Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 20, 1903

COMMENTING on a recent lynching in Wyoming, which involved the murder of a sheriff by the mob, as well as the killing of two prisoners, the Cleveland Plain Dealer says:—

In short, no sooner is the curtain rung down on a bloody tragedy in Kentucky, or Delaware, or Illinois, than the stage is found set for a similar presentation elsewhere. Mob violence in one form or another is a continuous performance.

The Chicago Tribune remarks that “lynching is fast becoming a habit.” And when lynching becomes the habit of a people, law and order and just government cease to be the habit. Lynching does not belong to government at all, but to anarchy.

And the lynching habit, like other habits, is one that grows. At the first, only negroes were lynched, and that for only one crime, of which they were unquestionably guilty. Next negroes began to be lynched for various crimes. Next white men began to be victims of the lynching mob. Next, negroes were lynched who were not known to be guilty of the crime which had aroused the mob, but only suspected of it. And finally, negroes were lynched who were known not to be guilty; the bloodthirst of the mob, once aroused, demanded a victim, though it was one known to be innocent. This is the stage of development which this fast-growing “habit” has reached to-day.