friend. There is indeed little more terrifying in human experience than the situation which occurs when one human being is entirely in the power of another, when the prisoner in the dungeon confronts his torturer, when the unprotected girl falls completely into the power of a man, when Shylock has Antonio delivered to him, and so forth. Cruelty can be awakened in almost any man and woman—it can be developed. A taste for cruelty is like a taste for drink or sexual desire or drugs. It is a lust. It is indeed one of the[15] worst of the lusts. One can forgive or excuse a man the other lusts, but cruelty one cannot—and indeed does not wish to forgive or excuse. Yet how readily does it develop. [15] The incredible story is told of a young girl lashed by the overseer, threatened with burning. She runs away. It is a gala day on the plantation. The white men hunt her to the swamps with bloodhounds and she is torn to bits before their eyes. They love the spectacle of terror even more than the spectacle of pain. The Negro, of nervous, excitable nature, is marked out by destiny to be a butt for cruelty. It is so to-day, long after emancipation; the Negro, in whom hysterical fear can be awakened, is the most likely to be lynched or chased by the mob or slowly burned for its delight. More terrible than the act of cruelty is the state of mind of those who can look on at it and gloat over it. After all, a lynching is often roughly excusable. A man commits a heinous crime against a woman, scandalizing the community, and the community takes the law into its own hands. The rightness of the action can be argued. But what of the state of heart of a mob of a thousand, watching a Negro burning to death, listening happily to his yells and crying out to “make him die slow”? It is an appalling revelation of the devil in man. And despite the fact that such cruelty agonizes the mind of the tender-hearted and sympathetic,[16] we must remain tolerant in judgment. We must not tolerate intolerance; in all other respects we must be tolerant. [16] Cruelty is in man. The planters did the natural thing with the slaves who came into their power. The white South would slip into the same way of life again to-day if slavery could be introduced. What is more, you and I, and every man, unless he were of an exceptional nature, would succumb to the system and disgrace ourselves with similar cruelty. A demon not altogether banished still lurks in most of us and
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