I found this article in a scanned vintage newspaper, it was part of a syndicated feature called “Chronology of the Year”, a veritable orgy of death statistics published in the U.S. at the end of 1901. It seems there were 131 recorded lynchings in the United States that year. We can be confident in the accuracy of that number, I surmise, because lynchings were so carefully documented by unbiased journalists and local law enforcement officials. It certainly puts one’s mind at ease to learn that only nine of the year’s 131 lynchings were motivated by racial prejudice. The remaining 122 executions were justified with various reasons including a lynching for forcing a white boy to commit a crime. “I swear, ma! The negro made me do it!”