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The Atlanta Constitution of Friday contained the following
editorial paragraph, the spirit of which will doubtless meet the sapetion [sic] of most men – The danger lies in a possibility of getting the wrong man: but where there no doubt [sic] as to the fiend , white or black, hanging or burning is not cruelty.
“On Wednesday night a negro was lynched in Valley Rica for a
felonious assault on a white woman. Yesterday a colored man was
arrested in Madison county for a similar attempt. One negro lies in
a terrell county jail awaiting execution for this crime. The lynching
of three negroes – one in Fort Gaines, one in LaGrange, and the
other in Blakely, are occurrences of the last six weeks. The mode
of punishment is unlawful, but the frightening nature of the crime
committed calls for decisive work. In country districts where
women are necessarily much alone, the question of their protection
becomes a serious one. Colored doctrinaires would do well to see it
that the patience of the people is not tried too much. If they offend
against the hearthstone they must prepared to dangle from every
convenient limb.”
Commenting upon the above, the Chattanooga Times of August
[sic] 24th, judiciously remarks:
“Lynching appears to have become the “common law” for
ravishers. In Ohio this horrible crime became so common that
people were forced to take its punishment into their own hands.
The hanging of a half dozen of them has about rid the State of that
class of offenders, who are infinitely more deserving of
strangulation than ordinary murderers. We cannot see why there
should be any hesitation in approving of the prompt dispatch of
such beasts: we certainly should offer no apology for the
community executing summary punishment on them. – In the
South there seems a need of striking terror to the souls of men so
brutal as to commit the offense of assaulting women. Many of the
most refined, cultured and delicate ladies in this section reside on
plantations, far removed from police or constabulary protection,
and natural protectors are necessarily often absent from home both
day and night. It should be fully impressed on the minds of all
ruffians, vagabonds, tramps, and the like characters that make any
attempt upon the sanctity of the person of women so situated will
be avenged on the spot by the death of their assaults. Nothing can
prove as effectual a safeguard, no other system of justice can as
surely rid the world of the wretches whose unbridled passions and
complete brutality have made them unfit to live – rendered their
swift remval [sic] the one means of protecting the weak and
warning the wicked.”
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