Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-12-18
OLD-TIME RELIGION
BY BISHOP w a GAMBLER
|. GAMBLER

Unfortunately such consideration Is not
generally accorded to the people of the
Pacific and southern states, especially the
latter.
For example, the savage and indefensible
crime of lynching is rapidly decreasing in
the south, for which the great majority Of
the southern people have Joy and give
thanks to God. Nevertheless, a sectional
and partisan bill is pending in the federal
congress. known as the Dyer Anti-Lynch-
ing Bill" and directly aimed at the humil-
iatng prostration of the southern states
under the unconstitutional domination of
the national government
In these Southern States there are ten
times many people as there are in the
city of Chicago, and yet during the months
Of June, July and August 1924, there were
in Chicago nearly twice many murders for
which no one was ever arrested as there
were lynchinSs in the entire South during
the whole year of 1928. But no anti-murder
bills suppress homicides in Chicago New
York and Boston are introduced in the Fed
eral Congress. Why not?
The courts of these Northern cities are
no more upright than the courts of the
south.
No such high of crime are sweep
ing over the south as those which are pre-
vailing in the great cities of the north
As great, if not greater, per cent of the
negroes living in Illinois have been unlaw-
fully killed than there have been lynched in
Texas.
The crime which provokes the ajorty of
the lynchings done in the south are pecu-
liarly exasperating. The father or husband
or brother of q white woman outraged by a
brutal negro is enraged to an almost uncon-
trollable fury. Who would not be?
But what of cold-blooded murders IN
Chica go to get money?
What of the heartless and savage kill
ngs Of a little schoolboy in Chicago who
was done to death by two university stu
dents that they might experience a new
thrill' in the experience of their cruel
crime?
And what of some preachers in Illinois
who slew their wives in order to live
with ''affinities'' for whom they had con-
ceived shameless infatuations;
Are such sordid and repulsive crimes in
Illinois to be left to State courts to try
and punish, while for fewer lynchings in
the south the powerful hand of the fed
eral government to displace the lawful
tribunals of the southern states and in
fict unjust penalties and exactions upon
thousands of innocent people who heartily
detest the lynchngs for which under the
oyer Bill" whole counties and communi-
ties would be fined?
Why this difference? Are the southern
people such sinners above all others who
dwell in the United States that they must
be stigmatiZed and their rights invaded
by such an unnecessary and unjust law?
A greater proportion of the southern
people are native-born Americans and
members of Christian churches than can
be found among the inhabitants of any
section. Religion in the south is re-
markbaly free from eccentric isms; and
the names of the people can be easily pro-
nOunced by any one who has even mod
crate knowledge of English.
What is there in their case to justify
the notion that they are uncommonly
reprobate? Is AngloSaXon blood so vile
and evangelical Christianity vicious that
in combination they have produced the
most lawless and wicked people in America
Is not the Christian Sabbath observed
more carefully in the southern than in any
other section Of the country?
Did not the south lead the nation in
outlawin9 the liquor traffic?
Are there not fewer divorces and more
Christian homes in the south, the number
of It's inhabitants being taken into the
account, than are found in any other sec
ton?
Wig, then should the south be pilloried
and punished by such unwise and unjust
measures as the Dyer bill?" Why?
Is the south to be always the victim Of
rabid partisanism and rantng sectionalism?
l How long, o Lord. how long!"