CHAPTER VI
Lynchings
In recent years, particularly since about the year 1891, much has been said and written upon the subject of lynching. Explanations and excuses have been offered for the prevalence of the practice in the South and in other parts of the country. Remedies and means for the suppression of lynchings have been freely and widely discussed. Most of the literature, however, shows a strong sectional or partisan spirit, and is, in reality, but little more than the expression of personal opinion. Scarcely any attempt has been made to present the general facts relating to the practice of lynching for any considerable length of time. The perusal of more than seventy-five magazine articles discussing recent lynchings and dealing with different phases of the subject left upon the writer’s mind no impression more distinct than this, that some facts of a statistical nature were very much needed.
The first plan that suggested itself was to make a personal investigation of the cases of lynching that have occurred in recent years, to interview personally or to correspond with individuals acquainted with the facts in such occurrences, and thus get some reliable data. Such a plan, however, has by trial been found impracticable. Mr. George C. Holt of New York had an examination made of the index and files of the New York Daily Times for the first six months of the year 1892, and a record made of all the instances of lynching reported there. His experience can best be given in his own words. He says:
“After obtaining a list of the cases reported in the Times, I drafted a circular letter of inquiry asking for information in respect to the name, age, residence, and occupation of the man lynched, the charge against him, his possible guilt, the circumstances of the lynching, and what steps, if any, were afterwards taken. In each reported case of lynching I mailed three copies of the circular letter, with a stamped envelope for reply, addressed one to the district attorney of the county, one to the postmaster, and one to any clergyman of the city or town where the lynching occurred.
“To the printed circulars sent out answers were received in relation to 16 out of the 30 cases of lynching. No answers were received in 14 of the cases, although the envelopes bore the usual direction to the postmaster to be returned if not delivered, and only one of them was returned. Of the 16 cases in respect to which answers were received, there were 3 cases in which 3 answers were returned, 5 in which 2 were returned, and 8 in which one was returned. Most of the answers were unsigned; many were very vague; a few declined to state the facts; and several requested secrecy. The general impression derived from the attempt to obtain information by the circular was that there was, in many cases, a strong disinclination, for some cause, to give any information.”[[206]]
In an attempt to verify some reports of lynchings in the years 1902 and 1903, the writer has met with a similar experience. A letter addressed to the mayor of a town in Arkansas was returned with the following penciled at the bottom of the sheet: “if you will give me some idea as to your reasons for wanting this information I might give you some information regarding same.” A letter addressed to the mayor of a town in Georgia was returned with the following written at the bottom of the sheet: “In answer to the above I will say that I don’t know anything about it.” No name was signed in either case. These two replies, together with Mr. Holt’s experience, are sufficient to indicate the difficulties attendant upon the collection, by any such method, of data in regard to lynchings covering any considerable period of time.
For more than twenty-two years the Chicago Tribune has published at the close of each year an itemized summary of the disasters and crimes in the United States for the year. An editorial in the Tribune for January 1, 1883, reads as follows: “Elsewhere in this issue will be found a series of reviews of the happenings during 1882. A necrological table is furnished, also a list of the more important crimes, casualties, suicides, lynchings, and judicial executions for the last year. The tables have been prepared with great care from the columns of The Tribune, and furnish as complete a review of the unpleasant features of the dead year as could possibly be obtained.”
This annual review published by the Tribune supplies the most available and practically the only source for statistics of lynchings. The following facts are given: the date of the lynching, the name of the victim, his color and his nationality, the alleged crime for which he was lynched, and the town and State where the lynching took place. Only the names of those who have suffered death at the hands of mobs are included. No account is taken of attempted lynchings or of persons to whom mob violence was done but who recovered from their injuries.
In using this record as the basis of this investigation such means as were available have been employed for purposes of correction and verification. In every case where an error was apparent, or there was any reason for doubt, the original report of the lynching has been examined in some newspaper of the proper date, either the Chicago Tribune, or the New York Times, or the New York Tribune. Only a very few points have been left unsettled because of insufficient information. The Cyclopedic Review of Current History gives confirmatory evidence for a period covering the last twelve years. It, however, mentions only the “notable crimes” and this evidence, therefore, applies to a comparatively small number of cases.
For the last six months of the year 1902 a subscription to a newspaper clipping agency was maintained as a further means of determining the reliability and completeness of the Tribune record. The agency selected was an old and well established one. Instructions were given the readers to send full accounts of every lynching, together with a few editorial comments from various parts of the country. Clippings on lynchings were received from newspapers in every section of the United States. Out of the fifty-three victims of lynching given in the summary published by the Chicago Tribune for the six months, July-December, 1902, forty-six were reported by the newspaper clipping agency and no errors of any importance were shown. A few additional cases were mentioned in the clippings, but they were mainly on the border line between murder and lynching and could rightly be disregarded.