LYNCHINGS IN 1939 Sta,—I send you the following information concerning
lynch- ings for the year 1939. I find, according to the reports compiled in the Department of Records and Research, that there were three persons lynched in 1939. This is three less than the number six for the year 1938; five less than the number eight for each of the years 1937 and 1936; and 17 less than the number twenty for the year 1935. Two of the persons lynched were taken from the hands of the law—one from the gaol and the other from an officer of the law outside of gaol.
There were eighteen reports of instances in which officers of the law prevented lynchings. All of these instances re- ported were in southern States. In all instances the persons were removed or the guards augmented, or other precautions taken. A total number of twenty-five persons, five white men and twenty negro men, were thus saved from the hands of mobs.
Of the persons lynched, two were negroes and one was white. The offences charged were : murder, one ; fatal injury to boy an automobile accident, one ; altercation with man, one. The States in which lynchings occurred, and the number in each State, are as follows :—Florida, two ; Mississippi, one.
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