To Stop Lynching.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1922, Page 4

To Stop Lynching.

A DRASTIC BILL BEFORE CONGRESS.

NEW YORK, Jan. 10

In some early legal codes the commission of a crime subjected to a penally the whole community in the district where offence had been j>erpetrated. This doctrine of corporate responsibility has disappeared from our modern penal systems, Imt ir is being revived in America in a singularly interesting form. There is now before Con- , gress a Federal Anti-Lyncning Rill, j which will impose a line of 10,000 dob ; lars.upon every country within whose j borders a lynching occurs. If there is any crime for which it i is meet to make the whole body of j citizens suffer, it is surely that of over- j riding the due processes of law in order i to inflict summary vengeance upon a j suspected person who has been allow- j ed no opportunity of self-defence in i the courts. Lynching is not an out- j break of uncontrolled passion on the j part of a single individual. It is the . work of a mob, and a mob which, in j the Southern States, often includes many of the moßt respected and influ- | eneial members of the community. ! Hitherto, the task of suppressing this j crime has been left in America to the j State Legislatures and the State offi- j dials. Rut, ex hypothesi, it is in the j very districts where the offence is most j rampant that the pressure of local j opinion can he least trusted to supply j and enforce a corrective. Aet this is not a matter in which any State can , justly claim to lie independent of outside .interference, for the continued prevalence of such disorders in any part of the country grievously affects the reputation of the entire nation.

Americans are not easily persuaded to attempt any reform that impairs SLate rights, blit the failure of the present' system has at last produced a widespread conviction Mini federal intervention is necessary to eo|K.‘ with this evil. In each of the lasi four years no fewer than sixty lives have been taken by lynching mobs in different parts of the country. The Bill now before Congress has a weighty backing, having been approved by the Attorney ffeiicral and favourably reported upon by the Mouse Cuminitioe on the Judiciary, and the Congressional leaders are confident that it will become law before the'dose of the present session. In addition to the clause above mentioned, it prescribes a term of imprisonment, ranging from five years to a life sentence, for every one convicted of taking part in a lynching. and inflicts a heavy line and im-

prisonment up to five years upon every j State or municipal officer .who neglects I to guard any person within his pro- 1 teetion from death at the hands of a] mob. Whether such an enactment will be constitutional cannot, of course, be definitely decided until a test case arising under it has been carried to the Supreme Court at M ashington. Its advocates, however, have the support of the Attorney General in relying upon the provision of the Constitution which guarantees to every citizen protection from being deprived ol life, liberty, or property without due process of law, supplemented as it is by the furthei provision that Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. It was with regard to other matters than lynching that Mr Elihu Root several vears ago addressed to the State Governments, a warning that neglect of their responsibilities would compel the Federal Government-, however reluctantly, to step in. But the lynching evil is certainly one which in a special ilogrcfc- would justify the employment of so drastic a remedy, lor, as the New York “Evening Post” remarks, “suppression of the practice of burning human beings at tiie stake would seem to fall within the purviety of a Constitution enacted tor the purpose of establishing justice and ensuing domestic tranquility.”