The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.13, page 501, 2 Nov. 1901, U. of Illinois Press

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ADD E N DA Is not easy to put in the same class the people who set at defiance law by an illegal hanging or burning. Perhaps the most demoralizing and hurtful result of mob violence Is the hardening effect which it has upon our youth. ~ think it is safe to say that on an average fifty persons witnessed the execution by lynching of every man or woman that has taken place in this country. According to this, it Is safe to say that, within the last sixteen years, one hundred and twenty-five thousand persons have been present when lynchings took place. In each case a large proportion of those who had been drawn to witness the unlawful execution have been children, or those of tender age. One of the saddest remarks that I ever heard come from the lips of a child was when he said, in my presence, that he wished he could see a man burned. I do not think the impression made upon a youth by reason of the fact that he has witnessed the unlawful execution of an individual ever wholly disappears. In some instances, the executions by mobs have not only been witnessed by boys of tender age, but by women. It is also a notable fact, that in the communities where every crime, no matter how heinous, is taken hold of by the strong arm of the law, the crimes which provoke lynching very seldom occur. The time would seem to have come when the subject of the majesty of the law should be taken up by the ministers in our pulpits throughout the country, and by our Sunday-schoo] teachers, in a way that has never been done before. If Christianity is to mean anything in shaping the lives of our people, it must not only deal with matters pertaining to the future world, but must most effectually dead with matters growing out of the relation of man to man in this world. In too many communities ~ very much fear the pulpit and the Sunday-schoo] teacher have been silent on this subject. ~ am not, in this article, pleading for the man who has been guilty of crime, but ~ am pleading most for those who are so unfortunate as to be led into the temptation of degrading themselves and disregarding the law, disrespecting the authority of governors, judges, and sheriffs. It is impossible for a youth to be so influenced that he can be made to fee] that he can break the law in one case and keep it in other cases without being permanently harmed. A great many citizens who have thought seriously upon the subject fee} that perhaps the shooting of our late President was an outgrowth 5o~