the South, there exists little more
crime than in several other sections of the country; but, because of
the lynching evil, we are constantly advertising ourselves to the
world as a lawless people. We cannot disregard the teachings of the
civilised world for eighteen hundred years, that the only way to
punish crime is by law. When we leave this anchorage chaos begins.

I am not pleading for the Negro alone. Lynching injures, hardens, and
blunts the moral sensibilities of the young and tender manhood of the
South. Never shall I forget the remark by a little nine-year-old white
boy, with blue eyes and flaxen hair. The little fellow said to his
mother, after he had returned from a lynching: "I have seen a man
hanged; now I wish I could see one burned." Rather than hear such a
remark from one of my little boys, I would prefer to see him in his
grave. This is not all. Every community guilty of lynching says in so
many words to the governor, to the legislature, to the sheriff, to the
jury, and to the judge: "We have no faith in you and no respect for
you. We have no respect for the law which we helped to make."

In the South, at the present time, there is less excuse for not
permitting the law to take its course where a Negro is to be tried
than anywhere else in the world; for, almost without exception, the
governors, the sheriffs, the judges, the juries, and the lawyers are
all white men, and they can be trusted, as a rule, to do their duty.
Otherwise, it is needless to tax the people to support these officers.
If our present laws are not sufficient properly to punish crime, let
the laws be changed; but that the punishment may be by lawfully
constituted authorities is the plea I make. The history of the world
proves that where the law is most strictly enforced there is the least
crime: where people take the administration of the law into their own
hands there is the most crime.

But there is still another side. The white man in the South has not
only a serious duty and responsibility, but the Negro has a duty and
responsibility in this matter. In speaking of my own people, I want
to be equally frank; but I speak with the greatest kindness. There is
too much crime among them. The figures for a given period show that in
the United States thirty per cent. of the crime committed is by
Negroes, while we constitute only about twelve per cent. of the entire
population. This proportion holds good not only in the South, but also