PLAIN, BUT TRUE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Dec 6, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 49.

PLAIN, BUT TRUE.

THE New York Sun gives a pithy report of President Roosevelt's reception at Little Rock, Ark., and of his speech on that occasion. Governor Davis, of Arkansas, had preceded the President, and in his remarks used words that might be construed as something between an apology for and a defense of lynching. The Sun report says:

Mr. Roosevelt spoke only for a moment or two by way of greeting to the people in front of him and then turned suddenly toward the Governor, who started perceptibly in his chair, so unexpected was the President's movement. "Governor," he said, "you spoke of a heinous crime that is often heinously avenged. The worst enemy of the negro race is the negro criminal, and above all the negro criminal of that type; for he has committed not only an unspeakably heinous and infamous crime against the victim, but he has committed a heinous crime against the people of his own color, and every reputable colored man, every colored man who wishes to see the uplifting of his race, owes it as his first duty to himself and to that race to hunt down that criminal with all his soul and strength. (Great applause.)"

"Now for the side of the white man. To avenge one heinous crime by another heinous crime is to reduce the man doing it to the bestial level of the man who committed the bestial crime. (Great applause and cheers.) The horrible effects of lynching law are shown in the fact that three-fourths of the lynchings are not for that crime at all, but for other crimes. And above all other men, Governor, you and I, and all who are exponents of the law, owe it to our people, owe it to the cause of civilization and humanity, to do everything in our power, officially and unofficially, directly and indirectly, to free the United States from the menace and reproach of lynch law." (Applause.)