Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/247

Rh THENEGRO 223 citizens of Delaware in connection with the burning of this negro, George White. of criminal law, and that is the evil that accompanies the delay in bringing offenders to speedy trial. '' Delays in trials of persons accused of crime when the offense is grave will always tend to create disorder and lead to individuals taking the law into their own hands, especially where great delay occurs. " This spirit of vengeance may not be an estimable one, but it is a real one, and must be considered, es- pecially in communities where the authorities have no great force at their command, as is the case in most parts of the country. " I think if a white girl was killed by a colored man even in staid old New England, the chances of a lynch- ing would be quite as great as in the South, unless the accused was at once removed to some important place of safety. It is the character of the offence rather than race prejudice, although, of course, the element of race prejudice does enter into it in certain parts of the South." In m)^ own opinion, I believe these lynchings will occur at the rate of from 200 to 300 annually just so long as the negro remains in the United States and is free, over a large area of it, to assault and murder women of every class of the white race. Nothing will prevent it, and all so-called remedies will only embitter the people and aggravate those who take an active part in these episodes of vengeance. In reference to this affair, the following clipping is from a Northern paper, the record of which has been mislaid by me. I am under the impression that it is from The Evening Star, of Washington, D. C., of a date in the first week of February, 1893 : —
 * ' The case, however, seems to emphasize a feature