Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/189

Rh THENEGRO 167 that there should be an opportunity granted for the departure of ' such black men and women as are self- reliant and have those manhood aspirations that God planted in them and degrading laws will intensify.' " A few months ago, Mr. John Temple Graves of Georgia, a clear thinker and a very cogent writer on the negro question, expressed his views in public in the boldest possible manner, both on the matter of lynching and on the ultimate separation of the two races. He was reported in The New York Times of Wednesday, August 12, 1903, in the following man- ner: HE DEFENDS LYNCH LAW John Temple Graves of Georgia Says the Mob is Necessary — The Penalty Prescribed by Law, He Declares, Will Never Prevent Assaults by Negroes on White Women. " Chautauqua, N. Y., Aug. 11. — Lynching was warmly defended by John Temple Graves of Atlanta, Ga., in an address at Chautauqua today. " ' The problem of the hour,' said Mr. Graves, ' is not how to prevent lynching in the South, but the larger question: How shall, we destroy the crime which always has and always will provoke lynching? The answer which the mob returns to this vital ques- tion is already known. The mob answers it with the rope, the bullet, and sometimes, God save us ! with the torch. And the mob is practical ; its theory is effective to a large degree. The mob is today the sternest, the strongest, and the most effective restraint that the age holds for the control of rape.' " The lyncher, he said, does not exterminate the