The Washington times., 1938-01-15
A Compromise on the
Lynch Bill

and Van Nuys of Indiana.
It is aimed at lynchings everywhere in the United
States not in any particular section. 1t requires fines
and jail sentences for peace officers who surrender
prisoners to lynch mobs without enough of fight;
also payment of So 900 to $4,000 damages to lynch
victims survivors by the county where the lynchng
occurs-all these prosecutions and damage suits to
be tried in Federal courts with the prestige of the
United States Government behind them.
The lynch habit being probably the most degraded
hangover from barbarsm that afflcts this country,
this bill is high-minded and nobly ntentioned. We
have supported it up to now.
However the antilynch bill has been misinterpreted
BY most of the Southerners in Senate and House
stab at the South. It has called up in their minds
Sovthorpors Think visions of the horrors of
reconstruction of Thaddeus
It's Aimed at Them Stevens and his mania for
practically giving the entire South to the colored people
after the Civil War; of the 1862 Ku Kux Klan and
1t is not only the Southern demagogues who are hav
ing these Nightmares and swearing to fiibuster
against this bill till time shall be more. Some
pretty able and eveheaded Southern lawmakers have
come out against it, Speaker William B. Bankhead
Dem Ala.) remarked last April:
Boys, always remember my birthday. 1t falls on
the anniversary Fort Sumter And what Fort Sumter
going to start with that antilynchng bill.
Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi says
1t poisoned arrow pointed directly at the heart Of
OF there have been ynchings elsewhere
this proposal challenge to constitutional govern
South, and insult to people of that section
Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, whom we have
often thought wrong politically, but who is certainly
sincere and courageous is against this bill though he
also depores lynchng. Senator Borah of Idaho, the
Senae's expert on the Constitution feels that the bill
b1y +bo
Supreme Court
We believe that Senator Borah is right in this
estimate.
We also fear that its passage would do more harm
than good to the coored people in the South group
IU;u Th;o it is expected to help. Southern
lynching would go underground so
L0W WORK! to speak There might not be so
many public ynchings if this bill passed. though even
that is doubtful. But there would be secret killings
of coored people, just to show em; and there would
be intensified discrimination and prosecutions of the
types our Southern friends know so we'll how to
practice.
Nor do we see how convictions damage verdcts
could be obtained under the proposed law The trials
would be in Federal courts true; but the Federal ures
would be drawn from the neighborhood as would the
witnesses.
We think compromise could be worked out, and
should be-
Couldn't the Southern lawmakers be induced to
Waoes-Hours Bill agree to passage Of the wages
r. , . and-hours bill if the Northern
00e"'O '"e De''e' ers would shelve the anti-lynch
bill? 1t is Southern opposition that has blocked the
wages-hours bill up tc now
The wageshours bill, if enacted would benefit all
parts of the country, by boosting buying power.
1t should have especially healthy effects in the South
1t would mean more prosperity, for both white and
coored, IN that povertyharred part of the country
This ought to cool off some of the plain ordinary poor
white jealousy of colored people who have anything
the preservation Of white supremacy
Altogether, it now looks to us as if Southern eco
nomlc advancement via wages-hours legislation will
do more to wipe out tie lynch custom than will high
minded but probably impractical plan for calling in
Uncle Sam to try to wipe it out
From York; Daily News