Part 21

The cornerstone of the Republic is justice, to establish which, under liberty, its founders set foot upon these hostile shores in the early part of the seventeenth century. From that time to the present the slogan of every campaign, the rallying cry of every battle, has been justice in some form or other. And yet, in the alleged interest of innocence, justice, in certain localities, is often outraged, law dethroned, and mob rule exalted.

Whether or not the Negro charged with crime is justly dealt with in the courts of the South can only be answered relatively, for in some localities fair trials are granted even to Negroes charged with the commission of crime. But for the most part, it must be admitted that Negroes brought into the courts of the South accused of crime against white people are not accorded a fair trial.

The reason of this unjust dealing with the Negro in the courts of the South is not far to seek; he is looked upon as an alien; then, too, the doctrine that he has no rights which a white man is bound to respect is exploded in certain localities only in theory, for in practice it is still unmistakably prevalent.

The crying need of the times is a wholesome respect for law and order, and a righteous condemnation of mob rule everywhere. Every pulpit North and South should speak out against mob rule and lynch law. The eloquent divine in Greenville, Miss., who recently denounced with righteous indignation the damnable outrages of mob violence in that state, was as a voice crying in the wilderness. For some reason his brethren of the cloth have not seen fit to join him in a crusade against this abominable sin. If the Southern clergy could only be induced to preach against this evil occasionally, there would soon be created throughout the sin-ridden districts such a healthy public sentiment and respect for law and order that these crimes against the state would soon become things of the past; nor could there be found throughout our broad land a miscreant, who, under the influence of the spirit of lawlessness, would take the life of our Chief Magistrate; nor would there be anywhere such an illiberal public sentiment as would openly criticise our Chief Executive for dining a representative member of the race whose feasts even Jupiter did not disdain to grace.

But let us consider the alleged crime for which lynching is attempted to be justified. L. H. Perkins, Esq., of the Kansas Bar Association, in an address to its annual meeting, in July, 1901, said:

"Lord Coke observes: 'There are crimes that are not so much as to be named among Christians.' It is difficult for us in Kansas to believe that certain crimes exist; crimes against nature, practiced by force upon defenseless childhood, disclosed in criminal records of great cities; but there is one crime in Kansas that we have learned to know. It ought not to be named, much less permitted in a Christian land. The crime and its fit punishment, can scarcely be discussed; but how else can it be expunged? Shall it be by fire? Must he who writes the story of this new-born age still further shock the world and foul the fair name of America by pictures of a howling mob, profaning every law of God and man; with every bulwark of our rights thrown down, the gates of hell unchained, and passion, loose, unbridled as hurricane, roaring above the prostrate guardians of the peace, annihilating in an hour the civilization of six thousand years?

"Death in flames! Savage, bloodthirsty vengeance! Three things this savory orgy lacks: salt and sweet herbs and a good appetite.

"There is a law that in the last extremity, in the presence of impending death, all barriers are removed, all ranks are leveled, all rights are equalized. Supreme necessity is supreme law. Can it be possible that some such overmastering impulse at times dethrones the public mind, and, while the fit is on, the latent cannibal runs riot in the land? It seems it must be so; and, if it be, 'twill be until we rise to the necessity.

"We may excoriate the cannibal, but which of us will now affirm the provocation is not great? Poor, helpless woman! Why don't she learn to shoot? This monstrous crime pursues her like a nightmare. It is an ever present peril to every woman in the land. Must she shun every alley and fly from every bush lest lascivious eyes be on her and unbridled, brutal passion block her way? Of all the hobgoblins abroad in the night, in fact or fancy or in song or story, there is none so hideous as the stealthy form of the lecherous brute that leaps forth out of darkness and drags defenseless woman to her ruin.

"And can it be that we who make the laws; we who have wives and daughters and sisters and mothers who are dearer than life itself; we who honor woman, not for her strength but for the very attributes that render her the prey of force; can it be that we can make no laws that will protect her, or satisfy the public that justice will be done?

"Concede that in the sight of God the crime of rape is worse than murder, yet is it plain that the punishment should be death? In the interest of woman herself were it not better that the brutal ravisher have somewhat more to bear if he do also murder? Else would not the motive to silence forever the most dangerous witness be complete?

"I offer the suggestion of three degrees for rape--the first to cover only ravishment by brutal violence and force; the second all the intermediate grades save statutory rape, which alone shall constitute the third degree. I am no firm believer in the justice of our age of consent, and would leave corporal punishment for statutory rape to the discretion of the trial court. The terms of imprisonment as now prescribed are doubtless long enough, but let us add to them the sting and shame of the ancient whipping post. For the third degree, in the court's discretion, not more than seven lashes. For the second degree two floggings of twenty lashes each, soundly administered within twelve months. And for the first degree, three several floggings of forty lashes each within twelve months, and then castration. There is much reason in this ancient penalty, and the time has come when it should be revived. If, as some say, this morbid and unbridled passion is disease, then treat it like appendicitis--remove the cause."

Mr. Perkins is on the right track. I am glad that he neither endorses lynching nor takes stock in the absurd report from certain sections of the South that all Negroes are ravishers of white women. I think his suggested remedy against rape a good one for white and black.

But to return to the consideration of the other phase of the question, I desire to say that Mrs. Helen Douglass, the widow of the lamented Frederick Douglass, is accepted authority on the convict lease system, and consequently I am indebted to her for most of the data used in this article touching that subject. In a well prepared lecture on convict leases, Mrs. Douglass introduces her theme as follows:

"We know what happens when manufactories are shut down and a vast amount of accumulated material is suddenly thrown upon the market. For 250 years the South had been manufacturing a peculiar article; had been literally stamping this article with its own lineaments and putting it upon a market created especially for it. The war came! The manufactories were closed; the material was on hand; what should be done with it? Never in the world, perhaps, has there been a clearer demonstration of the irrevocable nature of law, as affecting society, and the awful power of habit as the sum of reiterated choice."

At the Prison Reform Convention, held in Atlanta in 1888, Dr. P. D. Sims of Chattanooga, Tenn., said that, the impoverished condition of the South succeeding the War of the Rebellion, caused it to drift into the convict lease system, for which there were many excuses, but no justification. The lessee buys from the State the discipline of prisoners solely for gain; that neither the State nor the lessee had regard to the element of reform or consideration of a philanthropic character; that although many good men were engaged in it, the system was wrong. He presented the statistics of thirty-nine State prisons, showing that in the non-leasing prisons, the annual mortality was fifteen per thousand, while in the leasing, it was sixty-four per thousand, and that in the former, escapes were but five per thousand, and in the latter, they were fifty-one per thousand. He appealed to the South to change the system.

The lease system was adopted in Georgia in 1869, both Democrats and Republicans favoring it. The first year there were 350 convicts to be hired, and the second year the number doubled. An investigation showed that one company paid nothing to the State for the labor of its convicts, and that although the law provided for a chaplain, the State had none; that convicts were worked on Sundays contrary to law, and in some instances whipped to death. The evils of the system became so flagrant that a Senator on the floor of the Senate Chamber declared that the rich and powerful were allowed to go free, while the poor white person and the ignorant Negro were shown no mercy. It was proved that even a governor of the State was himself a lessee, working State convicts for private gain, under a $37,000 bond in force until 1899, although he was the convict's only protection against the wrongs of the lessee.

The ease and facility with which colored persons were sent to the penitentiary kept a goodly supply of prisoners on hand. While it was burdensome to taxpayers to keep them within walls, it was unjust to mechanics to allow them to learn trades; ergo, they were leased out to grade streets, to work on railroads, in mines and the like, where their physical powers might be availed of, but where they could learn nothing, save yes and no, axe and hoe.

By an act passed in 1876, by the legislature, the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad Company was leased 250 convicts for three years, to grade its road where the people were too poor to pay for it. The rest of the convicts the governor was authorized to lease to three penitentiary companies for twenty years for $500,000, to be paid in annual installments of $25,000. In a test case by two of these companies, in the Supreme Court of Georgia it was decided that the lessees acquired a vested right of property in the labor of these convicts, which the legislature could not disregard unless their labor was required by the State, in which case the lessee demanded compensation. The Supreme Court consequently granted an injunction restraining the keeper from delivering said convicts to said railroad company, thereby securing to the lessees a legal right of property in the labor of the convicts till the contract is legally terminated.

In an investigation of 1896, presided over by Governor Atkinson, Capt. Lowe, a lessee, testified:

"We do not think ourselves liable for the conduct of whipping bosses. They are given their commissions by the State, and we insist that they are answerable to the State alone. We cannot direct the whipping of convicts; it must be done by the bosses. If all the convicts were disabled by whipping, we think the State would be liable to us for loss of time, because the whipping bosses are the agents of the State."

Lessee Lowe admitted he was a close corporation, being president, secretary, treasurer, boss and everything else of the company, which held no meetings, had no stock, and declared no dividends.

Attorney-General Terrell held that the convicts were under the care of the lessees, whose duty it was to see that they were treated humanely, citing the order of 1887 by Governor Gordon, to prove that while the whipping bosses were appointed by the governor, they were under the control of the lessees. Governor Atkinson said that he did not dream for a moment that the lessees did not consider it their duty to see that the convicts were properly treated.

Mr. Huff, addressing the legislature, said, that "any attempt at reformation of the present system is an absurdity, a swindle and a fraud. It is a damnable outrage. The lessee contract would not stand fifteen minutes before a petit jury. I could hang any of the lessees before a petit jury in two and a half hours," said he.

One convict testified that in his case the skin came off with every blow inflicted by a soaked strap drawn through sand; that twenty bastard children were in one camp. A female convict testified that during her prison life of fourteen years she had borne seven children. A lessee testified that such irregularities as bastard children would occasionally occur as long as women were guarded by men.

Dr. Felton, addressing the Georgia Legislature, said:

"I stated ten years ago that the State was acting as a procuress for convict camps; the legislature is keeping up the supply in accordance with the demand. I repeat the accusation here and now."

In 1895 a number of convicts had their feet so frozen that the flesh and toes rotted off. Governor Atkinson enlightened the legislature of the deplorable condition existing in the convicts' camps through the report thereon by Hon. R. F. Wright, showing nearly fifty misdemeanor camps. In the chain-gangs were twenty-seven white and 768 colored convicts; generally both races and sexes being together day and night. Among these were eleven children under fourteen years of age. Some slept in rude floorless houses; some in tents on the bare ground, and a few in bunks. The bedding was scant and filthy, and full of vermin. The camps were poorly ventilated, the sleeping quarters being generally sweat-boxes, constructed to prevent escapes. There were no hospitals and no preparations for comfort or medical treatment. Female prisoners dressed in male attire, worked side by side with men.