Methuselah's Children: How Close Under the Skin Lay Lynch Law and Mob Violence

"...they were better off all arrested at once and placed under guard. If they had been smelled out one at a time, anything could have happened–lynchings, even pogroms. Lazarus knew from hard experience how close under the skin lay lynch law and mob violence in the most sweetly civilized..."

From "Methuselah's Children" by Robert A Heinlein.