INCREASE OF MOB LAW

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 7, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 39.

INCREASE OF MOB LAW.

"THE lynching in Versailles, Ind.," says the New York Voice: "is one of the most striking illustrations yet given of the inevitable tendency of mob law. Five men had been arrested and jailed for burglary. Two or three of them had been indicted, but not tried, and the others had been simply arrested on suspicion. They were all securely jailed, and with public opinion what it was, there was little chance of their escaping punishment for any burglary that could be proved against them. Their crime was not one that civilized countries anywhere now adjudge to be a capital crime. Nor was it one that, like rape, arouses uncontrollable passions on the part of any well-ordered community. Three of the men were less than thirty years old. In the dead of night a mob of 400 men took possession of the jail, dragged out the five men and strung them up, having previously shot and pounded them until it is questioned whether several were not dead before they were hung.

"And the hopeless feature of this most discouraging affair is the fact noted in the reports that 'none of the citizens seem to deplore the action of the mob, but on the contrary, the hanging of three or four more members of the gang is being talked of.' The governor of the State has taken prompt action, sending on a deputy attorney-general to see that the violators of law are brought to justice; but he is severely censured for not having taken any decisive action in previous cases of white-cap outrages, for which Indiana is noted. We do not know that this censure is merited, but the logic that connects this greater outrage upon the law with the previous lesser outrages is correct, and while we are about it we might as well trace the origin back a step further. This frightful epidemic of lawlessness that seems to be breaking out in so many different places is part of an inevitable harvest that comes to every community that lets the laws be trampled on with impunity in lesser matters."

And the reason for all this is disregard of the law of God and lack of faith in him. When men fear God, they will execute justice and judgment; and when men have faith in God they will not take vengeance in their own hands. Civil laws enforcing morality will not cure the condition; Sunday-laws obtain in Indiana now. What is demanded is more Gospel in preaching and living on the part of pastor and church,—a Gospel which will lead men to obey God.