The existence of the practice of lynching in the United States is a national disgrace and should be so considered by every citizen no matter in what part of the country his home may be. This, however, does not justify citizens of the Northern section in violently attacking citizens of the Southern section every time that a lynching occurs in that section, or vice versa. Each section and indeed each community must hold itself responsible for the prevention of lynchings. Neither European philanthropists nor the Northern press or pulpit can do very much toward preventing such occurrences in the South. It is a question with which the South alone can properly deal and it is a problem which the intelligent men of the South are best able to solve. The efforts of the Southern Education Board and the General Education Board to educate both the whites and the blacks and lift them to a higher plane of living will do much toward preventing lynchings. The work done by such schools as the Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and the principles advocated by such men as Booker T. Washington, also lead in the same direction.

It has been well suggested that the Northern papers and the Southern papers should exchange texts—the Northern press should preach against negro crime, the Southern press should preach against lawlessness and race prejudice. That this has been done in a few instances gives hope for the future.

To the extent that the colored race increases its industrial efficiency and becomes economically strong in the South will there be a decrease in negro lawlessness and viciousness, and likewise will it merit respect and confidence on the part of the white race. More than anything else the colored race needs wise and able leaders at the present time. The false notions and ideals of the Reconstruction Period have now been largely eradicated. The race is in a position to make substantial and material progress, if under able leadership, and such progress will tend to eliminate the conditions which foster lynching in the South.

If the United States had a monarchical form of government the most practicable means for the suppression of lynchings would consist merely in the publication of an edict by the monarch for the better enforcement of the law. Most lynching mobs could be easily dispersed were the officers of the law resolute and determined men intent upon protecting their prisoners and letting the law take its course; if they were responsible only to their superior officers and not more or less directly responsible to the people, and if they were not in sympathy with the mob to a greater or less degree. Our system of government, however, is in form representative and popular, and all our traditions are against a highly centralized form of government. In the United States it is therefore necessary to depend very largely upon public sentiment for a strict enforcement of the law. Lynch-law will not cease to exist in this country until there is a strong and uncompromising public sentiment against it in every community, a public sentiment which, with a full recognition of the ethnic and “societal” factors involved in the “race question,” and of the necessity for a legal system consistent with these factors instead of one based on abstract principles concerning the rights of all men, will invariably condemn lynchings because they are a crime against society, if for no other reason, and will under no circumstances countenance them because they may be the administration of deserved and well-merited punishments.

LIST OF PERIODICALS CITED

Citations are made also to statutes, historical records, colonial archives, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. Full references are given in the foot-notes. For authors quoted see index.

INDEX