DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

hullabaloo, some yelling "no!" And the colonel, very
patient, rolls himself another smoke and lights it
from the butt of the first one. But finally they
quiets down enough so Will can put it to a vote.
Which vote goes fur the colonel to speak.
"Boys," he begins very quiet, "I wouldn't lynch
this man. In the first place it will look bad in
the newspapers, and--"
"The newspapers be d---d!" says some one.
"And in the second place," goes on the colonel,
"it would be against the law, and--"
"The law be d----d!" says Buck Hightower.
"There's a higher law!" says Grimes.
"Against the law," says the colonel, rising up
and throwing away his cigarette, and getting interested.
"I know how you feel about all this negro business.
And I feel the same way. We all know that
we must be the negros' masters. Grimes there
found that out when he came South, and the
idea pleased him so he hasn't been able to talk
about anything else since. Grimes has turned into
what the Northern newspapers think a typical
Southerner is.
"Boys, this thing of lynching gets to be a habit.
There's been a negro lynched to-day. He's the
third in this county in five years. They all needed
killing. If the thing stopped there I wouldn't care
so much. But the habit of illegal killing grows
when it gets started.
"It's grown on you. You're fixing to lynch your
first white man now. If you do, you'll lynch another
easier. You'll lynch one for murder and the
next for stealing hogs and the next because he's
unpopular and the next because he happens to
dun you for a debt. And in five years life will be