Murder and Unequal Justice
Comparisons are odious, it is said, but here is one that is being passed around, and is worthy of a moment's thought: "Last year London, with 6,000,000 of people, had twenty-four murders. Every murderer was arrested, and yet the policemen carry neither clubs nor guns. Of these murderers, four committed suicide, four were sent to the insane asylum, and the rest executed. Chicago, with one-fifth the population, had 127 murders, only twenty-four arrested and barely one executed. For every 100 murderers convicted in this country, two are executed by the state, three are lynched, and ninety-five imprisoned for awhile and then turned loose. During the last twenty years, 2,289 people have been legally executed for murder, and during the last half of that period of twenty years, 2,648 men, women, and children—guilty and innocent—have been lynched."