To the same effect is this “Scotch View of Lynch law” which was occasioned by the lynching of the Italians at New Orleans in 1891. After reviewing the facts and circumstances connected with that lynching, the following comments were made: “This is crude and it is primitive. It is to be deplored and condemned. But it is not without a foundation of reason and justice. The people have committed the administration of justice to a certain machinery; so long as that machinery works without flagrant injustice, it will be left to do the work; but when it utterly breaks down, or goes in the teeth of what is right according to the rough-and-ready ideas of the Americans, the people will resume the function of dealing out punishment direct. The ultimate sanction is brought in. That is the American method. The Briton, when he thinks the ordinary tribunals have failed, writes to the Times, or gets up a monster petition to the Home Secretary, or asks a question of the Houses of Parliament.”[[344]]
In certain sections of the United States this readiness on the part of the people to take the law into their own hands receives constant support and encouragement from the racial antipathy which exists between the whites and the negroes. It cannot be said that the lynching of negroes is due to “race prejudice” alone, but it is true that the antagonistic feeling between the two races aggravates the tendency to lynch, when offenses are committed against white persons by negroes. Other racial contrasts in the population have likewise promoted the adoption of extra-legal methods of punishment. From colonial times down to the present day the contemptuous attitude of the whites toward the Indians has undoubtedly been a potent factor in the not infrequent failure to observe due process of law in the treatment of Indians. In the summary treatment of Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, and other aliens, differences in racial characteristics have also played an important part. In very many cases of lynching a racial antipathy has acted as the most prominent contributory cause, and it is this fact that has induced many writers to find in “race prejudice” the ultimate explanation of lynching as an American institution.
The lynching of negroes is now so distinctively an American practice largely because of the racial contrast in the population which is peculiar to this country. Nowhere else in the temperate zone does a colored race of tropical origin come into contact in such numbers with a highly civilized race of European stock. The “native question” of tropical regions has here been transplanted, as it were, to the temperate zone.[[345]] Furthermore, the difficulties arising from ethnic contact within the tropics have been intensified rather than lessened by this change of environment. There are the same fundamental differences in racial characteristics and in racial heredity, but these become accentuated and seem even more adverse in a climate where the struggle for existence is of necessity much more vigorous and exacting. In addition, there has developed between the white race and the colored race in the United States an intolerant, inconsiderate spirit directly promoted by an unwise and short-sighted political policy. A great many years will doubtless be required for the effacement of the unfortunate results of past errors, involving as it does a very general understanding and recognition of the ethnic and “societal” factors which enter vitally into the “race question.” Only in so far as this comes about, however, will it be possible to establish a new order of society with an appropriate legal system in the place of that which formerly existed on the basis of the institution of slavery.
The assumption made by many writers that more negroes are lynched for the crime of rape against white women than for any other crime is without foundation in fact. Statistics show that not more than thirty-four per cent of the negroes summarily put to death during the last twenty-two years have been lynched for that crime, either alleged, attempted, or actually committed. Lynching for that crime, however, leads to lynching for other crimes and also furnishes a ground for an appeal to public sentiment to condone the practice of lynching.
Since the negroes were made free American citizens a large class of the younger generation has become utterly shiftless and worthless, many of them being vicious and dangerous individuals in a community. Professor DuBois, than whom there is probably no man better qualified to make a careful and conservative estimate, says that at least nine per cent of the county black population in the Black Belt are thoroughly lewd and vicious.[[346]] Lynching has been resorted to by the whites not merely to wreak vengeance, but to terrorize and restrain this lawless element in the negro population. Among the Southern people the conviction is general that terror is the only restraining influence that can be brought to bear upon vicious negroes. The negroes fear nothing so much as force, and should they once get the notion that there is a reasonable hope of escape from punishment, the whites in many parts of the South would be at their mercy.[[347]] There is no evidence, however, to show that the punishment of negroes by mob violence tends to decrease lawlessness among the negroes, or even tends to restrain the vicious element from committing offenses against the whites. On the contrary, lawlessness seems to beget lawlessness and the publicity given to revolting crimes by lynching the perpetrators of them seems really to incite others to commit similar crimes, or at least suggests to others like crimes when opportunity offers.
The frightful tortures and the burnings which have taken place in the last few years in connection with the lynching of negroes is partly to be accounted for by the fact that lynchings are now carried on by a lower class of whites than formerly.[[348]] The power of suggestion as an incentive to crime is also evident in this barbarous conduct of lynching mobs. The publicity given in the newspapers, particularly the sensational ones, to the details of such tragic scenes has undoubtedly been largely responsible for the frequency of their recurrence.[[349]] The relations between the younger generations of the two races are, besides, much less cordial and amicable than were those which existed between the generations immediately preceding; there is less of a mutual understanding. The relation of master and slave has been destroyed and no new relation has yet been firmly established in its place. In the process of adjustment to a new order of things there has been constant friction between the two races, and when an offense has been committed upon a white person by a negro, particularly if an assault has been made upon the person of a white woman or child, the exasperation of the whites has known scarcely any bounds.
While the decrease in the number of lynchings per year since the early nineties affords some hope for the future with reference to the suppression of lynchings, still the number of burnings and the number of cases in which the victims are subjected to extreme torture indicate that too much reliance cannot be placed upon any apparent decline in the tendency to lynch. The fact also that lynchings frequently occur in communities where such summary and illegal procedure had not previously been permitted forebodes more lynchings in the future. The seriousness of the situation with reference to the practice of lynching in the United States is not yet fully realized. There is no little ground for apprehension in the fact that it is becoming common for cries of “Lynch him,” “Hang him,” “Get a rope and string him up,” &c., to be heard, even on the streets of New York City, whenever a crowd gathers in response to a feeling of popular excitement and indignation over the perpetration of some atrocious crime.
In the course of this investigation into the history of lynching it has become evident that there is usually more or less public approval, or supposed favorable public sentiment, behind a lynching. Indeed, it is not too much to say that popular justification is the sine qua non of lynching. It is this fact that distinguishes lynching, on the one hand, from assassination and murder, and, on the other hand, from insurrection and open warfare. A lynching may be defined as an illegal and summary execution at the hands of a mob, or a number of persons, who have in some degree the public opinion of the community behind them. When the term first came into use it meant the infliction of corporal punishment, particularly whipping. The term is now used exclusively to signify the infliction of the death penalty in a summary fashion, usually by hanging. But whatever the penalty imposed or the manner of its imposition, the sentiment frequently expressed in a community where a lynching has occurred is to the effect that the victim or victims got no more than was deserved.
It further appears from this investigation that no one cause or crime can be assigned for lynching. Lynchings take place for various causes. At one time there may be a lack of ordinary tribunals of justice, at another time there may be doubt as to the efficiency of the legal machinery. Lynchings may take place because the offense is outside the law but is deemed serious enough to merit severe punishment. They may occur because of the barbarity and fiendish nature of the crime committed. They may occur for one reason or for another; the only factor that is always present is a disorganized state of society or a condition of popular excitement and resentment when reliance on ordinary legal procedure is at a minimum.
Of the legal remedies for lynching which have been proposed, few have been enacted into laws, and where such measures have been placed upon the statute-books they have not as yet been so effectively administered as to inspire confidence in them as an ultimate means of suppressing the practice. The problem of finding a remedy for lynching is really a problem of increasing and maintaining a popular reliance on the formulation and the administration of the law. Every measure which will in any way promote such a reliance, either by invalidating the excuses offered in justification of the practice or by developing a strong public sentiment against it, deserves serious consideration, and every such measure, unless likely to be productive of other evils possibly greater, should be immediately adopted and put into operation.