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11.

his rallying cry for the liberation of humanity is made a
delusion and a snare by these racial barbarities.

It is needless to attempt to place the blame
on the helpless Negro. In the early stages of these out-
breaks there was an attempt to fix an evil and lecherous
reputation on the Negro race as lying at the basis of
lynching and lawlessness. Statistics most clearly refute
this contention. The great majority of the outbreaks can
not even allege rapeful assault in extenuation. It is un-
doubtedly true that there are imbruited and lawless members
of the Negro race as there are of the white race capable of
committing any outrageous and hideous offence. The Negro
possesses the imperfections of his status. His virtues as
well as his failures are simply human. It is a fatuous
philosophy, however, that would resort to cruel and unusual
punishment as a deterrent to crime. Lynching has never
made one Negro virtuous of planted the seed of right doing
in the mind of a single American citizen. The Negro should
be encouraged in all right directions to develop his best
manly and human qualities. Where he deviates from the
accepted standard he should be punished by due process of
law. But as long as the Negro is held in general despite
and suppressed below the level of human privilege, just so
long will he produce a disproportionate number of individuals
of evil propensity. To relegate the Negro to a status that
encourages the baser instincts of humanity and then denounce
him because he does not stand forth as a model of human per-

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