nalized himself by serving two terms in the practice in the most important cases at the lower house of the Kentucky Legislature, Paducah bar. He was succeeded on the bench on Janu and had taken rank as a lawyer. He has for several years been a partner of his honored ary i, 1895, by Judge John R. Grace. father and his law firm has encaged a large
LYNCH LAW. BY O. F. HERSHEY OF THE MARYLAND BAR. EACH successive lynching in America brings forth appropriate editorial out cries and arouses the public censors to prompt and vigorous lamentation; but the community at large, even in its most inclu sive sense, does not appear to regard the crime with any deep-going or abiding shame or horror. In the last ten years nearly 2,000 persons have been lynched in the United States—a number exceeding the legal executions by nearly fifty per cent, yet it is an astonishing fact that less than a dozen lynchers have ever been tried for their crime and only one or two have been pun ished, and that of the hundreds of rewards for lynchers offered by virtuous governors, sworn to uphold the law, none have ever been paid; nor has any lyncher ever lost caste or character in his community. The truth of these sweeping statements has been strictly confirmed by a study of several communities guilty of four of the most outrageous lynchings during the last two years. In three of these cases white men were lynched, two of whom had already been condemned to be hung, while the other had admitted his guilt. The law had interposed no delays, having been in fact unusually swift and sure. Public feeling aroused by the criminal act had entirely subsided and there was no outraged hus band or father calling for revenge, nor was there any race feeling. Nevertheless the victims were taken vi ci arinis, by citizens
in good standing and brutally lynched. The press was duly shocked and the com munity was prompt with interviews, resolu tions and rewards, but not the slightest real effort was made to punish the lynchers. These lynchings took place in law abiding communities composed of the best types of American citizenship; and yet personal in terviews with different classes of the com munity—men and women of high birth, professional men, farmers, even ministers— failed to disclose any real horror. The sen timent of all classes appeared to be simply that a worthless man had met a just death. Everybody admitted that lynching was crim inal, but they seemed to regard it not as a crime against society, but as a crime against the individual, and as the individuals in ques tion were of no consequence, they claimed the crime was of no consequence. ' The in difference of all classes was palpable; an elopement or successful burglary would have created more excitement. It may be re marked in passing that this indifference is by no means confined to the South, for several of the most deplorable of recent lynchings took place in two of the most civilized communities of the middle west; one in a town having a dozen churches, ex cellent private and public schools, a public library, a university and a citizenship imbued with the best traditions of transplanted puritanism; here too, no serious effort was made to vindicate the law. The truth is
