Journal #11

After reading "As the Lord Live, He Is One of Our Mothers Children", I was struck by the difference between the townspeople at the beginning of the story, during the mob and the townspeople at the end of the story.  At the beginning the warning whistles bring all the people together, away from their jobs in the mines and from every corner of the town to join a mob that is actually being helped by the police.  I cant imagine that they all understood what was going on before the man from Dover City began speaking, so it is here that we can see the beginning of the mob mentality.  The mob rushed "down the the serpentine boulevard for nearly two miles... swelling like an angry torrent".  It was just an angry mob until the man spoke: "I have come here today to assist you in teaching the blacks a lesson.  I have killed a nigger before and in revenge of the wrong wrought upon you and yours I am willing to kill again."  This gave the angry mob a purpose and mission, which creates a very dangerous situation for everybody.  Hopkins mentions two incidents of innocent people being killed in the mayhem and others being severely beaten.  The town is under a single, mob mentality where no one is thinking for themselves.

Towards the end of the story when the poster for the "Gentleman Jim" is seen, the people seem very reasonable.  "Jones and him was two of the smartest and peaceablest niggers I ever seed."  This man, who was almost certainly a member of the mob that lynched Jones has just stated that they were two of the nicest Blacks he has ever seen and goes on to say that Jerry Mason, the man they are charged with murdering, harassed them for no reason.  The transformation from the mob mentality that would violently hang a man to the this individuals conscious is astounding.

Journal #9

In the post Civil War era, the newspaper and periodical industry exploded. Just fourteen years after the war, the number of magazines in America more than tripled, from the 700 published during the war to 2,400 and then jumped again to 3,500 by 1900.  Newspapers also went from 400 daily papers during the war to 850 by 1880 and 1,400 by 1900.  Magazines and newspapers devoted much of their space to poetry and prose fiction which was a key factor in their rapid growth. And with the development of new printing technologies, magazines and papers could have colorful, lavish covers and illustrations at relatively low costs which meant that the average person could still read them.  This resulted in an estimated readership of 65 million people by the turn of the century.

This growth of the periodical industry is the opposite of what is happening today.  In the the modern era, newspapers and periodicals are rapidly losing business, at least in the paper version.  Among the many benefits of the internet is the easy access to news.  Everything that one would find in a newspaper or magazine can now be found online much faster.  Online news can also be updated constantly, which allows us to know about events moments after they happen.  Why would people buy or subscribe to periodicals if they can get the same information of for free at the touch of a button?  People can even get this information on their mobile phone, wherever they are.  The newspaper has had its time but it is quickly coming to an end.

Journal #8

After reading Jefferson Davis's Inaugural Address, I got the impression that the South felt that they were superior the the North.  Jefferson clearly states that he believes the North is completely to blame for this conflict and that the South is innocent.  "We are doubly justified by the absence of wrong on our part, and by wanton aggression on the part of others".  The South see's the efforts by Northerners to fight for the basic human rights as a blatant attack on them.  It is also preposterous that Davis believes the "courage and patriotism of the people of the Confederate States" is justified, when they have just succeeded in breaking a nation in half.  That is the complete opposite of courage and patriotism, to solve an issue by running away from it.  

In Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address he points out the difference between the South and the North: "one side would rather make war than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish".  This clearly shows the foul intentions and lack of patriotism that South had.  They would split apart the nation their grandfathers and fathers had worked so hard to win and build over slavery.  I can not imagine how these people could hold slaves in the first place and keep a clear conscious, but then to destroy something so precious and valuable so they could continue and expand such an institution.