Connecticut western news., 1875-02-19
THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
Tone of the Political Press on the Bill and
 #a its Resulas. S& N

#a it's ResuI1s. sS A
 The New York Times Repubican) says: Therewefe 162 votes for the bill, as amended, all of which were, of course, from Republicans. There were one hundred votes in the negative, and of these fourteen were cast by the fol lowing Republicans: Messrs. R. R. Butler, of Tennessee; Chittanden, of New York; Crutchfield, of Tennessee; Gunter, of Arkansas; Harrison, of Ten nessee; hoAand, of Delaware; Lowndes, of Maryland; Phelps, of New Jersey; Sener, of Virginia; Sloane, of Georgia; J. Amber Smith, of Virginia; Stanard, of Missouri; c. Y. Thomas, of Virginia, and Thornburgh, of Tennessee. It will be noticed that all but two of these, Messrs. Chittenden and Phelps, are from Southern States. This is an i'm portant fact as bearing on the political effect of the bill. We have no doubt that it will be bad, and that it bars the progress of the Republican party in the only direction in which it could hope to make decided gains. That it will save a single vote which. would be lost with ost it, or that it will be of any real ser vice to the negroes, we do not for a mo- ment believe.
 The Tribune Qndependent) says: We Rights bill, which has just been carried through the House, than the protracted controversies over it's discussion and passage in the House might seem to war rant. It isnot yet. clear thatan party, or anybody in Congress, seriously wants to secure the passage of this, or of any .o&k any case the bill which has just passed is so changed from the bill over which the discussions on the civil rights of. the negro originally sprang up, that the ob- jections to, and the advantages of the measure m seem alike greatly diminished. The bill has yet to run the gauntlet of the Senate, and there is no general be- lief in its ever becoming law, just as session that Mr. Summers far more com Plete and stringent bill, however osten- sibly favored by Republicans, would ever be carried through. Democrats have generally fought any civil rights bill for the negroes at all stages. Ad- ninistration mon nave generally used it as means for securing support, without committing themselves to it. It was per fectly we'll understood at the last session that the President would have vetoed the bill then before Congress. It, is the current understanding in Washington now, that there is no serious purpose on the part of the party in power of passing either this or any other bill. When this understanding is found to be mistaken, 1t will be time to consider. the action with more care.
 The World (Democratic) says: Our objections to the Civil Rights bill have been often stated. The relief of the schools from it's application, is 8 good thing, but it does not remove our objec- tlons to the principles and the methods of the bill. As has been often said, as was said on the floor of the House yes terday, legislating against prejudice is @ foolish and futile thing to do. Even if the object the. bill proposes were desir- able, the means the bill provides would not attain it. Prejudice is5a very vola- tile thing, hard to define, harder to fix, hardest to punish. What can be done in the way of suppressing it by law is to develop a great deal of humbug and Q great many devices for evading the law. Everybody knows that, as mat ter of fact, every Southern hotel-and, for that matter, many a Northern hotel-ln which colored guests are re- ceived on equal terms with white, would soon become a hotel exclusively for col ored people. The landlord must either beggar himself by making his white guests leave him, since the bill omits to provide pains and penalties for those contumacious persons, or else he must keep the black guests out. He cannot refuse them admission except by render ing himself liable. to the penalties es- tablished by this bill. What he can and will do is to buy the colored people off from insisting on their legal rights. The establishment all over the South of a system of literal and unlimited "black. mail may very likely be lovely in the eyes of the men who voted for it yester- day. More sensible people will think that it is high price to pay to enable the blacks to render themselves and the whites mutually uncomfortable and offensive,