trial. I sympathize with those whose hearts were pained, as mine was pained, when Mr. Max so cynically assailed our sacred customs.

Public peace is the act of public trust; it is the faith that all are secure and will remain secure.

“What would prison mean to Bigger Thomas? It holds advantages for him that a life of freedom never had. To send him to prison would be more than an act of mercy. You would be for the first time conferring life upon him. He would be brought for the first time within the orbit of our civilization. He would have an identity, even though it be but a

Let us not concern ourselves with that part of Bigger Thomas’ confession that says he murdered accidentally, that he did not rape the girl. It really does not matter. What does matter is that he was guilty before he killed! That was why his whole life became so quickly and naturally organized, pointed, charged with a new meaning when this thing

and that Negro boy killed that girl to keep from being discovered in a position which he knew we claimed warrants the death penalty. But that is only one side of it! He was impelled toward murder as much through the thirst for excitement, exultation, and elation as he was through fear! It was his way of living!

because it made him free, gave him the possibility of choice, of action, the opportunity to act and to feel that his actions carried weight.

Fear and hate and guilt are the keynotes of this drama!

But I ain’t worried none about them women I killed. For a little while I was free. I was doing something. It was wrong, but I was feeling all right.

Anger quickened in him: an old feeling that Bessie had often described to him when she had come from long hours of hot toil in the white folks’ kitchens, a feeling of being forever commanded by others so much that thinking and feeling for one’s self was impossible. Not only had he lived where they told him to live, not only had he done what they