guide and
the more violent the more blind. Let him not cease to resent with
all the intensity of his proud soul the accursed crime; but let this
resentment pursue such a channel as will ensure the execution of the
guilty and the escape of the innocent. As for us, let us cease to
furnish the inhuman brutes whose deeds suggest inhuman punishments.

"But, I am aware that in a large majority of cases where lynchings
occur, outrages upon women are not even mentioned. This fact but
serves as an argument against all lynchings; for when lawlessness
breaks forth, no man can set a limit where it will stop. It also warns
us as a race to furnish no crime that provokes lynching; for when
lynching once gets started, guilty and innocent alike will suffer, and
crimes both great and small will be punished alike.

"In regard to the lynching of our Comrade Cook, I have this to
say. Every feature connected with that crime but emphasizes its
heinousness. Cook was a quiet, unassuming, gentlemanly being, enjoying
the respect of all in a remarkable degree. Having wronged no one he
was unconscious of having enemies. His wife and loving little ones had
retired to rest and were enjoying the deep sleep of the innocent. A
band of whites crept to his house under the cover of darkness, and
thought to roast all alive. In endeavoring to make their escape the
family was pursued by a shower of bullets and Cook fell to the ground,
a corpse, leaving his loved ones behind, pursued by a fiendish mob.
And the color of Cook's skin was the only crime laid at his door.

"If ye who speculate and doubt as to the existence of a hell but peer
into the hearts of those vile creatures who slew poor Cook, you will
draw back in terror; for hell, black hell is there. To give birth to
a deed of such infamy, their hearts must be hells in miniature. But
there is one redeeming feature about this crime. Unlike others,
it found no defense anywhere. The condemnation of the crime was
universal. And the entire South cried out in bitter tones against the
demons who had at last succeeded in putting the crown of infamy of all
the ages upon her brow.

POLITICS.

"The South has defrauded us out of the ballot and she must restore
it. But in judging her crime let us take an impartial view of its
occasion. The ballot is supposed to be an expression of opinion. It
is a means employed to record men's ideas. It is not designed as a
vehicle of prejudice or gratitude, but of thought, o