LYNCHING AND ITS REMEDY
«
Paper by
S. B. ADAMS
OF SAVANNAH
Read Before the Georgia Bar Association
at Tybee Island, Georgia
June 3d, 1916
[ Reprinted from the Annual Report ]
LYNCHING AND ITS REMEDY.
PAPER BY
S. B. ADAMS,
OP SAVANNAH.
As I have said on a previous occasion, lawlessness is the
rime of crimes, the evil of evils. Lawlessness, in its full
ruition is anarchy, and anarchy is the culmination of all
voes, the last possibility of the powers of darkness.
There is one form of lawlessness in which Georgia has a
'bad eminence." I refer to lynching. We may get along in
some fashion, notwithstanding the frequent infractions of
:he penal law, but as long as lynching is common, and is con¬
doned by the public conscience and the public sentiment, we
are dangerously near anarchy. Lynching is inherently vic¬
ious. It strikes at the foundations of law, government and
society; it "puts the law to open shame"; it is defiant of all
law and all authority. Lynchers commit a greater crime
than their victim, no matter how great his offense.
There is no such thing as "mob law." The expression—
"mob law," involves a contradiction of terms. The mob
which hangs a man without judge or jury, depriving him of
his constitutional -rights, is essentially lawless, and in no
sense represents the law. Law is a rule of action and pro¬
cedure, prescribed by lawful authority, and mob action vio¬
lates every element that enters into all normal conceptions
of authority.
The published statistics, accepted generally as reliable,
show that last year there were sixty-nine lynchings in the
United States. Of these lynchings, fifty-five were negroes
and fourteen were white people. This is six more negroes
lind eleven more whites than were put to death by mobs in
(1914. Included in the record are three women. In not
less than four cases, it was demonstrated after the lynching,
that the persons put to death were innocent of the offenses
charged. Eighteen of the lynchings of 1915, or more than
one-fourth of the total number, occurred in the State of
Georgia. The bulk of those unlawfully put to death were
negroes; I believe, all except one. Only fifteen per cent, of
the total number lynched in the United States were charged
with the unspeakable crime. A number of the cases involved
only charges of misdemeanors, or offenses which at most,
would be trifling.
All good citizens deplore our disgraceful record.
The question as to what is the remedy, is not easily an¬
swered. It certainly does not lie in the denial, or suppres¬
sion, or ignoring of the facts. I insist that it is the part not
only of honesty, but of wisdom, to look the facts squarely in
the face, impress upon all people their extreme gravity and
the great evil to the State, not only as to its higher interests,
but also as to its material and business interests, and a persis¬
tent, uncompromising effort to stop the evil.
It does no good for the newspapers to say that we are no
worse than the people of other sections. This statement Is
not correct, so far as this form of lawlessness is concerned,
because our record is exceptionally bad, and a Georgian has
special reason to feel humiliated. Such talk tends to lessen
our conviction of the sin, and a thorough conviction of sin is
necessary to the right kind of repentance.
The excuse sometimes made by the newspapers and by
newspaper writers to the effect that men are lynched be¬
cause the law is too technical or too slow, and because mis¬
carriages of justice result, does harm and harm only. I have
read editorials and communications not infrequently, which
were calculated to suggest to the members of the mob, that
they were really very benign and very useful and patriotic cit¬
izens when they took the law into their own hands, and
were thus, the vindicators of the law's majesty. Such sug¬
gestions are not only not warranted by the facts, but are
utterly unwholesome and pernicious in their influence. They
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cannot be sound, if only because as a rule (in Georgia a
rule almost without exception) the people lynched are
negroes, and it cannot be said that the members of this race
are the beneficiaries of legal technicalities or of the law's
delay, or of the miscarriage of justice. If a negro really
deserves death, his conviction by the courts can be counted
on, and with reasonable celerity. There is more danger
of his being the victim of a miscarriage of justice than its
beneficiary. It is so rare that a white man is lynched in
Georgia that the number constitutes a negligible quantity.
If white men improperly acquitted by juries were lynched,
wrong and defenseless though such lynching would neces¬
sarily be, there might be some suggestion of plausibility in
this excuse; but as long as the facts are as they are, I do not
see any room for this excuse or for the throwing of this
sop to the mob. Without knowing, I venture the statement
that the men who form lynching parties are as a rule, the
very class of men who, when on jury duty, improperly acquit
and are responsible for the miscarriages of justice, which un¬
fortunately do occur in Georgia. If we say that they belong
to the class of men who make intelligent and conscientious
jurors, then our case becomes more hopeless. If the men to
whom we must look for an improvement and a better public
sentiment, are themselves law-breakers; then, alas for us!
I am sure, therefore, that these lynchers, certainly as a rule,
care nothing for the law, or its majesty, or its dignity. They1
simply indulge a brutal, bloody and cowardly instinct, lynch-,
ing only when they think they can do so with impunity. /
I do not lose sight of the frenzy sometimes brought about I
by the commission of the "unspeakable crime," and I can
understand how good men have been parties to lynchings in
such cases, arjdcan nevertheless, believe that they are respec¬
table and worlh^^rtneT? community, taking them all in
all. But such cases are very rare. The statistics show that
last year only fifteen per cent of those lynched in the United
States were suspected of this crime, and, therefore, this ex-
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cuse cannot be made. Lynching is never justifiable, and
there is no room now for any other position.
What distresses me about the situation is that lynchers,
so far as I can learn, are never punished in Georgia, no mat¬
ter how brutal, cowardly, and inexcusable their crime. They
tell us that the best men in their community are opposed to
lynching, and I must believe it; but the question remains,
why is not public sentiment sufficiently strong to at least
bring about the trial of men who are guilty of this form of
murder, and why do men continue to lynch with apparent
impunity? Surely public sentiment among the best people is
not sufficiently strong and assertive.
Of course the improvement of public sentiment as to this
vital matter, is fundamentally necessary. Our case is hope¬
less unless public sentiment is improved. All good citizens
ought by precept and example, to reprobate this evil, and
give it no tolerance or excuse. Particularly is this true of
lawyers who, in order to be admitted to the bar, had to take
a solemn oath to practice their profession according to law,
who are officers of the Court in an important sense, and who
of all members in the community ought to be law-abiding,
and ought to set their faces uncompromisingly against law¬
lessness, particularly this baleful and disgraceful form of
lawlessness. How a lawyer can excuse it is difficult to under¬
stand. He is particularly reprehensible and particularly un¬
worthy when he does this. He of all men, ought to appre¬
ciate the value of those fundamental rights imbedded in the
Constitution of our State and in the Constitution of the
United States, which lynchers trample upon and despise. We
ought particularly to value these fundamental principles, and
the fact that our government and society are based upon them,
and that when we lose them, we lose our foundations.
Inheriting, as we have done, the great principles embodied
in the Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Habeas
Corpus Act and the Bill of Rights, retained and amplified in
the State and Federal Constitutions, we do not in our thought
or in our speech, magnify these principles as we ought, or
4
pay proper homage to the heroic men whose deeds of daring
and self-sacrifice secured these principles for us and our pos¬
terity.
If the right- of indictment, of trial by jury, of being con¬
fronted with the witnesses against the accused and the priv¬
ilege and benefits of counsel be ignored in the case of a poor,
friendless negro (ignored often by a cowardly mob because
it finds in the fact of his being poor and friendless, its expec¬
tation of immunity), then these vital safeguards are imperiled
as to all citizens, and the most sacred rights of person and
property are put in jeopardy.
The Constitution of our State is particularly designed to
protect the minority and the weak and friendless. The ma¬
jority and the powerful do not need this protection. The
most obscure and helpless negro in the land, standing upon
one of these fundamental rights, ought to be secure against
the attack of the whole State. One man standing squarely
upon one of these constitutional guarantees ought, in a free
country like ours, to be able to defy a multitude, and in this
consist the force and splendor of constitutional limitations.
No man ought to be elected Governor of Georgia, who
hesitates to come out flatfooted against lynching, whatever
the cause, and without evasion or trimming. His statement on
this vital matter ought not to be coupled up with any condi¬
tion or suggestion of condition. It ought to be understood
that he will go to lengths to make an example of any officer
who permits a prisoner to be taken out of his hands, even
although he might have to imperil his life. It is particularly
unfortunate to suggest to an officer that he is not called upon
to risk his life in defense of a prisoner. It ought not to be a
question wi£h an officer as to saving or losing his life. The
only question before him is one of duty, and no man ought to
be Governor who has not this kind of attitude and spirit to¬
ward the lynching evil.
A Governor ought to be given the power to suspend for
not less than thirty days, the sheriff of any county where a
lynching occurs, and not terminate the suspension then, until
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it has been made clearly to appear that the sheriff has done
his full duty, and can be in no wise to blame.
Judges of the Superior Court, when lynchers have been
guilty of contempt of court, as they have been in some in¬
stances in Georgia, not to mention them specifically, ought to
use to the full their power to punish for contempt. The neces¬
sary thing to do is to make mobs afraid to lynch. The men
willing to commit this form of murder, as a rule, are amen¬
able only to appeals to their fear. Usually irresponsible and
utterly reckless of consequences, they will do all that they dare
do, and their activities will be circumscribed only by their
apprehensions of consequences to their precious selves.
Georgia has started out this year with the promise of dup¬
licating, if not exceeding its bad record of last year. It is high
time to stop making excuses for the mob; it is high time to
stop lynching.^ As already indicated, great harm has come to
Georgia, not only in its standing, dignity and prestige, but
also in its material interests. It is not enough to talk against
it and discourage it by word of mouth. If a lynching is threat¬
ened in Georgia, it is the duty of all good citizens, particularly
of lawyers, to go to the aid of the sheriff, form, by volunteer¬
ing if need be, a part of his posse, and see to it that the mob
is dealt with firmly and uncompromisingly. If the lynching
occurs, then it becomes their duty to see to it that the lynch¬
ers are detected and punished. A formal and perfunctory
investigation, simply adds to our disgrace. If the good citi¬
zens of a community are really anxious to detect the perpe¬
trators of this crime, they can and will do so.