Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-06-06
THE HUMILIATION OF TULSA.

Tulsa oklahoma the miracle city the marvel
of whose growth in population and wealth mas
made it world famous is today looked upon WIN
scorn The impression is that she is turbulent,
lawless and ntolerant. Race riots resulting IN the
death Of two three score of negroes and dozen
white men and in the destruction of the entire
negro section of the city by fire, is the cause oil
this new and unfayorable impression Of the won
der city.
At this distance and at early date after
the event it is not possible to fairly appraise the
immediate blame We do not attempt to place It.
However there are fully ten times as many
white people as negroes in the city The city ana
county government is in the absolute control Oh
the white man. He boasts himself the superior
race He derides the emotonalism OF the negro
Yet he out-Herods Herod in a display OF utter
abandonment to the basest emotions oil "nich
human being is capable,
How easily the veneer Of civilization falls from
us and leaves us utter sayages again!
Some five hundred white out of about
seyenty-five thousand white people, did 1t all but
the seventy-five thousand must bear the blame
They are to blame
once had but it's complacent and prosperous peo-
pie have for years, endured pest holes of lawiess-
ness and niauity which needed only the insplra-
ton of a common cause and an emotional tension
to crystalline into just such an event as TINS
atrocious thing.
with a lenient hand, encourages Just such Crisis
as tbis one Eternal vigilance and eternal war
against professional vice, is the price of law ana
order The habit of being law-abiding is the only
safety when times of stress come, The hapltualS
lawlessness in so-caled, smaller matters oil Ia"
violation become the utterly abandoned ruthless
and irresponsible criminals when the mob FEVER
begins TO burn No habtually aw-abiding man
Joined in the crime. Tulsa must cean-out this ele-
ment and do a thorough job. public sentiment
which has complacentIy endured this viruent baci-
Ii of crime, should be whipped by this affair into
a militant demand for civic decency
Tulsa was the home of the writer for eighteen
years. We know her people They are the best
people on Gods footsool Except for a vicious
element of a few hundred whose presence is toll
Grated her population ranks as high as any IN
.he United States in education culture, charity and
publlc-sprit. We love Tulsa. This act hurts as
would the act of a brother who turned into
brutal murderer.
Tulsa will make restitution far as she can
We know her men and women. The burned area
win be rebuilt. The homeless blacks VIII De
sheltered and cared for by sympathetic hands
Now that the tree Of tolerance of small CD
crime has born the fruit of riot and arson and
disgrace perhaps these good people will awake
TO a new sense of civic duty and the public will
demand the stamping out of the hell-hoes from
which we know full well, the rioters came
Magnificent Tulsa will redeem herself. In hui
initiation she will purge her municipal soul from
chronic vice. A new Of civic decency win
result.
For years the writer preached there the doc
trne that the wages of civic sin is death. No
thoughtful man can countenance law violations.
If law is bad, repeal it. While it is law, enforce
it, Then men learn habits of obedience to law and
in hours Of stress habit will rule
This lesson is for all free peoples We must
learn it, Otherwise a national irritation and
national emotional tension such this local one,
win furnish us replica of the French Revolution.
Let none smile at aarmists. One week
ago Tulsa thought it's terrible tragedy to be abso-
lutey impossible Such thing can be as wide
spread as is the area of irritation and stress.
only passion for law and order and for the
orderly processes of the law which will anchor
and stabilize our people by force of habit, when
reason deserts u.s. give us assurance of a safe
future.
The avalanche comes from the slipping of the
first pound of snow on the mountain side. If riot
or revolution comes with crash it will be because
we allow law enforcement in smaller matters te
slip.