The lynching of negroes is now so distinctively an American practice largely because of the racial contrast in the population which is peculiar to this country. Nowhere else in the temperate zone does a colored race of tropical origin come into contact in such numbers with a highly civilized race of European stock. The “native question” of tropical regions has here been transplanted, as it were, to the temperate zone.[345] Furthermore, the difficulties arising from ethnic contact within the tropics have been intensified rather than lessened by this change of environment. There are the same fundamental differences in racial characteristics and in racial heredity, but these become accentuated and seem even more adverse in a climate where the struggle for existence is of necessity much more vigorous and exacting. In addition, there has developed between the white race and the colored race in the United States an intolerant, inconsiderate spirit directly promoted by an unwise and short-sighted political policy. A great many years will doubtless be required for the effacement of the unfortunate results of past errors, involving as it does a very general understanding and recognition of the ethnic and “societal” factors which enter vitally into the “race question.” Only in so far as this comes about, however, will it be possible to establish a new order of society with an appropriate legal system in the place of that which formerly existed on the basis of the institution of slavery. The assumption made by many writers that more negroes are lynched for the crime of rape against white women than for any other crime is without foundation in fact. Statistics show that not more than thirty-four per cent of the negroes summarily put to death during the last twenty-two years have been lynched for that crime, either alleged, attempted, or actually committed. Lynching for that crime, however, leads to lynching for other crimes and also furnishes a ground for an appeal to public sentiment to condone the practice of lynching.