It is not necessary, however, to make any representation concerning the W.C.T.U. and the lynching question.  The record of that organization speaks for itself.  During all the years prior to the agitation begun against Lynch Law, in which years men, women and children were scourged, hanged, shot and burned, the W.C.T.U. had no word, either of pity or protest; its great heart, which concerns itself about humanity the world over, was, toward our cause, pulseless as a stone.  Let those who deny this speak by the record.  Not until after the first British campaign, in 1893, was even a resolution passed by the body which is the self-constituted guardian for “God, home and native land.”

Nor need we go back to other years.  The annual session of that organization held in Cleveland in November, 1894, made a record which confirms and emphasizes the silence charged against it.  At that session, earnest efforts were made to secure the adoption of a resolution of protest against lynching.  At that very time two men were being tried for the murder of six colored men who were arrested on charge of barn burning, chained together, and on pretense of being taken to jail, were driven into the woods where they were ambushed and all six shot to death.  The six widows of the butchered men had just finished the most pathetic recital ever heard in any court room, and the mute appeal of twenty-seven orphans for justice touched the stoutest hearts.  Only two weeks prior to the session, Gov.  Jones of Alabama, in his last message to the retiring state legislature, cited the fact that in the two years just past, nine colored men had been taken from the legal authorities by lynching mobs and butchered in cold blood—­and not one of these victims was even charged with an assault upon womanhood.

It was thought that this great organization, in face of these facts, would not hesitate to place itself on record in a resolution of protest against this awful brutality towards colored people.  Miss Willard gave assurance that such a resolution would be adopted, and that assurance was relied on.  The record of the session shows in what good faith that assurance was kept.  After recommending an expression against Lynch Law, the President attacked the antilynching movement, deliberately misrepresenting my position, and in her annual address, charging me with a statement I never made.

Further than that, when the committee on resolutions reported their work, not a word was said against lynching.  In the interest of the cause I smothered the resentment.  I felt because of the unwarranted and unjust attack of the President, and labored with members to secure an expression of some kind, tending to abate the awful slaughter of my race.  A resolution against lynching was introduced by Mrs. Fessenden and read, and then that great Christian body, which in its resolutions had expressed itself in opposition to the social amusement of card playing, athletic sports and promiscuous dancing;