"The Crime of Lynching and 'White Supremacy'" (1917)
Debs lambasts the idea of white supremacy in an uncovered article.
It is the boast of American people that they believe in law and order, that they are opposed to violence, and they are swift to condemn as anarchists and criminals all who fall under their displeasure for the real or fancied violation of their law and order code.
And yet, strange as it may appear, these same people are not greatly disturbed when innocent negroes are lynched by blood thirsty white mobs. Their serenity in such cases is no doubt due to the moral influence of “white supremacy.”
The fact is that lynching under any circumstances is shocking and disgraceful, an impeachment of civilized government, and the utter repudiation of law and order, and when the victims are innocent, lynching becomes an atrocious and revolting crime, and as long as the American people suffer this crime to be perpetrated they have no moral right to raise their voice in protest against crimes committed against Belgians, Armenians and other victims by other nations.
A record has been kept of the crimes perpetrated in recent years against the colored race by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and this record is sufficient to bring the blush of shame to the cheek of every American citizen.
In commenting on the lynching outrages in the South the Terre Haute Star, referring to specific instances, has this to say:
There was, for example, the lynching of the Lake family in Lee County, Ga., a few months ago. A negro farmer, named McQuinn, shot at by a mob, ran for his life and took refuge in the Lake home. When the sheriff came for him the Lakes being out of the house, he was shot by McQuinn. The latter was then taken out and hanged. THE NEXT NIGHT A MOB CAME AND TOOK THE LAKES, FATHER, THREE SONS AND A NEPHEW AND HANGED THEM TO ONE TREE, THOUGH KNOWING THAT THEY HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE SHOOTING.
This was simply cold-blooded murder of innocent people in its most abhorrent form and upon this basis the mob established its claim to “white supremacy.”
The Star also cites the following instance of brutal murder of innocent colored people by a mob of white brutes:
In Florida a negro, charged with hog stealing, shot the sheriff and escaped. In retribution the mob hanged the man’s wife, James Dennis and his wife and son, neighbors, and one Baskin, a colored preacher, also to teach white supremacy.
Suppose a negro mob should be guilty of perpetrating such an infamous outrage upon innocent white people, what would be the effect upon the “white supremacy” of the South? The whole country would seethe with the mob spirit and there would be a frantic uprising and insistent demand for the summary extermination of the whole colored population.
The Star in further comment on these unspeakable atrocities against innocent persons for no other reason than that their creator gave them black skins, black as the hearts of their cold-blooded assassins, says:
The negro association mentioned, has a photograph of the five Georgia victims as they hung from the tree and are putting it in circulation as an illustration of white man’s civilization. It is a ghastly picture which should cause every decent American to hang his head in shame. When you read the further record and note that five men in one year, 1915, were burned at the stake and that out of the eighty in that year who were lynched in one way or another only nine victims were charged with the crime against women commonly made the excuse for mob violence, he may well ask himself by what right we assume to criticise the acts even of the Mexican bandits while our own record is so evil.
If, as scripture teaches, they who take up the sword should perish by the sword, then they who stain their hands with innocent blood by committing the cowardly crime of lynching should themselves fall victims to the same ignominious fate.
The community that tolerates lynching, especially of an innocent victim, is still in the brute stage of its development. It is even lower than that for there are no brutes in the animal kingdom that wantonly kill their own kind for the mere sake of gratifying the brute lust of killing.
When one reads of these unspeakable crimes in the high noon of what is called Christian civilization in the supposedly most advanced nation on earth, one is painfully impressed with our white degeneracy instead of our vaunted white supremacy and a man who is really white almost feels as if he should take off his hat when he meets a colored man and apologize to him for the crimes of his race.
From the time the first negroes were stolen from their native land by heartless white pirates and traders in human flesh until now, the colored people have been the victims of infinite cruelties and crimes at the hands of their white superiors, (!) [Ed: exclamation mark in original] and now that they are no longer in chains, no longer owned as chattels, the only way to impress them with the “supremacy” of white civilization is to turn blood-thirsty mobs loose upon them, innocent though they be, and hang them and even their wives and children to trees and let them dangle there for the glory of their cold-blooded murderers.
Oh, yes, we are a Christian nation and we are highly civilized; we have our pious faces set like flint against violence and anarchy, for we believe, we who have established “white supremacy,” we believe in LAW AND ORDER!
Update: I’m just going through my notes and forgot to mention in my post: It was fairly common in these years for black newspapers to republish parts or all of Debs columns. The Omaha Monitor, for instance, republished the last several lines of this editorial the following month.
