CHAPTER VIII
Remedies
In the consideration of remedies for lynching it is to the type of lynch-law procedure which prevails in well settled communities that attention is to be directed. The type of lynch-law procedure which is characteristic of a frontier society naturally ceases to exist with the disappearance of that unorganized form of society. The changed social conditions incident to an increasing density of the population in a frontier region, and the establishment of a regular and adequate judiciary, remove every cause for the existence of the frontier type of lynch-law. The rapid colonization of the western section of the United States has thus made that phase of the lynching question no longer a serious matter. But how to put an end to the practice of lynching in older communities possessing well established civil regulations is a problem for which the people of the United States have not yet found a satisfactory solution.
As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, there has been a strong popular sentiment in the United States, even down to the present day, excusing and apologizing for lynch-law procedure. On the other hand, however, there has not been wanting at the same time a spirit of denunciation and disapprobation[[273]]; although it was not until the early nineties, when public attention was directed to the subject by reason of the occurrence of a number of flagrant cases of lynching, that determined efforts were put forth to check the practice. Previous to that time such discussion as there was of the subject brought no effective restraint to bear on the continuance of the practice, either because of the intensely partizan character of the discussion as between the North and the South, or because, while the practice in general was denounced, particular instances of lynching were excused.[[274]] The newspapers and magazines took comparatively little notice of lynchings until after the year 1890. The newspapers printed accounts of such occurrences, but the editorial protests were few, and the magazine literature is almost barren on the subject.
On March 14, 1891, the eleven Italians who were accused of complicity in the murder of the chief of police of New Orleans were summarily put to death by a mob. On May 30, 1891, Tump Hampton, colored, was burned at the stake in the parish of St. Tammany, Louisiana. On January 31, 1893, a negro by the name of Henry Smith was publicly burned at the stake with extreme torture at Paris, Texas.[[275]] Excursion trains were run for the occasion and there were many women and children in the throng which watched the sufferings of the victim. These and other instances of a similar character, together with the increased number of lynchings in the years 1891, 1892, 1893 (See charts I and IV), focused the attention of the world upon the American practice of lynching. Italy demanded from the United States an indemnity for the lynching of the Italians at New Orleans. Foreign newspapers and periodicals united in heaping abusive censure upon the United States. Repeated and insistent demands were made, in America as well as in Europe, that lynchers be brought to justice and be punished as other murderers are punished.
An effort was also made at this time to so organize foreign public opinion that it would be directly effective in putting an end to the practice of lynching. Miss Ida B. Wells, colored, who was editor of the Free Speech published at Memphis, Tennessee, and whose paper was suppressed because she so fiercely denounced the lynching of some colored young men and arraigned the authorities for failing to punish the lynchers,[[276]] gave a series of lectures in England in 1893–94, and started a crusade against lynching by organizing anti-lynching societies, enrolling as members several men of international prominence.[[277]] These bodies proposed to send a committee to this country “to collect statistics and quietly to investigate the subject of lynchings in the United States.” The South rose en masse against such a visit and the governors of the Southern States with one or two exceptions vehemently denounced the whole project. The statement of Governor O’Ferrall of Virginia, himself an anti-lynching man, is typical of the Southern sentiment. “Things have come to a pretty pass in this country,” he said in the New York World, “when we are to have a lot of English moralists sticking their noses into our internal affairs. It is the quintessence of brass and impudence.”[[278]] The English committee never came to this country, and Miss Wells at length recognized the futility of further work in England and returned home. She has since organized anti-lynching societies in various parts of the North,[[279]] and more recently, as chairman of the Anti-lynching Bureau of the National Afro-American Council, has to all appearance been working principally among her own people, urging them to take steps to prevent lynching.[[280]]
Out of all this discussion, agitation, and censure there came proposals for various remedies for lynching. Various reasons were assigned for the prevalence of the practice and consequently there was little agreement in the measures which were proposed for its prevention or suppression, but most of the proposed measures were of the nature of new or additional laws directed specifically against lynching or mob violence.
Early in the year 1894 a number of the citizens of Louisiana petitioned the legislature of that State to enact stringent laws against lynching, but the legislature adjourned without fulfilling the request. A number of governors at about this time, in messages to the State legislatures, called attention to the subject and recommended immediate legislation. Governor Hogg of Texas made the matter of lynching the subject of a special message, denouncing the practice and strongly urging the enactment of laws to prevent it. Governor O’Ferrall, in a message to the legislature of Virginia, recommended that the county in which a lynching occurs should be required to pay to the State treasury a sum not exceeding ten thousand dollars for the benefit of the public school fund. Recommendations of a similar character were subsequently made by the governors of Maryland and Georgia. Governor Atkinson of Georgia made the unique recommendation that if an officer in charge of a prisoner is not required to protect his charge at the hazard of his own life, he should be required to unshackle the prisoner, arm him, and give him an opportunity to defend himself. On the assumption that the law’s delay or slowness is the principal cause for lynching, the governors of a number of States offered suggestions for a more expeditious judicial procedure. Of the many measures proposed, however, and of the numerous recommendations that special legislation be enacted against lynching, comparatively few have received from the various legislatures sufficient consideration to lead to the enactment of laws on the subject.[[281]]
The legislature of Georgia, in the year 1893, passed an act which authorized “any officer, charged with the duty of preserving the peace and executing the lawful warrants” of the State, who should have “knowledge of any violence attempted to be perpetrated upon any citizen ... by mob violence and without authority of law,” to summon a posse of citizens, who must respond or be punished for a misdemeanor, whose duty it should be to use every means in their power, even to the extent of taking human life, to prevent such violence. It was made a misdemeanor for said officer to fail to call together a posse in such an emergency, and citizens who responded were authorized to carry weapons in the performance of their duties. Any person engaged in “mobbing or lynching any citizen ... without due process of law” should be arrested and punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than one nor longer than twenty years; and if death resulted from such mob violence the person causing said death should be subject to indictment and trial for the offense of murder.[[282]]
The legislature of North Carolina in the year 1893 passed an act which provided that every person who should conspire to break or enter, or who should engage in breaking or entering, any jail or place of confinement of prisoners for the purpose of killing or injuring any person confined therein would be guilty of a felony and be punishable by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars and by imprisonment for not less than two nor more than fifteen years. It was made the duty of the prosecuting officer of the judicial district in which such a crime had been committed to take immediate proceedings against the guilty parties, and jurisdiction of the offense was conferred upon the superior court of any county adjoining that in which the violence was committed. It was also made a misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment, one or both, at the discretion of the court, for a witness wilfully to fail to comply with the process served on him, or, after being sworn, to refuse to answer questions pertinent to the matter being investigated; nor was any person to be excused from testifying on the ground that his evidence might tend to criminate himself, for when he should be thus examined as a witness for the State he became altogether pardoned of any and all participation in the crime concerning which he was required to testify. The entire cost incurred in the prosecution was to be paid by the county in which the crime was committed, and in case the commissioners of the county failed to provide a sufficient guard for a jail in response to the request of the sheriff, and the jail should be entered and a prisoner killed, the county became responsible in damages to be recovered by the personal representatives of the prisoner killed.[[283]]
In the year 1895 the General Assembly of Georgia enacted additional legislation on the subject of lynching by passing an act which made penal the offense of hindering, obstructing, or interfering with sheriffs or their deputies or constables in the execution of any order or sentence of court after trial in criminal cases, and requiring sheriffs and constables to present to the grand jury any and all persons so interfering. Penalties were provided for the offense and for failure to comply with the provisions of the act, power being given the governor to suspend a derelict sheriff or constable and to declare his office vacant.[[284]]