been blackmailed in this way. Now we keep an agent in the State
Capitol to attend to our interests, and we take an interest in politics
to head off the election of professional grafters."

One of the most serious things in this phase of national immorality is
showing itself in what are termed "lynchings"; that is, a negro commits
a crime against a white woman, and instead of permitting the law to run
its course, the people rise, seized with a savage craze for revenge,
batter in the jails, take the criminal, and burn him at the stake. This
burning is sometimes attended by thousands, who display the most
remarkable _abandon_ and savagery. Some African chiefs have sacrificed
more people at one time, but no savage has ever displayed greater
bestiality, gloated over his victim with more real satisfaction, than
these free Americans in numerous instances when shouting and yelling
about the burning body of some unfortunate whose crime has aroused
their ferocity to the point of madness.

Not one but many clergymen have denounced this. They compare it to the
most brutal acts of savagery, and we have the picture of a country
posing as civilized, with the temerity to point out the sins of others,
giving themselves over to orgies that would disgrace the lowest of
races. I have it from the lips of a clergyman that during the past
twelve years over twenty-five hundred men have been lynched in the
United States. In a single year two hundred and forty men were killed by
mobs in this way, many being burned at the stake. If any excuse is
offered, it is said that most of these were negroes, and the crime was
rape, and the victims white women; but of the number mentioned only
forty-six were charged with this crime and but two-thirds were black.
Many confessed as the torch was applied, many died protesting their
innocence, and in no case was the offense legally proved. This lynching
seems to be a mania with the people. It began with the attack of negroes
on white women. The repetition of similar cases so enraged the whites
that they have become mad upon the subject. The feeling is well
illustrated by the remark of a Southerner to me. "If a woman of my
family was attacked by a negro I must be his executioner. I could not
wait for the law." This man told me that no lynching would ever have
taken place had it not been for the uncertainty of the law. Men who were
known to be guilty of the grossest of crimes had been virtually
protected by the l