PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON LYNCHING

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8294, 24 September 1903, Page 4

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON LYNCHING

President Roosevelt has spoken out on th.- lynching question. In a letter to Mr Durbin, Governor of Indiana, he tells the American people what the results of the present outbreak of mob violence will be ur-lats it is speedily checked. "Such violence," says the President, "is simply one form of anarchy, and anarchy is now, as it always has been., the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny." The letter begins by thanking Mr Durbin for the admirable way in which he has vindicated the majesty of the law by his recent action with regard i o lynching, the reference being to Mr purbin's firm management of the crisis at Evansville. Mr Roosevelt goes onto say: —''AH thoughtful men must feel the gravest a'arm over the growth of lynching in-this countrv. and especially over the peculiarly hideous forms so often taken by mob viol:nce when colored men are the victims. .

. . In a certan proportion of these cases the man lynched has been guilty of a crime horrible beyond description, a crime so horrible that- as far as he himself is concerned lie has forfeited the right to any sympathy whatever. The feeling of all good citizens that such a hideous crime shall not be hideously punished by mob violence is due not in "the least to sympathy for the criminal, but to a very lively sense of the train of dreadful consequences which follow the course taken- by the mob in exciting inhuman vengeance for am inhuman wrong. Moreover, every effort should be made under' the law to expedite the proceedings of justice in the case of such an awful crime, but it cannot be necessary in order to- accomplish this to deprive any citizen of those fundamental rights to be heard in. his own defence which are so dear to us all and which lie at the root of our liberty. The fullest recognition of the horror of the- crime and the most complete lack of sympathy with the criminal cannot in the least diminish our horror ab the way in which it has become customary to avenge these crimes and at the consequences that already are proceeding therefrom.. It is, of course, inevitable where vengeance is taken by the mob that it should frequently light on innocent p?ople, and the wrong done in such a case to an individual is one for which there is no remedy. But even where the real criminal is' reached the wrong done bv the mob to the. community itself is well-nigh as great. Especially is this true where lynching is accompanied- with, torture. There are certain liideous sights which, when once seen, can never bei wholly erased from the mental retina. The mere fact of having seen thean implies degradation. This is a thousandfold stronger when of merely seeing the deed the.man has participated in.it. Whoever in any part of pur country- lias ever taken.', part "in: lawlessly■• putting'to death acMnunal by the dreadful torture of fire must for ever afte*. have the' awful soec'acle- of his own handiWbrk\seared into his' braim and soul. He can never aiain'be the same man." Mr Roosevelt then refers to the fact that in. the recent cases of lynching, over three-fourths were not for rape at all, but for murder, at-, tempted murder,- and even less hideous ofthat while they claim the right to speak with peculiar emphasis for 'the freedom and fair treatment of all men-, .they forfeit that Heht: when they-commit or condone ,such crimes as th»se he'epeaki.".',