Not one but many clergymen have denounced this. They compare it to the most brutal acts of savagery, and we have the picture of a country posing as civilized, with the temerity to point out the sins of others, giving themselves over to orgies that would disgrace the lowest of races. I have it from the lips of a clergyman that during the past twelve years over twenty-five hundred men have been lynched in the United States. In a single year two hundred and forty men were killed by mobs in this way, many being burned at the stake. If any excuse is offered, it is said that most of these were negroes, and the crime was rape, and the victims white women; but of the number mentioned only forty-six were charged with this crime and but two-thirds were black. Many confessed as the torch was applied, many died protesting their innocence, and in no case was the offense legally proved. This lynching seems to be a mania with the people. It began with the attack of negroes on white women. The repetition of similar cases so enraged the whites that they have become mad upon the subject. The feeling is well illustrated by the remark of a Southerner to me. "If a woman of my family was attacked by a negro I must be his executioner. I could not wait for the law." This man told me that no lynching would ever have taken place had it not been for the uncertainty of the law. Men who were known to be guilty of the grossest of crimes had been virtually protected by the law, and their cases dragged along at great expense to the State, this occurring so many times that the patience of the people became exhausted. This man forgot that the law was instigated for the purpose of justice.
The negro is an issue in America and a cause of much crime, a vengeance on the people who held them as slaves. The negro has increased so rapidly that in forty years he has doubled in number, there now being over nine millions in the country. At the present rate there will be twenty-five millions in 1930—a black menace to the white American.
The negro is a factor in the national unrest. They outnumber the whites in some localities, and hence vote themselves many offices, while the few whites pay eighty or eighty-five per cent of the taxes and the negroes supply from eighty to ninety per cent of the criminals. While this is going on in the South and the whites are rising and preparing to disfranchise the blacks in many States, the people of Boston and Cambridge are discussing the propriety of the whites and blacks marrying to settle the question of social equality. Such proposals I have read. Reprinted in the South, they added fuel to the flame.
Another element of distress in America is the attitude of labor, the policy of the Government of letting in the lowest of the low from every nation except the Chinese, against whom the only charge has been that they are too industrious and thus a menace to the whites. The swarms of people from the low and criminal classes of Europe have enabled the anarchists to obtain such a foothold that in this free country the President of the United States is almost as closely guarded as the Emperor of Russia. The White House is surrounded and guarded by detectives of various kinds. The secret-service department is equal in its equipment to that of many European nations, and millions are spent in watching criminals and putting down their strikes and riots. The doctrine of freedom to all appeals so well to the ignorant laborer that he has decided to control the entire situation, and to this end labor is divided into "unions," and in many sections business has been ruined.
The demands of these ignorant men are so preposterous that they can scarcely be credited. The merchant no longer owns his business or directs it. The laborer tells him what to pay, how to pay it, when and how long the hours shall be—in fact, undertakes to usurp entire control. If the owner protests, the laborers all stop work, strike, appoint guards, who attack, kill, or intimidate any one who attempts to take their place. In this way it is said that one billion dollars have been lost in the last few years. Contracts have been broken, men ruined, localities and cities placed in the greatest jeopardy, and hundreds of lives lost. Every branch of trade has its "union," and in so many cases have the laborers been successful that a national panic comes almost in sight. Never was there a more farcical illustration of freedom. Irrational, ignorant Irishmen, who had not the mental capacity to earn more than a dollar a day, dictated to merchant princes and millionaire contractors. In New York it was proved that the leaders of the strikers sold out to employers, and accepted bribes to call off strikes.
The question before the American people is, Has an American citizen the right to conduct his own business to suit himself and employ whom he wishes? Has the laborer the right to work for whom and what rate he pleases? The imported socialists, anarchists, and their converts among Americans say no, and it will require but little to precipitate a bloody war, when labor, led by red-handed murderers, will enact in New York and all over the United States the horrors of the French Commune.
The republic for a great and enlightened country has too many criminals. I am told by a prohibition clergyman that the curse of drink and license has its fangs in the heart of the land. He tells me that the Americans pay yearly $1,172,000,000 for their alcoholic drink; for bread, $600,000,000; for tobacco, $625,000,000; for education, $197,000,000; for ministers' salaries, $14,000,000. It has been found that the downfall of eighty-one per cent of criminals is traceable to drink. He said: "Our republic is a failure morally, as we have 2,550,000 drunkards and people addicted to drink. We have 600,000 prostitutes, and many more doubtless that are not known, and in nine cases out of ten their downfall can be traced to drink."
I listen to this side of the story, and then I see wonderful philanthropy, institutions for the prevention of crime, good men at work according to their light, millions employed to educate the young, thousands of churches and societies to aid man in making man better. When I listen to these men, and see tens of thousands of Christian men and women living pure lives, building up vast cities, great monuments for the future, I feel that I can not judge the Americans. They perhaps expect too much from their freedom and their republican ideas. I shall never be a republican. I believe that we all have all the freedom we deserve. It is well to remember that man is an animal. After all his polish and refinement, he has animal tastes and desires, and if he makes laws that are in direct opposition to the indulgence which his animal nature suggests, he certainly must have some method of enforcing the laws. Like all animals, some men are easily influenced and others not, and the human animal has not made progress so far but that he needs watching in order to make him conform to what he has decided or elected to call right.
You will expect me to compare the American to the Chinaman, but it is impossible. Some things which we look upon as right, the American considers grievous sins. The point of view is entirely at variance, but I have boundless faith in the brilliant and good men and women I have met in America. I say this despite my other impressions, which also hold.
The great political scheme of the people is poorly devised and crude. It is so arranged that in some States governors are elected every year or two and other officers every year, representatives of the people in Congress every two years, senators every six, Presidents every four years. Thus the country is constantly in a whirl, and as soon as the rancor of one national election is over begins the scheming for another. The people have really little to do with the selection of a President. A small band of rich and influential schemers generally have the entire plan or "slate" laid out. A plan, natural in appearance, is arranged for the public, and at the right time the slated program is sprung. Senators should be elected by the people, congressmen should be elected for a longer period, and Presidents should have twice the terms they do. But it is easy to suggest, and I confess that my suggestions are those of many American people themselves which I hear reformers cry abroad.