The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-05-28

action of the House can bring any solid
advantage to our colored population. 1t is
all in vain TO declare by law that colored cti-
zens shall be entitled to purchase proscenium
boxes at the opera and seats or compartments
in palace cars, and to enact heavy penalties Of
fine and imprisonment against proprietors
who refuse to sell them tickets. Except to
make test cases for political agitation privi-
leges of this description will not be sought
by the negroes of our time. nor even by their
children's children. Such conveniences are
expensive, and the negroes, as Q class, will
long remain poor. Luxurious accommoda-
tons in public places are desired only by
people who are accustomed to corresponding
scale OF comfort and expense in their own
homes. The mere cost of the tickets is q
trife in comparison with the modes of dress
and deg8ss of social elegance which ac-
company the patronage given to the
higher grades of public convenience. So far as
the proposed law is designed to operate
within this sphere it can do no great mis-
chief so long as it is not resisted. II nobody
contests the privilege it will hardly ever be
practically asserted. because the negroes have
no money to spend for superfuous accom-
modations, and their political patrons have no
motive for melting them to make cons tant
series of test cases unless there is q chance
of stirring the embers of popular excite
ment Unless proprietors refuse equal priv
ileges to negroes this part of the law will be
q dead letter; and, really, proprietors have
no good motive for resistance. The law will
sufficiently excuse them to their patrons, and
their patrons, themselves, whom no law can
reach, would take care to make the colored
intruders-as they would regard them-suf6-
GENTLY uncomfortable. No law can regulate
or punish social manners, and persons skilled
in the art Of expressing contempt would have
no difficulty in surrounding disagreeable
people with such an atmosphere of contumely
as would be inexpressibly wounding to the
pride or vanity Of the few negroes who could
bear the expense Of asserting their equality.
With the law as it stands negroes meet with
no distractions to the free use of ordinary
railroad cars. People who shrink from con-
tact with them have an easy refuge in the
palace cars, which also protect them from dis
agreeable nearness to coarse-mannered, i'll
dressed or bad-smelling passengers Of the
white race. In hotels the case would be some
what different but even in hotels there would
be little risk of annoyance except at the public
tables. The poverty Of the negroes is pretty
complete security against their thronging ex-
pensive hotels, and if vain or socially ambi-
tious negro should occasionally present him
self the managers could not only assign him a
room in any remote part of the house they
pleased, but they could give him any seat they
pleased in the dining room without violating
the law. If, in consequence of full tables, he
should sometimes chance to be seated in I'M
welcome proximity to white people, they
would have no difficulty in making their
disgust so unpleasanty manifest without
mourning legal penalties as to poison all the
satisfaction the intruder might feel In eating
his meals with persons who despised him.
The opponents of the law may safely trust the
play of social forces to annul and defeat it in
most parts of the sphere of its operation,
where it is calculated to alarm the sensitive
ness of social caste. If they are only careful
not to put themselves within the scope of its
penalties the invincible white repugnance to
near association with negroes will render the
law a nulliy by exposing negro vanity and
to wounds which vanity and pre-
sumption are always quick to feel. Consider
ing the pecuniary condition Of the colored
it is clear enough that nothing
but the most exorbitant vanity and insolence
could impel them to thrust themselves into
palace cars, opera boxes, or fashionable hotels,
and the weapons which would be used
against them in such places are
of precisely that kind by which
aspiring vanity or pretentious poverty most
deeply suffer. Against such weapons the
law can interposs no shield What court
of justice will arraign disguised young bellies
for quiet and contemptuous insults towards
negroes within six seats near them at the
public table of hotel2 1t was only under
the rigors of martial law that General Butler
could promulgate his unprec edented "woman
order" and nothing similar to it can be put
in force against the lady guests of hotel,
the lady passengers iu palace car or the lady
spectators in theatre The proposed law
will be imperative except against the proprie-
tors of such places; and if the proprietors
have the good sense to passively submit to its
operation the political agitators will be foiled.
The true policy for the proprietors is to sell
tickets and accord privileges freely to all
corners, white or black, and leave it to their
patrons to protect themselves by such social
weapons as they know how to use If this
polite method is adopted the offensive law
will be mere waste paper except so far as it
applies to schools.
In respect to schools it is more formidable
and may do infinite mischief but we doubt
whether it will be worth while to contest it in
the courts, even for the preservation Of the
common school system Of the South. OF the