The Tribune Independent Of Michigan

Governor Huey Long, in his recent interview given to the Editor of the Crisis, adroitly sidesteps the issue of lynching but glozes over this horrible lynching at Franklinton Louisiana with the remark that the Negro was guilty as hell. Mob violence operates with equal atrocity whether the victim be innocent or guilty. Senator Long contends that it would be useless for him, as governor of Louisiana, to pursue this tragic instance any further, because it would only result in the lynching of hundreds of other Negroes. The guilt or innocence of a lynched Negro is never afterwards judicially determined. In cases of conflict between the races, as happened at Franklinton, it may generally be taken for granted that the white man is the aggressor. The overawed and intimidated Negro would hardly assault a white man unless goaded on beyond the point of human endurance. The burden of guilt is always imposed upon the weaker vessel. The wolf above always blames the lamb for muddying the water below.

This is not said, however, to justify or condone the Negro criminal. The criminal record of the race is alarmingly high, even after we have made every allowance for injustice and discrimination. This criminal tendency is more glaring in the North where the courts are presumably fair than in the South. The criminal record of the Negro is a standing menace to the community for which white and black are alike responsible. The Negro is suppressed below the level of decent human existence and reduced to a status where vice and crime breed and fester. For this the whites are chiefly responsible, for they control the industrial, political and social machinery which keeps the Negro in a status of comparative ignorance and poverty the feeding ground of vice and crime. The whites are also in control of the Government and of the courts of law and thus it becomes their binding duty to encourage all the people along the lines of good citizenship. The Negro has no governmental or constituted authority over his own race. It is only the bond of blood and ties of sympathy that actuate him to voluntary advice and counsel of good behavior. Upon the Negro teacher, preacher, editor and general leader, devolves a heavy, though a voluntary responsibility upon Negro leadership, deprived of power to enforce good counsel and advice.

The Negro finds himself in a situation very similar to that which confronted the Jew under Roman overlordship when Jesus uttered his Sermon on the Mount. His advice to his Hebrew fellow-sufferers was based on practical prudence and salutary caution. "Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him." If thine enemy compel thee to go with him one mile, go with him twain. If he take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also. Unless the Hebrew peasant thus conduct himself, at the behest of the Roman Officer, he would deliver him to the Judge who would cast him into prison, from which he would not be released until he had paid his utmost farthing. The Negro in the South, out of a self-protecting caution, had better agree quickly with an officer of the law when he is in the way with him, else he runs the risk, not only of being cast into prison, but lynched on the nearest tree or lamp post, after which there is no recourse.

The whites who hold all power in their hands, should use every kindly endeavor to persuade and convince the Negro of the beneficial purpose and function of the law, that it is calculated to protect and safeguard their interest and wellbeing, and not merely as a means of humiliating and degrading them. Too often the policeman's club is the only instrument of the law with which the Negro comes into contact. This engenders in him a distrust and resentful attitude toward all public authorities and law officers. None can doubt that such a kindly attitude would go far to convince the Negro of the value to himself and advantage of law obedience and good citizenship.

On the other hand, those Negroes who stand in high places of intellectual, moral and spiritual leadership and authority among their own race, should never cease to inculcate practical wisdom of and obedience to the law and constituted social authorities. They that sin without the law, shall perish without the law. Too often, alas, Negroes who may or may not sin against the law, are condignly punished without the law. Lynching is the acme of all villainy. It is the common duty of white and black alike to unite in a common endeavor to stamp out this evil which is gnawing at the vitals of the Nation.