitol Hill"
They are sworn to uphold the Consti-
tuition of the United States, and to
give protection to the humblest citi-
zens within its mighty confines; at
the other end of the great thorough
fare lives the President of the United
States, whose oath Of office says
but, WHATTHEHELLS THE DIFF
FERENCE?
JEFFeS LUNcH-1s00 VINE ST.