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ties, found the same opportunity to urge that education, as well as the proposed Federal legislation, be used to combat this national stain.

In the Costigan antilynching bill, the Congress has a great opportunity to make another historic step as it follows the President's leadership in making good this ultimatum:

Mob rule cannot be condoned in high places or in low."

[From the Portland (Oreg.) Oregonian, Dec. 24, 1933]

SOUTH FOR ANTI-LYNCHING LAW

That lynching is condemned in the South as in the North may be seen from an article in the Atlanta Constitution. It commends a bill to be introduced in Congress making lynching a Federal offense and says:

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Now that mob law is no longer a sectional evil, the most conspicuous examples of it recently being in States other than the South, it is not surprising that Congress should deal with the evil in the same manner in which it proceeded against the kidnaping menace.

"There is no room in the United States for mob law under any conditions. If our civilization is to be protected, the punishment for crime must be left to the courts. There is no midway ground."

Although further extension of Federal power is involved, the traditional southern jealousy for State rights does not restrain this southern newspaper from waiving State rights in favor of efficient law enforcement.

Federal prosecution of lynchers should have a strong restraining influence. It would rise above local passion and would go over the heads of such Governors as Rolph, of California. By pursuing lynchers to any State to which they might migrate, it would keep them constantly in fear of the law. The first conviction and punishment of lynchers would have a salutary effect in all States.

[From the Portland (Maine) Evening News, Dec. 29, 1933]

LET THE MOB PAY

Lynchings will prove to be highly expensive affairs in future, if the next Congress passes a bill Senator Edward P. Costigan, of Colorado, is expected to introduce.

The Costigan bill would provide that—

Counties in which lynchings occurred would be fined $10,000; payable to the Treasury or to the victim's family.

A maximum of 5 years' imprisonment or a maximum fine of $5,000 would be imposed upon any officer failing to make every appropriate effort for protection or for the apprehension and prosecution of members of lynching mobs. A prison sentence of from 5 years to life would be meted out to any official cooperating in the delivery of a prisoner to a mob.

Stiff medicine this, but possibly the best remedy that has been offered thus far for dealing with a deadly, menacing social disease.

Nor is it diflicult to foresee a bitter and protracted fight over such a measure on the floor of the Senate. Champions of the bill will include all who hold that kidnapers, murderers, and criminals of similar stamp should be and must be punished "by due process of law." Against them will be pitted the strength of those who hold that when the law fails, the mob supplies the only answer. Incredible though it may seem to Easterners, the number of these latter appears to be legion. One recalls the hundreds of congratulatory letters and telegrams to Governor Rolph, of California, after that gentleman's hands-off stand on the San Jose lynchings.

[From the Cincinnati (Ohio) Post, Dec. 20, 1933]

MAKING A CASE

The States this year are building up a fine case for the enactment by Congress next year of a Federal antilynching law.

To the gruesome record of recent lynch horrors, Tennessee has added another. A Negro, accused of attacking a white girl, was found hanging from a cedar tree near Columbia, his dead body riddled with bullets. The appalling brutality of the latest lynching lay in the fact that this mob victim had been arrested and then freed by action of the grand jury who found no evidence against him!

How many innocent men and women are lynched may be judged from a report of the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching. The report found that out of 21 persons lynched in 1930 two "certainly" were innocent, 11 others "possibly" were. Mobs are not deterred by questions of sex, color, or locality. They are not deterred by the innocence of their victims. Tennessee's latest lynching, her third this year, runs the national total for 1933 to 27. Of these, 4 were whites. California, Maryland, and Missouri this year have joined the lynch States.

Some believe that the Federal Government, under present laws, can intervene to punish lynchers in States where the law breaks down. In a brief just filed with the Attorney General, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People cites a congressional act of 1870 making it a misdemeanor for an officer of the law to permit an inhabitant of any State to be deprived of the right to person or property. The citation was in justification for a plea for the Federal Government to punish the sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, Ala., for failure to prevent double lynching last August. The brief says:

"A Government which can invade a sovereign foreign state to protect the lives of its citizens and exact reparation for a deprivation of their rights abroad, yet cannot, or will not, through lack of official courage to enforce the written law, protect its own citizens within its borders, abdicates to the mob." Regardless of conflicting interpretations of existing law, the fact that the Federal Government has not felt free to act hitherto is sufficient evidence of the need for a Federal antilynching law.

[From the Indianapolis (Ind.) Times, Jan. 15, 1934]
SOUTHERN WOMEN SPEAK

The Dixie gentlemen who have been lynching black men stand condemned by the very flower of womanhood they have pretended to protect.

In Atlanta this week the Conference of Southern White Women for the Prevention of Lynching passed resolutions calling on President Roosevelt to work with Governors and Congressmen to eradicate this evil. It was this conference that 4 years ago served notice on men that they held no commission to protect the honor and virtue of southern women by means of mob murders. With a membership of 1,000,000 white women in 11 Southern States, the conference can be said to speak for southern women rather generally.

The conference did not specifically endorse the pending Wagner-Costigan bill, providing for Federal intervention to halt lynchings. But there is argument for such a measure in the conference's statement that:

"Past experience has demonstrated that State and local authorities and the public opinion behind them have failed to bring to justice members of lynching mobs although their identities have been known."

The Federal antilynching bill does not deprive localities of an opportunity to preserve constitutional rights to their citizens. It merely arms the Federal Government with the right to step in and punish lynchers and cowardly officials when localities have failed.

The attitude of President Roosevelt toward this problem was indicated in his message to Congress on January 3. In his list of crimes that " call on the strong arm of the Government for their immediate suppression" and on the country for an aroused public opinion", the President cataloged lynching along with organized banditry, cold-blooded shooting, and kidnaping.

False local pride should not be allowed to kill the Wagner-Costigan bill.

[From the Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer, Jan. 17, 1934]

A WAR UPON LYNCHING

Among the dubious distinctions of 1933 is that of having more lynchings than any recent year. But on the heels of this outbreak of lawlessness comes a new and stronger demand for action to curb it.

Last evening Cleveland added its voice. Rabbi Silver's eloquent arraignment of lynching expresses the community's convictions. Similar meetings, also sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other liberal organizations, are being held this month in every State, North and South.

In fact, the South shows an encouraging zeal to stamp out the medievalism which finds expression in lynch "law." In Atlanta last week women leaders from 12 Southern States met to protest lynching. They ridiculed the discredited excuse that lynching helps to protect southern womanhood and expressed themselves in "favor of any legal measure which promises sure and permanent eradication of lynching."

The Cleveland meeting, and the others like it, brings support to the Costigan-Wagner antilynching bill, soon to be before Congress. The southern women in Atlanta expressed themselves in favor of a coordinated national and State attack upon lynching and stressed the fear of leaning too heavily on the Federal Government, but they are very far from opposing Federal legislation. Previously attempts to get such measures through Congress have always been blocked by southern votes. Evidently the sentiment in the South is changing as the more intelligent leaders recognize the blot which lynching puts on the shield of any State which tolerates it.

[From the Waterbury (Conn.) Republican, Dec. 8, 1933]

THE PRESIDENT ON LYNCHING

It was not necessary for President Roosevelt to deal specifically with recent lynchings in his timely condemnation of the lynching evil Wednesday. They are fresh in the public mind. Nor was it necessary or proper that he should have rebuked Governor Rolph, of California, by name for his laudation of the San Jose lynching. When the President said “We do not excuse those in high places or in low who condone lynch law", the inference was inescapable that he had Governor Rolph in mind. No one else in a high place stands out by reason of his approval of lynching. The Governor stands rebuked by the President, to the satisfaction of the vast majority of American citizens.

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It could be wished, however, that the President's meaning in what he had further to say about lynching had been more clear. He said that a "thinking America seeks a government of its own that will be sufficiently strong to protect the prisoner and at the same time to crystallize a public opinion so clear that government of all kinds will be compelled to practice a more certain justice. The judicial function of government is the protection of the individual and of the community through quick and certain justice. That function in many places has fallen into a state of disrepair. It must be part of our program to reestablish it."

In its general application this is a plea for a more vigorous, efficient, and just administration of law. But as it applies to lynching is it a hint at more power for the Federal Government? Did the President have in mind that Senator Costigan, of Colorado, and Representative Celler, of New York, are going to introduce Federal antilynching bills when Congress convenes next month? Perhaps not, and yet shall we soon see the adequate protection of prisoners against lynching unless this is done? Walter White, secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, does not think so. He said recently:

"It is plain to everyone that the States are unwilling or unable to stop lynching. The officers of the law either aid the lynchers actively or stand idly by and let the mob do its work. Governors order investigations which never discover anything. Grand juries find no evidence for indictments." He points to the marked drop in lynchings from 61 in 1922 to 28 in 1923, a drop which he attributes to the fact that the House at Washington passed the

Dyer antilynching bill in 1922. It was killed in the Senate only by a filibuster. "Federal intervention ", says Mr. White, "is the only power local communities fear."

In the light of the recent increase in lynching, Federal antilynching legislation would seem to stand a good chance of enactment in the next session of Congress. Certainly if a Federal antilynching act is passed, the States which have permitted lawless mobs to murder accused persons will have no grounds for complaint or protest. If they had stopped lynching, there would have arisen no demand for Federal legislation.

[From the Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution, Dec. 9, 1933]

AS A FEDERAL OFFENSE

As a result of the recent mob-law outrages in widely separated sections of the country, it is probable that a law making lynching a Federal offense will be urged at the approaching session of Congress.

The enactment of such a law would be in line with the action of Congress in enacting a measure making kidnaping a Federal offense when that crime became so general in its scope that it assumed the proportion of a national menace. The Federal activities made possible by this law have resulted in greatly reducing the kidnaping evil, the apprehension and conviction of most of the criminals responsible for the kidnapings of the past 6 or 8 months, and the prospect that the evil will soon be exterminated.

Now that mob law is no longer a sectional evil, the most conspicuous examples of it recently being in States other than the South, it is not surprising that Congress should deal with the evil in the same manner in which it proceeded against the kidnaping menace.

There is no room in the United States for mob law under any conditions. If our civilization is to be protected, the punishment for crime must be left to the courts. There is no midway ground.

A law making lynching a national offense would undoub ́ "ly have a strongly deterrent effect upon those inclined to place the authority the mob above that of the courts.

[From the Baltimore (Md.) Evening Sun, Jan. 15, 1934]
THE COSTIGAN-WAGNER BILL

(By H. L. Mencken)
I

The essence of the antilynching bill introduced in the Senate on January 4 by Senator Costigan, of Colorado, and Senator Wagner, of New York, lies in its transfer of jurisdiction from the State courts to the Federal courts. That transfer does not follow a lynching automatically; it follows only in case the State authorities show an incapacity or unwillingness to track down and punish the lynchers. If they are not apprehended or indicted within 30 days, or there is indication otherwise of "a failure diligently to prosecute them ", the nearest Federal district court may assume that there is "prima facie evidence of failure, neglect, or refusal ", and proceed to issue warrants for the lynchers and try them "in accordance with the laws of the State."

It will be noted that lynching itself is not made a Federal offense. It is defined as the act of any "mob or riotous assemblage composed of three or more persons acting in concert, without authority of law, for the purpose of depriving any person of his life, or doing him physical injury "; but the butchery of the victim, if he is butchered, remains ordinary murder under the State law, and his manhandling, if he is not killed, remains ordinary assault and battery. Thus lynching is left in the category of common crime, where it manifestly belongs. Every person concerned may be prosecuted separately, and as if he had done the crime along. He gains nothing by being in a mob.

But the "failure, neglect, or refusal" of the law officers concerned is made a Federal offense, and defined as a denial of that equal protection of the laws

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which is guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment. Any State officer who fails to "make all diligent efforts" to protect an individual against lynchers, or who "fails, neglects, or refuses" to perform his duty in apprehending, keeping in custody, or prosecuting to final judgment" all persons participating in a lynching is guilty of a felony, and may be fined not more than $5,000, or sent to prison for not more than 5 years, or both. If it appears that he actually "conspired, combined, and confederated" with the lynchers, he may be imprisoned for life.

II

Obviously, this bill has teeth in it. It lays no blame and no penalty on the honest officer who tries to do his duty but is overcome by the mob, but it fetches the fraud who offers only a formal defense, or who turns over his prisoner without any defense at all. Moreover, it is wide enough to take in district attorneys as well as sheriffs and jailers, and is even, I suspect, wide enough to take in judges. Any functionary, high or low, who is charged with the duty of apprehending, keeping in custody, or prosecuting any person concerned in a lynching may be brought to book, and if it appears that he failed in, neglected, or refused that duty he may be sent to prison.

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There is further provision for damages for the heirs of the victim, collectible by a proceeding in the nearest Federal court against the offending county, or, if two counties be concerned, against them "jointly and severally." The amount fixed is $10,000, and it is payable to the victim's wife and children, if he has any, or to his dependent parents. If he has no relatives the money is to be paid into the United States Treasury. In any event, the suit for it "shall be brought and prosecuted by the district attorney of the United States", and in case there is a judgment and it is not met, the Federal marshal may "levy upon any property of the county", or the appropriate county officers may be haled before the Federal judge and jailed for contempt.

There is nothing in the bill about damages for persons who are manhandled by a mob but not killed. This seems to have been an oversight, and I assume that Senators Costigan and Wagner will remedy it when their attention is called to it. Certainly a man who survives an attempt to lynch him, as sometimes happens, should have damages, and equally certainly there should be damages for the man who is merely roughed. Such assaults, like actual lynchings, are seldom possible without the connivance of the county officers. Finally, the bill makes a Federal offense of "any act in violation of the rights of a citizen or subject of a foreign country secured to such citizen or subject by treaty between the United States and such foreign country", but only to the extent that the act is punishable under the laws of the State in which it is committed.

III

The merits of this proposed law are plain enough. It avoids the error, so often made in State antilynching statutes, of erecting lynching into a special crime, distinct from ordinary homicide. That device, obviously, can only work in favor of the lynchers. Under the Costigan-Wagner bill they are put on all fours with common murderers, and are liable to capital punishment in States where it is inflicted, and to life imprisonment in the rest. These heavy penalties will not only tend to dissuade the village bullies and morons who perpetrate nearly all lynchings, they will also make it crystal clear that lynching is not to be defended any more as a mere aberration of public spirit, but is murder plain and unadulterated.

Another excellent provision is that which throws responsibility directly on the local enforcement officers, including especially the district attorney, and punishes them severely for neglect of duty. If, as I have suggested, the net is wide enough to take in judges also, so much the better. In at least four cases out of five the criminals who carry off a lynching are known to every man, woman, and child within 20 miles of the scene. The local sheriff, if he wanted to, could easily jail them, and the local district attorney could bring them to trial. Unfortunately, both officers, with their eyes on the next election, usually evade their duty, and it is seldom that the local judge urges them to it, for he is commonly a timorous professional job holder just as they are.

When he is anything better the lynchers are quickly brought to justice. I point, for example, to the case of Judge Neill A. Sinclair, of North Carolina. In Judge Sinclair's eirenit, during the Ku-Klux pestilence of 6 or 8 years ago, there were many atrocities upon helpless persons, and the local officers com

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