Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/16

12 encouragement to those who will surely raise their voices in a similar manner in the future, perhaps long after mine and those of others now living shall be stilled forever. It is extremely rare to have the people of any civilized nation listen to the warnings of science, much less to act upon them,— and, it is still less likely to have anything of that kind happen, when the danger, as it is in this matter, is so widespread, so insidious, insinuative and so subtle.

In treating the question of lynching I have intentionally touched upon it only in a general way, and supported my remarks by accounts culled from various newspapers, and these latter I have personally collected for a period extending over ten years. The cases are by no means the most horrible known in the history of this country, nor did I deem it necessary to present more than I have on the subject. My illustrations give in a pictorial way one of the most terrible lynchings known to us, that is of the negro Henry Smith at Paris, Texas, on the first of February, 1893. The papers all over the country were filled with it at the time. The New York Herald of the date mentioned gave it over a column, leading off in the following words: "Henry Smith, a negro, was killed by slow torture here today [Paris, Texas]. He had committed a terrible crime, and every torment that the ingenuity of an angry mob could suggest was inflicted upon him.

"His agonies were long prolonged. Hot irons were placed upon the soles of his feet, rolled over his quivering body, poked into his eyes and down his throat. A scaffold upon which he lay was then set on fire. His clothes and fetters burned off and he threw himself on the ground, he was tossed back into