JUDGE! IyYNCH AND HIS INFIAJUNCE volleys of bullets which lays the father low in death, kills the babe on its mother’s bosom, cruelly wounds the mother, and renders the three older children cripples for life. Is that a Cuban scene do you ask ? Is that man a Cuban and is this a baud of Spanish soldiers? No! Shame on us! That is a scene from the history of free America, this man was an American, and this band of murderers an American mob. What was the man’s offence, what had he done to merit such terrible punishment? God created that man black and President McKinley appointed him a postmaster. Those were his crimes; for those he died and for those his family suffered the loss of home, of health and strength, of sister and daughter, of father and husband. As the news flashed over the country it caused a thrill of horror but the sensa tion lasted for only a day. We were too busy just at that time arranging to give Spain lessons in humanity to dwell long on such an event. This tragedy occurred at Take City, South Carolina, on the morning of the 22d day of last February just as the bells of the village had ceased ringing a glad welcome to the birthday of the father of a country which declares that all men are born free and equal. It is only one of many such crimes. Past year 166 such awful blots were placed upon the fair pages of our history; 166 terrible blood stains silently appealing to heaven for justice. And they were not by any means confined to southern states nor to outrages against the black man as witness the lynchings at Ver sailles, Indiana, where five men guilty only of petty burglary were one and all launched into eternity; the riot at Urbana, Ohio, where one man was lynched and several lost their lives in an en counter with the state militia. We are shocked and horrified at the awful deeds of the Turk in Armenia. We say in the most emphatic terms to Spain, ‘ ‘ You cannot on American soil no, nor on Asiatic soil either, longer continue methods of the middle ages in these days of enlightenment and civilization.” But while we are so zealous to remove what we firmly believe is a beam from our brother’s eye there is certainly a very large mote to be removed from our own eye. Such scenes as those mentioned are revolting. We would much rather turn from them for something more congenial but their meaning and their results are too important and far-reaching to be neglected. We might dwell on the injustice to the victim, on the
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