always found in such
a neighborhood. This fact helps to explain, though not to excuse, some of
the riots that occur.

The better element in the South, however, opposes mob violence, and this
opposition is growing stronger and more purposeful. Associations have
been formed to oppose mob rule and to punish participants. Where
reputable citizens are lukewarm it is largely because they have not
realized that the old tradition that lynching is the proper remedy for
rape cannot stand. If sudden, sharp retribution were inflicted upon
absolute proof, only for this one cause, it is doubtful whether much
effective opposition could be enlisted. Yet wiser men have seen defiance
of law fail to stop crime, have seen mobs act upon suspicions afterward
proved groundless, have seen mob action widely extended, and have seen
the growth of a spirit of lawlessness. Where one mob has had its way,
another is always more easily aroused, and soon the administration of
the law becomes a farce. In some years hardly a third of the victims of
this summary process have been charged with rape or intent to commit
rape. As a consequence the sentiment that the law should take its course
in every case is steadily growing.[1]

[Footnote 1: The statistics on lynching do not always agree. Those
compiled at Tuskegee Institute list 38 cases for 1917 and 62 for 1918.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in its
report _Thirty Years of Lynching_ (1919) reports 67 cases for 1918, and
325 cases for the five-year period ending with 1918, of which 304 are
said to have occurred in the South.]

Though mob fury has broken out on occasion in every Southern State,
Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina are measurably
free from such visitations. Over considerable periods of time, Georgia
comes unenviably first, followed by Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana.
These four States have furnished a large majority of the lynchings. The
other States range between the two groups, though in proportion to the
negro element in its population Oklahoma has had a disproportionate
share. It may be said that the lynchings occur chiefly in those sections
or counties where the numbers of whites and negroes are nearly equal.
They are fewer in the black belt and in those counties and States where
whites are in an overwhelming majority.

No man has been wise enough to propose any solution of the negro
question which does not require an immediate and