Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/374

358 the swamps, woods and everywhere to catch the brute and lynch him. It should not be forgotten, too, that lynchings occur sometimes at the North under similar atrocious surroundings. Outraged communities in all parts of the world take the law in their own hands and lynch those who endanger the sanctity of home and society.

The negro element is hardly perceptible at the North; it is not in sufficient numbers to cause much friction. Still it does do it. Even mixed schools, where a small percentage of the scholars are negroes, have stirred up many communities, and considerable friction has resulted from the inborn race feeling implanted in every bosom. This presentation of facts is not given to excuse the lynching of negroes and whites, but to exhibit afresh the surroundings in the South in that new formative period after the war with its consequent chaos in society and morals. It is possible that some few lynchings may have been meted out to innocent parties, but barely possible. The greatest harm done always is in familiarizing public sentiment in witnessing such violations of law, and breaking down reliance on the law to redress grievances. The remedy lies in both races trying to put a stop to the crime which produces the violation of law by lynching.

The statistics show that the number of lynchings in 1896 within the limits of the United States was 131; 107 occurred in the South, and 24 in other parts of the Union, in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory. Of the negroes, 80 were lynched (40 for the crime of rape, 20 for murder and house burning). Fifty-one whites were lynched. So it appears that lynching is not meted out to negroes alone, but that nearly 40 per cent of those lynched were white men, and of the negroes 50 per cent of those lynched were killed for the crime of rape, and 18 per cent of the lynchings occurred out of the South. {Memphis Commercial- Appeal, January 5, 1897.)