Note 8 — PART I SOUTHWARD HO!

One of the most sensible men in the South is certainly Mr. E. G. Murphy, who writes (“The Present South,” p. 177): “The mob, so far as it has a conscious philosophy, has attempted the justification of its course upon these grounds: It has insisted that its methods were necessary in order to prevent the crime; in order to avoid the procrastination of the courts; and in order to protect the victim of assault from the ordeal of presenting testimony at the trial of the offender. It has become increasingly obvious, however, that the practice of lynching ... is not a remedy. It does not prevent crime. Through the morbid interest which it arouses, and through the publicity which it creates, it inflames to the utmost the power of criminal suggestion and aggravates all the conditions of racial suspicion and antagonism. The so-called ‘remedy’ has always been followed by new outbreaks of the disease, the most atrocious crimes coming at short intervals after the previous exercise of the mob’s philosophy of ‘prevention.’” “Lynching as a remedy,” says Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, “is a ghastly failure.” The opposite opinion, however, has still its champions. “The lynch lightning,” says Mr. W. B. Smith (an anti-negro extremist), “seldom strikes twice in the same district or community.” “The Colour-Line,” p. 259.