The Dyer bill in Congress : a history of the first major attempt to curb lynching in the United States by federal legislation
type: CreativeWork
description: This historical account of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1920 has been undertaken for two main purposes. The first may be termed the author's interest in lynching as an American institution. The second is a desire to portray clearly the facts concerning the first major legislative attempt to curb the practice by Federal legislation. The author has no private grudge to present and no special interests to serve on the subject. Consequently, this may be taken as an objective analysis of the arguments pro and con on a proposed legislative measure. Since the major argumentation occurred in the House, whereas the Senate merely filibuteded or repeated those same arguments, most of the contents of this work are presented from the House and one chapter is devoted to the manner in which the Senate disposed of the Bill. The author proposes to refer to the Bill always with a capital "B" that no confusion may arise as to what legislation is concerned in any given statement. A definite attempt has been made to provide local color and to give the reader a glimpse of the attitudes of the day. For this reason, quotations have been used freely from Congressional source. One thing was certainly impressed upon the writer's mind and that was the general culture and ability of the Congressmen. On the lynching issue arguments were often tinged with an overabundance of emotion. Nevertheless, the language, the adroitness, the beauty of speech proclaimed the fine forensic background of many of our representatives in Washington. The author wishes to make clear that he is attempting to present only the arguments of the Congressmen whether these arguments were good or bad, complete or incomplete in their analysis. This is the history of a legislative measure, not a dissertation upon the subject of lynching in general. In this literary effort the method of presentation has been to deemphasize chronological development and to present the major and minor issues of the Bill itself as argued by its…
abstract: This historical account of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1920 has been undertaken for two main purposes. The first may be termed the author's interest in lynching as an American institution. The second is a desire to portray clearly the facts concerning the first major legislative attempt to curb the practice by Federal legislation. The author has no private grudge to present and no special interests to serve on the subject. Consequently, this may be taken as an objective analysis of the arguments pro and con on a proposed legislative measure. Since the major argumentation occurred in the House, whereas the Senate merely filibuteded or repeated those same arguments, most of the contents of this work are presented from the House and one chapter is devoted to the manner in which the Senate disposed of the Bill. The author proposes to refer to the Bill always with a capital "B" that no confusion may arise as to what legislation is concerned in any given statement. A definite attempt has been made to provide local color and to give the reader a glimpse of the attitudes of the day. For this reason, quotations have been used freely from Congressional source. One thing was certainly impressed upon the writer's mind and that was the general culture and ability of the Congressmen. On the lynching issue arguments were often tinged with an overabundance of emotion. Nevertheless, the language, the adroitness, the beauty of speech proclaimed the fine forensic background of many of our representatives in Washington. The author wishes to make clear that he is attempting to present only the arguments of the Congressmen whether these arguments were good or bad, complete or incomplete in their analysis. This is the history of a legislative measure, not a dissertation upon the subject of lynching in general. In this literary effort the method of presentation has been to deemphasize chronological development and to present the major and minor issues of the Bill itself as argued by its…
author: Poletti, Ernest George
keywords: Lynching, American Politics, Political Science
license: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/
date published: 1941-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:36:58Z
provider: University of the Pacific
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of the Pacific