Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

THE UNITED STATES OF LYNCHERDOM

to the general run of the race, is more dreaded than
wounds and death. When there is to be a lynching
the people hitch up and come miles to see it, bringing
their wives and children. Really to see it? Nothey come only because they are afraid to stay at
home, lest it be noticed and offensively commented
upon. We may believe this, for we all know how
we feel about such spectacles-also, how we would
act under the like pressure. We are not any better
nor any braver than anybody else, and we must
not try to creep out of it.
A Savonarola can quell and scatter a mob of
lynchers with a mere glance of his eye: so can a
Merrill1 or a Beloat.2 For no mob has any sand in
the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave.
Besides, a lynching mob would like to be scattered,
for of a certainty there are never ten men in it who
would not prefer to be somewhere else-and would
be, if they but had the courage to go. When I was
a boy I saw a brave gentleman deride and insult a
mob and drive it away; and afterward, in Nevada,
I saw a noted desperado make two hundred men
sit still, with the house burning under them, until
he gave them permission to retire. A plucky man
can rob a whole passenger train by himself; and the
half of a brave man can hold up a stagecoach and
strip its occupants.
Then perhaps the remedy for lynchings comes to
this: station a brave man in each affected community
Sheriff of Carroll County, Georgia.
2 Sheriff, Princeton, Indiana. By that formidable power which
lies in an established reputation for cold pluck they faced lynching
mobs and securely held the field against them.
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