University of Virginia Library

Permit me to thank you as an American citizen for the
admirable way in which you have vindicated the majesty
of the law by your recent action in reference to lynching.
I feel, my dear sir, that you have made all men your
debtors who believe, as all far-seeing men must, that the
well-being, indeed the very existence, of the Republic
depends upon that spirit of orderly liberty under the law
which is as incompatible with mob violence as with any
form of despotism. Of course mob violence is simply
one form of anarchy; and anarchy is now, as it always
has been, the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny.

I feel that you have not only reflected honor upon the
State which for its good fortune has you as its Chief
Executive, but upon the whole nation. It is incumbent
upon every man throughout this country not only to hold
up your hands in the course you have been following, but
to show his realization that the matter is one which is of
vital concern to us all.

All thoughtful men must feel the gravest alarm over
the growth of lynching in this country, and especially
over the peculiarly hideous forms so often taken by mob
violence when colored men are the victims—on which
occasions the mob seems to lay most weight, not on the
crime, but on the color of the criminal. In a certain
proportion of these cases the man lynched has been guilty
of a crime horrible beyond description; a crime so horrible
that as far as he himself is concerned he has forfeited the
right to any kind of sympathy whatsoever. The feeling
of all good citizens that such a hideous crime shall not be
hideously punished by mob violence is due not in the
least to sympathy for the criminal, but to a very lively
sense of the train of dreadful consequences which follows
the course taken by the mob in exacting inhuman

vengeance for an in human wrong. In such cases, moreover,
it is well to remember that the criminal not merely sins
against humanity in inexpiable and unpardonable fashion,
but sins particularly against his own race, and does them
a wrong far greater than any white man can possibly do
them. Therefore, in such cases the colored people
throughout the land should in every possible way show
their belief that they, more than all others in the community,
are horrified at the commission of such a crime
and are peculiarly concerned in taking every possible
measure to prevent its recurrence and to bring the criminal
to immediate justice. The slightest lack of vigor
either in denunciation of the crime or in bringing the
criminal to justice is itself unpardonable.
Moreover, every effort should be made under the law
to expedite the proceedings of justice in the case of such
an awful crime. But it cannot be necessary in order to
accomplish this to deprive any citizen of those fundamental
rights to be heard in his own defence which are so
dear to us all and which lie at the root of our liberty. It
certainly ought to be possible by the proper administration
of the laws to secure swift vengeance upon the
criminal; and the best and immediate efforts of all legislators,
judges, and citizens should be addressed to securing
such reforms in our legal procedure as to leave no
vestige of excuse for those misguided men who undertake
to reap vengeance through violent methods.

Men who have been guilty of a crime like rape or
murder should be visited with swift and certain punishment
and the just effort made by the courts to protect
them in their rights should under no circumstances be
perverted into permitting any mere technicality to avert
or delay their punishment. The substantial rights of the
prisoner to a fair trial must of course be guaranteed, as
you have so justly insisted that they should be; but,
subject to this guarantee, the law must work swiftly and

surely and all the agents of the law should realize the
wrong they do when they permit justice to be delayed or
thwarted for technical or insufficient reasons. We must
show that the law is adequate to deal with crime by freeing
it from every vestige of technicality and delay.

But the fullest recognition of the horror of the crime
and the most complete lack of sympathy with the criminal
cannot in the least diminish our horror at the way in
which it has become customary to avenge these crimes
and at the consequences that are already proceeding
therefrom. It is of course inevitable that where vengeance
is taken by a mob it should frequently light on
innocent people; and the wrong done in such a case to
the individual is one for which there is no remedy. But
even where the real criminal is reached, the wrong done
by the mob to the community itself is well-nigh as great.
Especially is this true where the lynching is accompanied
with torture. There are certain hideous sights which
when once seen can never be wholly erased from the
mental retina. The mere fact of having seen them implies
degradation. This is a thousandfold stronger when,
instead of merely seeing the deed, the man has participated
in it. Whoever in any part of our country has ever
taken part in lawlessly putting to death a criminal by the
dreadful torture of fire must forever after have the awful
spectacle of his own handiwork seared into his brain and
soul. He can never again be the same man.

This matter of lynching would be a terrible thing even
if it stopped with the lynching of men guilty of the inhuman
and hideous crime of rape; but, as a matter of fact,
lawlessness of this type never does stop and never can stop
in such fashion. Every violent man in the community is
encouraged by every case of lynching in which the lynchers
go unpunished to himself take the law into his own hands
whenever it suits his own convenience. In the same way
the use of torture by the mob in certain cases is sure to

spread until it is applied more or less indiscriminately in
other cases. The spirit of lawlessness grows with what it
feeds on, and when mobs with impunity lynch criminals
for one cause, they are certain to begin to lynch real or
alleged criminals for other causes. In the recent cases of
lynching, over three fourths were not for rape at all, but
for murder, attempted murder, and even less heinous offences.
Moreover, the history of these recent cases shows
the awful fact that when the minds of men are habituated
to the use of torture by lawless bodies to avenge crimes
of a peculiarly revolting description, other lawless bodies
will use torture in order to punish crimes of an ordinary
type. Surely no patriot can fail to see the fearful brutalization
and debasement which the indulgence of such a
spirit and such practices inevitably portends. Surely all
public men, all writers for the daily press, all clergymen,
all teachers, all who in any way have a right to address
the public, should with every energy unite to denounce
such crimes and to support those engaged in putting them
down. As a people we claim the right to speak with
peculiar emphasis for freedom and for fair treatment of
all men without regard to differences of race, fortune,
creed, or color. We forfeit the right so to speak when
we commit or condone such crimes as those of which I
speak.

The nation, like the individual, cannot commit a crime
with impunity. If we are guilty of lawlessness and brutal
violence, whether our guilt consists in active participation
therein or in mere connivance and encouragement, we
shall assuredly suffer later on because of what we have
done. The cornerstone of this Republic, as of all free
government, is respect for and obedience to the law.
Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether
by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are
by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization
and increasing the chances of its overthrow, and of the

substitution therefor of a system in which there shall be
violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.