Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
There is one consideration which should be taken into account by the
good people who carry a sound proposition to an excess in objecting to
any criticism of a judge's decision. The instinct of the American
people as a whole is sound in this matter. They will not subscribe to
the doctrine that any public servant is to be above all criticism. If
the best citizens, those most competent to express their judgment in
such matters, and above all those belonging to the great and honorable
profession of the bar, so profoundly influential in American life, take
the position that there shall be no criticism of a judge under any
circumstances, their view will not be accepted by the American people
as a whole. In such event the people will turn to, and tend to accept
as justifiable, the intemperate and improper criticism uttered by
unworthy agitators. Surely it is a misfortune to leave to such critics
a function, right, in itself, which they are certain to abuse. Just and
temperate criticism, when necessary, is a safeguard against the
acceptance by the people as a whole of that intemperate antagonism
towards the judiciary which must be combated by every right-thinking
man, and which, if it became widespread among the people at large,
would constitute a dire menace to the Republic.
In connection with the delays of the law, I call your attention and the
attention of the Nation to the prevalence of crime among us, and above
all to the epidemic of lynching and mob violence that springs up, now
in one part of our country, now in another. Each section, North, South,
East, or West, has its own faults; no section can with wisdom spend its
time jeering at the faults of another section; it should be busy trying
to amend its own shortcomings. To deal with the crime of corruption It
is necessary to have an awakened public conscience, and to supplement
this by whatever legislation will add speed and certainty in the
execution of the law. When we deal with lynching even mote is
necessary. A great many white men are lynched, but the crime is
peculiarly frequent in respect to black men. The greatest existing
cause of lynching is the perpetration, especially by black men, of the
hideous crime of rape--the most abominable in all the category of
crimes, even worse than murder. Mobs frequently avenge the commission
of this crime by themselves torturing to death the man committing it;
thus avenging in bestial fashion a bestial deed, and reducing
themselves to a level with the criminal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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