November 1911, charged, of course, with “the usual crime.” The charge had not been proven, or investigated; but the man was lynched. The howling mob which did him to death was composed of “prominent citizens” who had made up automobile parties to ride to the affair. Among those present was the dis-honorable Joshua Ashley, a member of the state legislature. He and his friends cut off the man’s fingers as souvenirs and were proud of their work. Why shouldn’t they? You see, it helps to keep “niggers” in their place. And then, besides, isn’t this a white man’s country? [19] Gov. Blease of South Carolina was also proud of the event and said that instead of stopping the horrible work of the mob he would have resigned his office to lead it. In Okemeah, Oklahoma, last June, a band of white beasts raped a Negro woman and then lynched her and her fourteen-year-old son Nothing has been done to them. And it is not that the facts are unknown. At Durant, Okla., and elsewhere, the savages have posed around their victim to have their pictures taken. One man, from Alabama sent to the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a post-card (by mail) bearing a photograph of such a group. “This is the way we treat them down here,” he writes, and, after promising to put Mr. Holmes’ name on his mailing list declares that they will have one, at least, each month. investigated [19] In Washington, Ga., Charles S. Holinshead, a wealthy white planter, raped the wife of T.B. Walker, a decent, respectable Negro. As his wife returned to him dishevelled and bleeding from the outrage perpetrated on her, Walker went to Holinshead’s store and shot him dead. For this he was tried and condemned and, while the judge was pronouncing sentence, Holinshead’s brother shot Walker in the court-room. They held his head up while the judge finished the sentence, Then he was taken out and lynched—not executed Nothing was done to the other Holinshead. The New York Evening Post, on October 23rd said in an editorial that “there has hardly been a [20] single authenticated case in a decade of the Negroes rising against the whites, despite the growing feeling, among them that there should be some retaliation since no tribunal will punish lynchers or enforce the law.” I am glad that the Post noticed this. I had begun to notice it myself. When President Roosevelt discussed lynching some years ago, he severely reprobated the Negro for their tendency to shield their “criminals” and ordered them to go out and help hunt them down. So was insult added to injury. October
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