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| Chicago Tribune, 09-July-1923 |
Missouri Representative Leonidas C Dyer first introduced his anti-lynching bill in 1918. In most cases, it passed in the House, but got filibustered by southerners in the Senate, who supported what we now call domestic terrorism.
PROTAGONISTS OF NATIONAL ANTI-LYNCHING LAW
RALLY AGAIN AS MOB CRIMES CONTINUE
By NEA Service
Washington, July 9 -- Proponents of the much-filibustered Dyer anti-lynching bill are renewing their efforts to inscribe it on the federal statute books as reports of mob killings trickle in from all over the country.
Failure of Congress to enact the measure at the last session is regarded by supporters of the Dyer proposal as a partial condonement of mob rule.
Plans to shove the bill through the next session are being formulated now. Leaders declare the fight will be waged with renewed vigor when the speaker’s gavel falls on the House rostrum when the lawmakers return to their tasks.
Mob Still Busy
During the first three months of this year, four men were lynched by unidentified mobs, official statistics reveal. Three were negroes. One was white.
Thirteen persons -- six whites and seven negroes -- were killed in riots.
Nineteen, including two white women, were flogged publicly. Four were victims of masked mobs.
In 1922, 57 persons were stolen out of their jail cells and summarily executed by gangs of infuriated citizens who took the law into their hands.
South Shakes Off Yoke
Judge Lynch, cold unreasoning advocate of old Virginia, had come back to the bench.
But observers believe mob violence is on the wane in the south. The number of lynchings in Dixieland have decreased somewhat in recent years.
This is due, according to those who have studied the situation, to two things:
Migration of thousands of negroes to the north.
And a reaction from the agitation for a federal anti-lynching bill, such as that introduced by Representative L. C. Dyer of St. Louis.
Women Take Up Cudgel
Women in Louisiana have banded together to blot out lynchings. They’ve organized the Louisiana Race Relations Committee. Similar steps are being taken by their sisters in other southern states.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New York, together with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has been working tirelessly in behalf of the Dyer measure. So is the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute of Tuskegee, Ala.
The latter institution has compiled figures showing Texas, in 1922, led all other states in the number of lynchings within its borders. It had 18 victims.
Official Report
Reports of the Civil Liberties Union list these lynchings for 1923:
LOUSIANA. Leslie Leggett, a negro accused of associating with white women, was kidnapped and lynched at Sheroveport on Jan. 4. Police had been unable to obtain evidence warranting his arrest.
ARKANSAS: E. C. Gregor, a railroad striker, was lynched on Jan. 13 by a mob of farmers at Harrison, who visited his home in search of evidence in connection with destruction of property of the Missouri & North Arkansas railroad.
TEXAS: Dr. John Smith, a negro physician, was burned to death at Bishop after his hands and feet had been cut off by unknown persons. He had been arrested for injuring a woman while driving his automobile.
Appeal to Religion
GEORGIA: An unidentified negro was lynched in a swamp near Devereux on Feb. 3 by a posse which accused him with robbing stores and killing William Renfroe, county constable.
Meanwhile clergymen and social workers are appealing to religious instincts to stop these wholesale murders.
"Let the law take its course," they advise. "Our courts are for the protection of man’s rights. And they will see that justice is meted out. The guilty will be punished and the innocent will go free.
"Judge Lynch is no longer the prototype of Twentieth Century Justice."
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| Chicago Tribune, 09-July-1923 |
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