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280 THE CRISIS [[images - three children]] reply-not if the people of the United States are in earnest in the desire to stop burning negroes alive. When in earnest and they can and do change the Constitution—witness the existing amendments.” The venerable Frank B. Sanborn follows this by a letter in which he says of the Negro: "It is people of this race- with faults enough, God knows, but the only sincere practical Christians in thousands of square miles-that the inherent, unconquerable barbarism entailed by slavery burns and shoots and tortures, as the Spaniard used to torture and burn the English captive. As Jefferson said in that same impassioned appeal to his white countrymen, 'I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot slumber forever.' The remedy must be found in the national Government taking up the cause of the Negro (to whom, in the critical year 1863, it largely owed its victory over rebellion), and putting down by the strong hand insufferable criminalities, such as you have described." The New York Evening Post, commenting on a lynching for the alleged stealing of three mules, says: "This is the kind of lynching we have been getting accustomed to hearing of, now these many years. The old-time excuse that the crime for which Negroes were treated in this barbarous fashion was one which made men's blood boil has long since ceased to be put to the front. So also has the other excuse, that the law's delays or uncertainties were unbearable. For cold-blooded and inexcusable brutality and lawlessness, it would be difficult to get a stronger case than this from Mississippi. *** There is not the faintest indication that the perpetrators of this horrible crime against the law and against humanity will be brought to account for their act." One variation on this grim theme comes from Tennessee, and the Miami (Fla.) Metropolis, a white paper, says: "Last Monday morning in Clarksville, Tenn., the seventeen-year old son of a prominent farmer was shot and killed by a mob of Negroes because of his alleged criminal assault on a twelve-year-old Negro girl. The uncle of the girl admitted that he fired the shot that killed the boy, and - here is the circumstance upon which the South may re- [[images - three children]] The Opinion 281 gain much lost respect - a coroner's jury returned a verdict of 'justifiable homicide!' "It was 'only a little Negro girl' and the boy was the son of a respected white man, but the same impulse that would direct a crowd of southern white men to take vengeance on a 'Negro fiend' directed the girl's kinsmen to carry out their mob law. "And in this case of these Negroes, 'mob law' is more to be forgiven than it could ever be in the case of white men. If the boy had been arrested and tried in any white man's court it is not conceivable that he would have been sent to pay the penalty for his crime and his death should be looked upon as a blessing to the community in which he lived." A Curious Error THE NEGRO PRESS The August CRISIS quoted the St. Luke's Herald as follows: "The greatest Negro school in the country is Howard University, with nearly 1,500 students, representing 35 states and the District of Columbia. If race ideals are to be taught in any school in this country, one would most assuredly expect to find it in Howard University, Washington D.C. Yet, in this great Negro School, the walls bear not one Negro face despite the distinguished Alumni and Alumnae which the University has produced." The Secretary of Howard University immediately wrote us: "There hang upon the walls of Howard University the portraits of Frederick Douglass, John M. Langston, Robert Purvis, Dr. Charles B. Purvis, Dr. Furman Shadd, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, Henry O. Tanner and Wiley Lane. In the Andrew Rankin Chapel there is a beautiful memorial window erected in honor of Prof. C.C. Cook, also a pure white marble tablet in memory of Miss Martha Briggs. There has always been a bust of Frederick Douglass in the Chapel until in making some repairs a carpenter damaged it. It will be repaired and replaced. There has always been until within a few weeks ago a bronze bust of Booker T. Washington in the Carnegie Library, and in the Secretary's office there is a picture of the first group of Fisk Jubilee Singers. All these are held to produce inspiration among the students. "The writer of the statement in your paper is scarcely excusable, for it is not a mistake in detail but a wholesale sweeping statement that he could not have known was true because it is not true. Please give this statement as wide a circulation as you gave the other. I think the error should be laid at the door of the CRISIS as well as at the door of the writer of the article." St. Luke's Herald has always seemed such a reliable paper that the CRISIS has quoted it with confidence. We immediately wrote to St. Luke's Herald for an explanation. A month has passed and we have received no answer. We have, therefore, two apologizes to make: one is to the Howard University for an unintentional misstatement. The other is to St. Luke's Herald for evidently mistaking the reliability of that publication. All of which is another sermon on the Negro Press. Some More Lies VOTERS AND SCHOOLS R.M. Powell writes in the Truth-Seeker (N.Y.): "Mr. Smith is greatly in error when he says the whites of the South have nine months free school, and the Negroes only three. There is no discrimination whatever in the amount per capita of the public money." The Columbia (S.C.) State, a southern white paper, says editorially about the same time and says it in capitals: "FOR EACH ONE DOLLAR OF TAX REVENUES SPENT FOR THE SCHOOLING OF A NEGRO CHILD SEVEN DOLLARS AND OVER IS EXPENDED FOR THE SCHOOLING OF A WHITE CHILD." In cheerful ignorance, or something worse, Mr. Smith proceeds: "During reconstruction times when the [[image - photograph of little girl]] [[caption]] WASHINGTON [[/caption]]
