If it can be proved that the state
governments have exercised any of these functions in an efficient
manner, that proof certainly does not lie upon the surface of the facts.
The provisions they have made for keeping order have been utterly
inadequate, and have usually broken down when any serious reason for
disorder has existed. A certain part of this violence is, moreover, the
immediate result of the failure of American criminal justice. The
criminal laws have been so carefully framed and so admirably expounded
for the benefit of the lawyers and their clients, the malefactors, that
a very large proportion of American murderers escape the proper penalty
of their acts; and these dilatory and dubious judicial methods are
undoubtedly one effective cause of the prevalence of lynching in the
South. There is more to be said in favor of our civil than of our
criminal courts. In spite of a good deal of corruption and of
subserviency to special interests, the judges are usually honest men and
good average lawyers; but the fact that they are elected for
comparatively short terms has made them the creatures of the political
machine, and has demoralized their political standards.
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