And the people came strongly to the support of their officers. Hardy Whitlock became one of the most popular men in the county. Keeslar, coming up for reëlection the following fall, with mob-law for the essential issue, was returned to his office with an overwhelming majority. The sheriff told me that, in his opinion, the success of the officers in convicting the lynchers was due largely to a thoroughly awakened public opinion, the strong attitude of the newspapers, especially those of Chicago, the help of the governor, and the feeling, somehow, that the best sentiment of the county was behind them. _Conclusions Regarding Lynching in This Country_ And finally, we may, perhaps venture upon a few general conclusions. Lynching in this country is peculiarly the white man's burden. The white man has taken all the responsibility of government; he really governs in the North as well as in the South, in the North disfranchising the Negro with cash, in the South by law or by intimidation. All the machinery of justice is in his hands. How keen is the need, then, of calmness and strict justice in dealing with the Negro! Nothing more surely tends to bring the white man down to the lowest level of the criminal Negro than yielding to those blind instincts of savagery which find expression in the mob. The man who joins a mob, by his very acts, puts himself on a level with the Negro criminal: both have given way wholly to brute passion. For, if civilisation means anything, it means self-restraint; casting away self-restraint the white man becomes as savage as the criminal Negro. If the white man sets an example of non-obedience to law, of non-enforcement of law, and of unequal justice, what can be expected of the Negro? A criminal father is a poor preacher of homilies to a wayward son. The Negro sees a man, white or black, commit murder and go free, over and over again in all these lynching counties. Why should he fear to murder? Every passion of the white man is reflected and emphasised in the criminal Negro. CHAPTER X AN OSTRACISED RACE IN FERMENT THE CONFLICT OF NEGRO PARTIES AND NEGRO LEADERS OVER METHODS OF DEALING WITH THEIR OWN PROBLEM One of the things that has interested me most of all in studying Negro communities, especially in the North, has been to find them so torn by cliques and divided by such wide differences of opinion.