The Hawaiian Gazette

TO PREVENT LYNCHINGS.

Governor Atkinson of Georgia Tells His Views.

Governor Atkinson of Georgia doesn't believe in lynching. It is his opinion that they are not necessarily due to the nature of the negro but in a measure to his unrestrained freedom. The New York Herald recently secured the following interview with the Governor on the subject:

Lynchings in the south have been, with rare exceptions, exclusively for the offense of assault. In nearly every instance this crime is committed by a negro on a white woman. The frequent occurrence of the offense is due to the increase in the number of desperate negroes, who regard neither moral nor municipal law. While a considerable element of the negro race has greatly improved its moral, material, intellectual and religious status since the emancipation, it is unfortunately true that a very great number of them are vastly worse citizens than thought capable of on being freed. These have no conception of morality, no regard for the law or rights of others. During slavery, even covering the war period, when our women were under the protection of slaves, there were no outrages upon them. The evil which lynching is chiefly intended to exterminate is the direct result of giving freedom to people who have not been prepared to assume the responsibility or discharge the duties of citizens.

While lynching is to be lamented and condemned and must be stopped, there is no country in the world, if situated as we are in the south, which would not now have the same practice, and would not now have to solve the same problem which confronts us. When the press, pulpit and leaders of thought speak out in unmeasured terms in condemnation of this abominable practice, the people will be taught that crime cannot be exterminated by a resort to crime, that patriotic pride, the preservation of government, their own safety, demand that no man be deprived of life save by the due process of law.

Legislation can provide these remedies: In order to enlist the taxpayers in each county in preventing lawlessness and in detecting and punishing criminals, and to do justice to the heirs of the party lynched, the county from whose officers the party is taken and lynched should be liable in damages in a sum not less than $5,000, to be recovered in suit by the administrators of the party lynched.

The governor should be authorized to remove from office any arresting officer from whom a prisoner is taken by a mob when such officer has failed to do his whole duty. The law should require the officers having a prisoner in charge, when the mob attempts to take him from the officer, to arm the prisoner and give him an equal chance with the men who seek his life in violation of the law. The crime of assault should be made a capital offense.