copied his vices as well as his virtues. But we do insist that the
punishment is not the same for both classes of criminals. In lynching,
opportunity is not given the Negro to defend himself against the
unsupported accusations of white men and women. The word of the accuser is
held to be true and the excited bloodthirsty mob demands that the rule of
law be reversed and instead of proving the accused to be guilty, the
victim of their hate and revenge must prove himself innocent. No evidence
he can offer will satisfy the mob; he is bound hand and foot and swung
into eternity. Then to excuse its infamy, the mob almost invariably
reports the monstrous falsehood that its victim made a full confession
before he was hanged.

With all military, legal and political power in their hands, only two of
the lynching States have attempted a check by exercising the power which
is theirs. Mayor Trout, of Roanoke, Virginia, called out the militia in
1893, to protect a Negro prisoner, and in so doing nine men were killed
and a number wounded. Then the mayor and militia withdrew, left the Negro
to his fate and he was promptly lynched. The business men realized the
blow to the town's were given light sentences, the highest being one of
twelve financial interests, called the mayor home, the grand jury
indicted and prosecuted the ringleaders of the mob. They months in State
prison. The day he arrived at the penitentiary, he was pardoned by the
governor of the State.

The only other real attempt made by the authorities to protect a prisoner
of the law, and which was more successful, was that of Gov. McKinley, of
Ohio, who sent the militia to Washington Courthouse, O., in October, 1894,
and five men were killed and twenty wounded in maintaining the principle
that the law must be upheld.