The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1891-01-24
THE COLOR LINE.
Under the Heading, THE Color Line
Among Brutes." H..
The Orgonian of Jan. Is, Published at
Portland, Ore, by Russell Harrison,
Son of the President, has the Fol-
lowing Common-Sense Editorial.

Portland, Ore, by Russell Harrison, a
Son of the President, has the Fol-
lowing Common-Sense EDITORIAL.
In the prizefght at New Orleans yes
terday. the color line was drawn against
admission of Peter Jackson, the Negro
champion of australia, and the Colored
horse jockeys of the New Orleans race
track. A Colored Mississippi politician
-. Of considerable prominence was also
warned that he would be excluded if he
sought admission. This is a new revela-
ton Of apocatastasis, or progress back
wards. Hitherto the color line has been
drawn among American men. Now it is
drawn among American brutes. The
gentlemen" prizefghter, fo1sooth! has
come to the front. The next evolution
will be the rebellion of white convicts
against association with criminals of
color. Why not? Every prizefghter is
an outlaw in every state in this Union,
save Texas and California, and every
prizefghter therefore is liable, the mo-
ment he passes from the passive to the
active state, to become convict. The
heroes of the last great prize6ght, Sulli-
van and Ki]rain, became convicts under
the law of Mississippi and Dempsey and
Fi,zsimmons, with all their abettors
among the spectators, are liable to be-
come convicts under the laws of Louisi-
ana. Really there Is nothing extrava-
CANT in the expectation that, soon or late
outlaws who become convicts will en-
deavor to establish the color line in the
penitentiary.
The situation of'the Colored brother"
at the South is bounded by hard lines.
If he works hard, saves his money, wins
wealth, acquires education, leads vir-
tuous life, talks and behaves intelligentlv
he ia still met by the color line; wall of
circums ances he cannot leap, no mAtter
if he bec"me college graduate and a
bishop Of the African Methodist or Bap-
fist church. Even in Kansas his chill
dren have oappeal to the courts in or
der to get admission to the public
schools. A Negro, educated at the
Fretdman's College of North Carolina,
where he graduated with honor, recently
attempted suicide at New London, Conn.
because of his inability to obtain, through
his color, situation for which his edu-
cation fitted him. The Negro who does
his best to rise, cannot IN America, North
or South, rise high enough to escape the
social Jail bounds of the color line. On
the other hand, the Negro, who puts
honorable ambition behind him and, in
stead of trying to rise, seeks to fall, meets
the same dismal fate. He cannot dive
deep enough in the social mire at the
bottom of society to escape the color line
in America. There is not a filthy, inso-
lent, ind lent, Sioux chief who was able
to pay his bills to Washington and return
who would be as rudely treated in the
cars and public houses as would be the
best-bred and most refined Negro in the
land. Any kind of white ruffian, aay
description of white woman, is free to
come and go anywhere, without the in
suit or exclusion that Ia habituallv &C.
corded to respectable Colored people all
over the South, and in great part of the
North.
This exclusion and insult does not rest
upon any other defense than what is
termed ''The aristocracy of skin," an
aristocracy that absolutely has no exist
ence in the Christian world outside ofthe
United States That it should exist at the
South is not remarkable. That it should
have any public defender at the North is
proof of the average vulgarity and bru-
tally of our civilization. The cruel in
justice of this aristocracy Of skin is ex-
cused by some upon the untenable plea
that the Negro seeks social equality.
The plea is insincere because it is abb
surd. The Negro knows, what every
sane white knows, that social equality is
self-regulating, and not subject to the
laws Of church or state. A man might
frequent the "best society" of New York
city and yet be excluded from "the best
society" of England. A man might fire.
quent the chest society" of England and
yet get no welcome from the best society
in America. An American naval officer
Of no particular public or private wortq
often secures social recognition abroad
that would never be offered an Ameri-
can gentleman and statesman, like
Conkling, Edmuuds or John Sherman.
The usages of society make man a
social hero in one section and leave him
a social ohscurity in another.
Social equality and civil rights are sep
arate and distinct, and to pretend that
they belong to the same province is
either dense ignorance or disipgenuous-
ness. Civil laws and social ueages are as
far apart as the poles. To charge the
Negro with. demanding social equality
because he asks to be protected in the
exercise of the rights and immunitiee
that have been granted him as citizen
is a base attempt to befog the discussion
of the race question, The friends Of
Negro elevation, North and South, have
always positively maintained that while
civil rights was question of law, socia
equality was question of choice To ar
que as Senator Morgan. of Alabama does
that to grant Colored men their politics
and civil rights is to" force the Negro
race into the white family CIRCLE" is ~
absurdly misleading utterance for