Men and women of America, are you proud of this record which the Anglo-Saxon race has made for itself?  Your silence seems to say that you are.  Your silence encourages a continuance of this sort of horror.  Only by earnest, active, united endeavor to arouse public sentiment can we hope to put a stop to these demonstrations of American barbarism.

+LYNCHING RECORD+

The following table of lynchings has been kept year by year by the Chicago Tribune, beginning with 1882, and shows the list of Negroes that have been lynched during that time: 

1882, Negroes murdered by mobs       52
1883, Negroes murdered by mobs       39
1884, Negroes murdered by mobs       53
1885, Negroes murdered by mobs      164
1886, Negroes murdered by mobs      136
1887, Negroes murdered by mobs      128
1888, Negroes murdered by mobs      143
1889, Negroes murdered by mobs      127
1890, Negroes murdered by mobs      171
1891, Negroes murdered by mobs      192
1892, Negroes murdered by mobs      241
1893, Negroes murdered by mobs      200
1894, Negroes murdered by mobs      190
1895, Negroes murdered by mobs      171
1896, Negroes murdered by mobs      131
1897, Negroes murdered by mobs      156
1898, Negroes murdered by mobs      127
1899, Negroes murdered by mobs      107

Of these thousands of men and women who have been put to death without judge or jury, less than one-third of them have been even accused of criminal assault.  The world at large has accepted unquestionably the statement that Negroes are lynched only for assaults upon white women.  Of those who were lynched from 1882 to 1891, the first ten years of the tabulated lynching record, the charges are as follows: 

Two hundred and sixty-nine were charged with rape; 253 with murder; 44 with robbery; 37 with incendiarism; 4 with burglary; 27 with race prejudice; 13 quarreled with white men; 10 with making threats; 7 with rioting; 5 with miscegenation; in 32 cases no reasons were given, the victims were lynched on general principles.

During the past five years the record is as follows: 

Of the 171 persons lynched in 1895 only 34 were charged with this crime.  In 1896, out of 131 persons who were lynched, only 34 were said to have assaulted women.  Of the 156 in 1897, only 32.  In 1898, out of 127 persons lynched, 24 were charged with the alleged “usual crime.”  In 1899, of the 107 lynchings, 16 were said to be for crimes against women.  These figures, of course, speak for themselves, and to the unprejudiced, fair-minded person it is only necessary to read and study them in order to show that the charge that the Negro is a moral outlaw is a false one, made for the purpose of injuring the Negro’s good name and to create public sentiment against him.

If public sentiment were alive, as it should be upon the subject, it would refuse to be longer hoodwinked, and the voice of conscience would refuse to be stilled by these false statements.  If the laws of the country were obeyed and respected by the white men of the country who charge that the Negro has no respect for law, these things could not be, for every individual, no matter what the charge, would have a fair trial and an opportunity to prove his guilt or innocence before a tribunal of law.