setts, in 1773, mobbism has inevitably degenerated to the point where an uncomfortably large percentage of American citizens can read in their newspapers of the slow roasting alive of a human being in Mississippi and turn, promptly and with little thought, to the comic strip or sporting page. Thus has lynching become an almost integral part of our national folkways.
The present inquiry was begun with the intention of treating lynching as an isolated phenomenon, but that idea was of necessity abandoned before the inquiry had proceeded very far. The reason for this change is that the deeper one inquires into the subject, the more one must regard lynching as being of only minor importance in itself; it is as a symptom of a malodorous economic and social condition that it is chiefly significant. Only such facts are included in the present study regarding the number, place, and method of lynchings as were deemed necessary for the enlightenment of those who know little of the situation. From these an effort has been made to isolate and examine the various ingredients of lynching—economic forces, race prejudice, religion, sex, politics, journalism, and theories of
