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.

Lawlessness grows by what it feeds upon; and when mobs begin to lynch for rape they speedily extend the sphere of their operations and lynch for many other kinds of crimes, so that two-thirds of the lynchings are not for rape at all; while a considerable proportion of the individuals lynched are innocent of all crime.  Governor Candler, of Georgia, stated on one occasion some years ago:  “I can say of a verity that I have, within the last month, saved the lives of