The Disease Within

On last January at Sikeston, Missouri, Cleo Wright was shot, dragged behind an automobile, and burned in gasolene. That was at 2:30 p.m. At 3:30, the bloody details were known throughout the South, as well as in Malaya, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and the islands of the Pacific. With a Japanese broadcast to the colored peoples of the world, the American institution of "lynch law" had become a deadly enemy of democracy in a very real as well as in a theoretical sense.

The Japanese know that within three weeks of the declaration of war American lynchings more than doubled, and they realize the power of such propaganda among the brown people of the Dutch and British empires. It is unbeatable propaganda because it is true, as true as the stories of Fascist barbarism that keeps a conquered Europe friendly to Germany's enemies. Our blindness, smugness, and self-righteousness are not a state of mind which can communicate to the "little brown brother" on the other side of the globe. We can talk to ourselves and to the British about racial equality, human suffrage, and the right to trial by jury, but Japan is quoting facts and figures to prove that we are guilty of crimes as foul as those we attribute to Hitler's henchmen.

What answer is there to the radio which cautions the world against the democracy which is coming to Asia to hang men without trial or burn them alive? Shall we merely counter with Nazi horror tales, or deny that colored draftees were fired on in North Carolina? Or would it be better to reassure the Allies' colonials that we reserve such treatment solely for our domestic Negroes?

An educational conversion of the South would take much longer than the available time, which is nil. But some temporary relief may arise from anti-lynch petitions, like that which the Harvard Inter-Race Council will circulate tonight in an open meeting in the Lowell Junior Common Room. We cannot afford to let the lobbies, campaigns, and popular waves of indignation continue their peace-time feebleness into the war.