The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1921-11-19
LYNCHING BILL IS URGED BY MAORI
TY; FOUGHT BY MINORITY.
Reports Of House Committee
Divisions Shows Divergence
of Views on Dyer Bill.

Washington, D. c., Nov. 17.-Major-
lty and minority reports from the
House judiciary committee expressed
decidedly divergent views on the anti
This bin is fathered by Representative
Dyer of Missouri, republican. who will
ask special rule for it's early con-
sideration. 1t would wipe out lynch
ings with heavy penalties to be inn
posed on persons participating and Of
fieers charged with enforcing the
peace. Counties in which persons are
put to death by mObs also would be
subjected to heavy fines in the feder-
Citing the demand in the platform
adopted by the last republican nation
al convention to end lynching, the
plea of President Harding in an ad
dress to Congress to wipe out this
barbaric stain" and the appeal of
President Wilson in 1918 to citizens
to help stop mob law, the majority
report, prepared by Mr. Dyer. declared
that these and similar appeals have
gone for naught and lynchings con-
tinue'
Called "COwardIy Crime.v
Congress must provide the means
for ending this cowardly crime" the
report continued. 1T is in Furnishing
those who take part in 1t or who per-
init it.
THE prevalence in many states of
the spirit which tolerates lynching,
accompanied too often with inhuman
cruelty, and the inability or unwil-
ilngness OF the public authorities to
punish the persons guilty of this
crime, threaten very seriously the
future peace of the nation. Lynching
blots our fair name as a nation, for
we cannot claim to be civilized unless
our laws are respected and enforced
and our citizens secured against the
hideous cruelties of which we are
furnishing fresh examples"
The report added that while 1t had
been impossible to get accurate fig
ures, available records showed 1924
persons had been lynched in the last
thirty years, of which number 2,522
were Negroes.
Declaring the bill unconstitutional.
the minority report presented by Rep
resentative Summers. democrat, Texas
1t would tend to destroy the
sense Of local responsibility without
adding to protection of the people.
is without constitutional
warrant said the report. ut is de-
flnitely and directly antagonists to the
of our system of govern
ment and within the limit of its ef-
fectiveness, If it should be held con-
stituttonal. would be destructive OF
that system
IF enacted and operative it would
not add to the protection of person
or general efficiency of government,
nor strengthen the relationship be-
tween the federal government and
the states. On the contrary, this pro-
posed Intervention of the federal gov
ernment directed against local power,
and superseding the SOW
ereignty of the states, would tend to
destroy that sense of local responsible
Ity. -
Challenges State Efficiency.
This bill, challenging as it does
the relative governmental efficiency
or the states and the integrity of pur-
pose of their governmental agencies,
placing the federal government, as it
does, in the attitude of an arbitrary
dictator assuming coercive power over
the states. their Officers and their
citizens in matters of local police con-
troll would do incompatible harm to
the spirit of mutual respect and trus-
ful cooperation between the federal
government and the states essential
to the efficiency of government"