A terrible outbreak of murderous race-hatred took place at Springfield,
the scene of Lincoln's early career, and a prosperous town of Illinois, on Friday and Saturday. A crowd attempted to lynch two negroes, one of whom was charged with assaulthig a white woman. The authorities successfully removed the negroea in a motor-car. The crowd then wrecked the property of the man who owned the motor.car. Troops intervened, and two men were killed and twenty wounded in the struggle. The furious mob then rushed to the negro quarter. Every negro had fled, and the rioters, had to content themselves with destroying property. But about daybreak an innocent negro was found and lynched. The lynchers danced round the body until they were dispersed by the troops. Later on Saturday another negro of known respectability was found and lynched. The troops prevented the lynchers from shutting the negro's family in their house and burning them. The insensate brutality of such an affair is of course felt to be a deep, disgrace by all decent Americans. The Press unanimously denounces it. But one cannot forget that a similar murderous hysteria manifested itself at Atlanta two years ago. Ordinary lynchings are unhappily almost too frequent to be recorded, but it is very disappointing to learn that race intolerance in its most horrible form may be found in a Northern State.
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