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20    THE CRISIS

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trict, he would use every effort possible to keep from sending convicts to the chaingang until there had been a complete reorganization of its management with all the present officers eliminated."
The problem of crime in the South is illustrated by this clipping from the New Your Sun, who quotes S.F. Favis, a Mississippi lawyer.
On the subject of the Negro law on gambling the writer says:
"Under our criminal statute it is a misdemeanor for any person to wager any money or other valuable thing on any game of chance or to play for money at any game of cards, or dice, etc., but it is the unwritten law--and the unwritten law applies in this case--that all Negroes may play a game of chance with dice, commonly called craps, for money or any other valuable thing on Saturday nights or any time during the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, provided, however, it is conducted in a quiet, orderly manner in a vacant cabin or cotton house on the back side of the plantation. But it is also the unwritten law of this State that a white person must not at any time or place, for either love or money or any other valuable thing, play a game of craps, that being recognized as a Negro game exclusively. It is also the unwritten law of this State that all white persons may play a game of chance with cards, commonly called poker, for money or for any other valuable thing, provided, however, that said game is conducted in a quiet, orderly manner in some private place after business hours, but a Negro must not under any circumstances play a game of poker for love or money, that being recognized as a white man's game."

Concerning the homicide law in its application to a Negro Mr. Davis says:

"If he kills a white man and is caught he is hanged, the time and place of his execution depending altogether on who caught him, the Sheriff's posse or the friends of the deceased. If the Sheriff's posse were the first to get possession of him he is hanged the third Friday after court adjourns; if the friends of the deceased are the first to get possession of him he is hanged at once, at or near the place where the killing occurred. When a Negro is indicted for killing another Negro he is seldom if ever tried. The usual practice is for the court to appoint some you and inexperienced attorney to defend him; then partly out of sympathy for the Negro and partly for the young attorney, the States attorney allows him to plead not guilty to the murder charge, but guilty of manslaughter and take sentence to the penitentiary, where he stays until he is pardoned a few years later. This plan always works very satisfactorily to all parties concerned--the State saves the expense of a trial, the Negro is saved from being hanged and the State gets another cotton producer on the State farm."

The following editorial from the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Courier is quite to the point:
"Twenty years ago a Negro of Alabama was convicted on a charge of larceny. It was shown that the Negro had stolen 50 cents. The judge sentenced him to the penitentiary for 50 years, explaining that the Negro should pay a year in servitude for each penny stolen. The present governor of the State of Alabama has just recently pardoned the Negro, with the comment that the sentence was out of all proportion to the crime.
"Not many months ago, in the same State, a white man, holding an official position, stole $90,000 from funds entrusted to him; he was given ten years to the penitentiary. Under the same system as practiced upon the Negro, this white man could have been given just nine million years in the penitentiary.
"But let us come nearer home. In Pennsylvania, not many months ago, a white woman lured some drunken men into an alley and robbed them of their money. She was paroled. Within the past year, a colored girl, charged with having stolen $7.00 from her white consort, was given 18 months in the workhouse. Three white men plead guilty to burglarizing a private residence. They were paroled. A Negro pleaded guilty to playing poker and was given three months to the workhouse.
"The above instances are sufficient to indicate that there is an evident division of crime with respect to the color of the criminal. A white man commits the highest possible and there is always some loop hole for his escape. A Negro may commit a crime of any degree whatever, and the law is inflexible; he must serve the days and years prescribed in the books. This is invariably the case. The exceptions are so few they do not merit mention.
"to add to this injustice, we get the report of the statistician on crime. He uses the

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OPINION
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prison and court dockets for his information and makes his reports accordingly. The magazine writers base their arguments upon the figures, and the poor Negro gets a picture of himself that beggars all description. He leads in crime, undoubtedly, he must lead, for the records so show, and who can dispute figures?
"But all of this is the white man's delusion, not ours. It is his civilization he is dissecting, not ours. He may classify crime and make partial reports to suit his necessity, but the truth of the situation rests undisturbed. To charge us with crime does not make us criminals; to give us long terms in prison does not subtract from the criminal class who enjoy short sentences. In the long process of evolution the criminal will classify himself. Then there will be no classification under the code, nor will the sentence of the criminal have any significance. At the present rate of his social and political disorder, the white man is destined to take the lead in all things criminal, and certainty he will not incur the envy of the Negro."

POLITICS
COLORED OFFICE HOLDERS
The Charlotte Observer remarks that President Wilson has not been able to do much with Congress so far as the Negro is concerned and continues:
"Hitherto President Wilson has not extended to such matters his mastery over Congress. Intent upon getting his reform measures through--having, as he said upon one well-remembered occasion, a single-track mind--he has given Congressmen their own way with patronage claimed by them. He has wished not to handicap his program by any side-issues or frictions of this kind. Hence the Senators opposing any Negro appointments even secured from him the appointment of a white man, a Missourian, as Minister to the Negro Republic of Haiti--rather a queer proceeding for them, we must say. But the issue is again up, the President has gotten through Congress all except one final round of his legislative program, and the elections are near at hand. Recently the President refused to turn down Attorney-General McReynolds' recommendation that Robert Terrell, colored, a municipal judge of the District of Columbia, be granted reappointment. And now he may or may not appoint a Negro to the recordership of deeds. The Northern Congressmen who have a considerable Negro electorate in their States or districts are concerning themselves, so that the Southerners no longer hold the field alone. It may develop into an unpleasant fight. Our own idea is that the belligerents should let the President appoint a Negro Recorder of Deeds if he shall so choose."

ANOTHER PUZZLE
THE "NEW" WILBERFORCE
Readers of The Crisis have doubtless scanned with some perplexity the irate letters nearly three feet long by President Scarborough of Wilberforce in the New York Age and News. He takes us to task for our article on the "New Wilberforce" in the August Crisis. The incensed gentleman gets real good and mad and says:
"In such an article we are accustomed to seek at once the motives inspiring it. In this case we are wondering whether it was inspired by a malicious desire to strike the college department in particular, to belittle what it has done and injure its standing and work for higher education; or, by a piques spirit which sees and opportunity for retaliation; or, by a spirit which thus repays personal favors through questionable eulogiums. Or, was it real unadulterated ignorance steeped in egotism? We must leave it for readers and those generally acquainted with the situation to judge."
We are greatly mystified by this astonishing exhibition of temper and after re-reading what we considered at the time a most excellent and helpful article on an institution which we greatly admire, we are compelled to appeal to our readers: If any reader of THE CRISIS can discover in the before-mentioned article anything calculated to make an otherwise mild professor of Greek tear his hair and "cuss," we will gladly give him a year's subscription to THE CRISIS. Send in your answers soon.

[[paragraph symbol]] Dr. Slyburn C. Downing, a young colored man who graduated from Howard Medical School a few years ago, was awarded the first prize, $25 in gold, in a contest conducted by the New York Medical Journal for the best essay on "The Treatment of Alcholic Cirrhosis of the Liver."

Transcription Notes:
Typed as read; did not enter the symbols separating the stories.