But this line of argument can in no possible way be truthfully
sustained. The lynching of the six men in 1894, barbarous as it
was, was in no way more barbarous than took nothing more than a
passing notice. It was only the other lynchings which preceded
it, and of which the public fact that the attention of the
civilized world has been called to lynching in America which
made the people of Tennessee feel the absolute necessity for a
prompt, vigorous and just arraignment of all the murderers
connected with that crime. Lynching is no longer “Our Problem,”
it is the problem of the civilized world, and Tennessee could
not afford to refuse the legal measures which Christianity
demands shall be used for the punishment of crime. Only two
years prior to the massacre of the six men near Memphis, that
same city took part in a massacre in every way as bloody and
brutal as that of September last. It was the murder of three
young colored men and who were known to be among the most
honorable, reliable, worthy and peaceable