share for one night the longing of these people to reach the line that divides Missouri from Arkansas, or any other part of "the line" that separates Dixie from the rest of creation.

As is related in the article, men in the service of the United States on their way to defend their country's honor and to establish and perpetuate democracy for the benefit of humanity are given a sample of the stock of democracy kept on hand at home for one class of its citizens alone.

The other curse and cause is lynching, which we admit is hard to control even with a law against it, but this "Jim Crow" car business can be controlled by a Federal law if an effort is made to do so.

We do know that a race of people so industrious, even in the face of hate and prejudice, who owns taxable wealth to the amount of $500,000,000 or more, is entitled to more consideration than it now receives.

The purpose of the separate or "Jim Crow" car law is rank discrimination against the colored people. The defenders of the "Jim Crow" law explain it on the grounds of racial inferiority and say that the laws providing for separate accommodations are made and maintained for the best interests of both races and for the preservation of peace, when, as a matter of fact, nothing has done more to create a spirit of unrest and disssatisfaction in the heart of every self-respecting negro, perhaps with a single exception-lynchingthan the "Jim Crow " car and the accommodations for colored people on public carriers for which they pay first-class fare. The negro should have every railroad accommodation for the same money that is granted other races. He does not ask this as a matter of charity. but demands this as a right. The only way to have equal accommodations is to have the same accommodations for all. There can be no equality of accommodations with separation of passengers.

I have another newspaper item which I wish to read, taken from the New York Age. It is as follows:

The attention of Director General McAdoo is to be directed to a number of cases in which the wives of officers in the National Army, desirous of visiting their husbands, have been refused accommodation on Pullman cars because of their color. A young woman residing in St. Louis, whose husband is a captail recently had a most trying experience.

The young woman in question is the daughter of one of St. Louis's oldest and most highly respected colored families and until recently a teacher in the public schools of that city.

She decided to pay a visit to her husband, a captain in one of the regiments of the Ninety-second Division, and who came to Camp Upton several days ago from the Middle West.

Upon applying at the Pullman office in the Union Station for a berth from St. Louis to Pittsburgh, the captain's wife was told that she could not get accommodations as all the berths-upper and lower-had been taken.

Knowing that the clerks employed by the Pullman Co. at the Union Station are usually discourteous and reluctant about selling berths to colored people, the young woman boarded a fast train over the Pennsylvania, explained her plight to a Pullman conductor, and was fortunate in getting sleeping ac commodations. She says there were several berths vacant and also charges that while at the Pullman window white people were sold berths for the sale train.

When the train reached Pittsburgh and all passengers for New York were compelled to change, the captain's wife was unable to secure a seat in the parlor car; but thanks to an obliging Pullman porter a seat was finally obnined.

Colored citizens are going to ask Director General McAdoo if it is going to de the policy of the United States Government to discriminate against the wives of those who are fighting to help make this world safe for democracy.

As I said at the beginning, I have spent the last 14 years in the South and I know the feelings of colored people. There is nothing

at humiliates us more than conditions we encounter. I share with ut. Gregory the same feeling.

I have a wife and I have tried to arrange to keep her from having travel in these cars. I bought an automobile, when I was not able do so, for the purpose of keeping her out of that condition that ery decent and respectable colored woman is subjected to when she empts to ride on the trains any distance.

If any member of the committee would like to ask me any addional questions I should be glad to reply to them.

ATEMENT OF MR. EDWIN B. HENDERSON OF FALLS CHURCH, VA., SECRETARY OF THE FALLS CHURCH BRANCH OF THE N. A. A. C. P.

Mr. HENDERSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, e gentlemen who have preceded me dwelt largely on the physical scomforts of travel, and I want to add a word from my personal perience, if I may. I ride daily into Washington from my home Virginia, at Falls Church, on the Washington & Virginia Railay, an electric line that runs into this city. There is only one car, trailer, and the rear seats, at the discretion of the conductor, are > be used for colored passengers. It would seem that this would rovide equal accommodations in traveling, but it does not work ut that way, because the white passengers usually deposit what aggage they have in the rear end of this car, going to and fro, and efore the prohibition law went into effect, and since, the drunks eem to gravitate or congregate around that end, and all the disrderly characters, if any are allowed to be on the car, and laborers, n whatever garb they may be, who come out of ditches, or any place lse, white or colored, manage to stand or sit in that end of the car. In winter the rear door is the only one used, and it is perpetully open, especially on the run in the morning from the suburban listricts into Washington, and I can assure you that the discomfort here is keen and one's health is always endangered.

There is also a system of separate waiting rooms on what is known as the Washington & Old Dominion Line. There is fire provided in the waiting rooms for white passengers, but seldom ever is any fire made in the rooms for the colored passengers at most stations. I have seen cattle, calves, chickens, pigs, and all sorts of live stock in that room. Baggage of all descriptions is deposited in the colored waiting room, with almost no decent provision made for the seating of colored persons who may have to wait for a train. It is a lounging place for all the workmen on the road, and all loafers around that part of town, and in making complaint about these conditions, there is little or no redress accorded. Complaining to an employee of the road on a car is likely to bring the wrath of the conductor and mortorman down upon you. If we take such matters into court, as we had occasion to do last year, the least plea of a breach of chivalry or claim of an attempt at social equality sets most of the parties concerned against you, and, in fact, in this case, the attorney in Falls Church, a man by the name of J. C. DePutron, was hung in effigy the next morning, because he essayed to

prosecute our case.

Mr. COOPER. What do you say happened to him?

Mr. HENDERSON. He was hung in effigy; that is, they fixed: sack and strung it up on top of a pole, and would have done that same way, so they say.

The worst feature of the case, in my mind, is the mental side it. It is almost impossible for any self-respecting colored regardless of what our friends from the South say, to sit in o those cars, and maintain the same attitude toward America American ideals that another citizen would. I know, in my or case, that when I thought of a little son, recently born, who wo sooner or later have to be taught the reasons or told the reasons! not occupying seats that other boys of his age occupied-well. should not like to inform you of the feelings that came over me that moment; and I might say that this is characteristic of color men and women, who are beginning to think of these injustices ne more than ever before.

I would also say that the general unrest of the people of Anera is added to by virtue of this provision of the State laws, segregati passengers. There are many periodicals, which are dealing wi this, and the Socialists are beginning to say that segregation race prejudice are based upon economic considerations. These thing are being brought to a great many colored audiences throughout South, and the contented state of southern Negroes of which ta gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rayburn) spoke is not as he has state

I also might add, without taking too much of your time, that dir ing the war, out in my section of Virginia, we had white speake who promised the colored people a great many things if autocra as exhibited by the German Government was overthrown, but sin that time the people are patiently awaiting for some good things come. They do not see that in the United States one measure h been passed by State or Federal Government to improve the cond tions for us, and I might say they are thinking more and more, d largely, even in the lowest class, to the fact that they are not finding the pleasures and the means by which they usually have been able to drown sorrows of this sort. Therefore, for the citizens of my Con monwealth and their people, whom I represent, I appeal to this con mittee, and through it to the Congress, that something be done to relieve us of this humiliating feature in the Nation's laws, and it wi be appreciated, and the loyalty of the Negro that has never yet bee questioned, and will not be questioned, if Congress will only hand the things that it seems almost impossible to have State legislatures

consider.

I thank you for your attention.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any movement to propagandize the Negr race in favor of Bolshevism?"

Mr. HENDERSON. There is a periodical that appears regularly, s mentioned by Congressman Byrnes the other day, so called the Mes senger. This periodical, I understand, has 33,000 or 34,000 readers: and I know the colored people are beginning to read it. I do not know of the efforts back of the magazine, as stated by the Congress man the other day, but I do know that it is being read largely by colored people, and they are beginning to think and wonder if there is anything in it. Before the war, and before our boys went to France, there was little or no interest on the part of the race in

Socialism, but since that time I must say a great many are now reading these periodicals that from time to time are placed on sale at the news stands and being sent into the various communities.

The CHAIRMAN. And you think that in this propaganda material that is circulated they give the promise that if Socialism is adopted, or Bolshevism is adopted, that this race discrimination will cease? Mr. HENDERSON. In the August Messenger there is an article which attempts to show that in the struggle between capitalists and the laboring element of the country there is a definite attempt on the part of the capitalists-this is the essence of this article-to keep the question of race uppermost, so that the white laboring man in the South and the colored laboring man find it impossible to get together because of this race prejudice, which is fostered by capitalists, who see to it that they are kept apart.

The CHAIRMAN. We are much obliged to you.
We will hear the next speaker.

STATEMENT OF MR. LOUIS R. MEHLINGER, 1323 WALLACH PLACE, WASHINGTON, D. C., FORMERLY CAPTAIN OF THE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHTH INFANTRY, NINETY-SECOND DIVISION, UNITED STATES ARMY, REPRESENTING THE COLORED AMERICAN COUNCIL.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the purpose of the organization you represent?

Mr. MEHLINGER. This organization, Mr. Chairman, is using all of the energy it can to persuade the Congress to see the justice of enacting this remedial legislation for which we pray.

The CHAIRMAN. This particular legislation, or generally other legislation in reference to the colored race?

Mr. MEHLINGER. Well, they are especially interested at this particular time in removing this particular thing.

We have come before your commitee to register a solemn complaint and protest against a most pernicious system that has grown into a veritable institution in that section of the country where to-day more than 89 per cent of the more than 12,000,000 of our negro citizens live. The accommodations set apart especially for negroes on all the great railway lines transversing the South are a disgrace to a country that has such a reputaion for justice and liberty and freedom, in that they are devoid of all decency and comfort for those who can not because of restrictions elect when and where and how they shall travel.

We have come at this time because we hope and believe that the great victory of democracy for which we as a Nation and as individuals have sacrificed, suffered, and died has opened the eyes of the world to the undisputed truth that men as men everywhere have a right to justice, freedom, safety, and equality of opportunity, and that it is now the imperative duty that should awaken civilized society and the Government to exhaust every means to secure these rights and privileges and opportunities to all the citizens of the country without regard to their station or circumstances in life. Therefore, as the spokesmen for more than 12,000,000 of one group of our common citizenship who are notoriously and shamefully de

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nied these common rights, we appeal to you and through the influence which you wield to consider our case and take early action to correct some of the unjust inequalities that exist against them in this Republic.

We ask especially that you take steps to remedy the pernicious system of denying equal accommodations for the same pay on the public carriers in certain parts of our country where negroes are chiefly the victims of its operation. We look upon the practice of compelling negroes to submit to the shameful service given them on common carriers as one of the worst outrages heaped upon a helpless people, and for the following reasons we desire to have the system abolished and forever made impossible of operation in any section of our common country:

First. It is undemocratic and un-American, because it is a system operated not for the service and convenience and comfort of the great body of the American people in that it offers freely without rstrictions to one group a superior service and restricts the other group to a most inferior and uncomfortable service because of the accident of color and circumstances which they are unable to remedy. We want a change in this unjust system, not so much because of the Negro as such, but because we are desirous that the persons in authority who are responsible directly and indirectly for the thought and healthy sentiment in this country for an even-handed justice for all the citizens without regard to race or color, should realize now and once for all that the democracy of which we have heard preached from high places and from every corner can not long survive upon restrictions meant and made solely for the benefit of one group of citizens and for the embarrassment, humiliation, and degradation of another group at the same time. Until the railroads are run for the benefit and service of the great body of the American people, and that means for the benefit and service of all the people. the system can not be democratic.

Second. It is an unjust system that has grown into a shameful and pernicious institution of cheating when Negro travelers are con cerned, because it robs them of their earnings by compelling them to pay a superior price for a superior service, when in reality they are given in return the most inferior service both as to equipment and accommodations. It is a system akin to some of the worst forms of the high cost of living and pernicious profiteering to which the Negro has so long been a helpless victim. We have heard much indeed about the rape of Belgium, the crushing of France, the stifling of Italy, and even of the hardships to Germany, in making the world a better place in which to live, but practically nothing of the more than 12,000,000 of Negroes who have been and are now being robbed of a right to get what they pay for because of a shameful system which exists in one section of our country whose praise for freedom and justice is sung the world over.

Third. It is a system that is indecent and inhuman, because it subjects one group of the traveling public to unsanitary cars without ordinary accommodations and service, where they are the victims of all kinds of discomforts and insults and indignities from the favored group by being restricted in their freedom to select the kind of service they desire and for which they pay the price. We now