The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1922-01-15
LYNCHING-WHAT SHALL WE DO
ABOUT TT?
BY WILLIAM GARNER BURGIN
Miss. State College For Women.)

because Of the terrible, ranking hate
engendered and the racial antagonisn
excited. Yet this is the popular com
plexion that lynching assumes In our
states, with what consequences in
disrupted friendly relations, intensi-
fed antagonism, and subsequent VOL
ence, not even the most imaginative
can picture.
But what shall we do about it /?
Lynching as long as it exists must
constitute a blot upon our civiliza-
ton. 1t cannot be apclogized for or
hoodwinked. It constitutes chal-
lenge to American justice and de-
mands correction. 1t is time for
agencies Of law and order to assert
themselves, and for all law-abiding
individuals to rise up in their might
and smite this vestige of barbarism
in our life, this hideous recurrence to
the law of tooth and nail, this law
lcssness that defes statement, this
excess of violence which, if uncheck-
ed, must destroy the very corner
stone of American justice.
There is no question but that the
educated thought of the South and of
the entire country is directed toward
the solution of this problem. One
proposed remedy is the Dyer Bill now
before Congress. This is doubtless an
honest attempt to meet an ugly situa-
ton, but it may be genuinely doubted
if such a law would be effective in
Graduating the evil. It's enemies as
sert that it would aggravate it. It's
friends claim much for the measure.
The solution seems to me not to
lie in legislation at all, but in educa-
ton. There is at present enough law
in every American state, if properly
enforced, to Danish lynching over
night. The trouble is not lack of law,
but lack of respect for law. And re-
spect for law can be impaired only
through education, and education is a
slow process. Here, then, is the real
solution.
But hand in hand with the educa-
tive process should go a movement
for a reform of the criminal law; and
this, alas if it comes at all will come
very, very slowly. This is necessary
in order that people may be reason
ably sure that a criminal will be
speedily brought to trial, and that
punishment will be meted out com
mensurate with the seriousness of the
crime committed. Much of the tend
eney of mobs to take the law into
their own hands is due to the delay of
the courts, and to the thousand and
one technicalities to which criminal
lawyers to readily resort in order to
defeat the ends of Justice.
But relentlessly and diligently must
those charged with the education of
the young teach the doctrine of the
dignity of law and of respeco for the
constituted agencies of law enforce
ment Only when these teachings
have found nurture in receptive minds
will lynching be banished, whatever
the coercive measures adopted to sup
press it. For, whatever the origin
and the authority of a law, whether
enacted by Congress orVthe State leg
islature, it ultimately fails unless it
is backed by the organized conscience
and intelligence of the community in
which it is sought to apply it. In
short, there must be revival of. old
time respect for law, both on the part
Of officers charged with its enforce
ment and of the public in whose in
.erest it is made.