The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-06-11
WON'T STAND TT.
Negro Delegates Raising a Great
Big Row
Over Their Treatment at st.
Louis Hotels.
LACLEDE'S MANAGER
Has Arranged to Have Meals
Served in Their Rooms.
Colored Men Are All Mad About
This.

St. Louis, June 11.-That the color line
has been drawn by some of the hotels
of this city there can be no longer any
doubt.
The st. James hotel today openly re-
fused to entertain Negro delegates and
cancelled a $4,000 contract it had made
Tor feeding and housing delegates. Sew
eraI weeks ago the officers Of the Tip
pecanoe club, under the direction of M.
A. Hanna, made a contract with Thos.
r. Miller, the proprietor of the St
James hotel, to take care of a. certain
number of delegates for five days dur
ing the convention. The club OMcers
then wrote to certain southern delega-
lions that rooms had been engaged for
them at the St. James. When Mr. Miller
learned the club intended to I'LL the
rooms with Negroes, he objected
If I permit you to bring Negroes
here" he said, AL my help viii leave.
1t viii put me in most embarrassing
predicament."
Upon the arrival of Mr.. Hanna from
Cleveland today, he was told of what
had occurred.
Il am sorry for Mr. Miller" said Mr..
Hanna to his agent, but he signed a
contract, and unless he lives UP to it
he viii find himself involved in a most
unpleasant legal complication.
When the hotel man was notified of
this, he made the following written re-
ply.
St Louis, June 10.
Or J. @. Dorm, Agent TippecanOe Club.
Dear Sir. I cannot entertain the col
ored delegates in our main dining room
or under the contract with your club.
Yours Truly.
'tTHOS. p. MILLER"
As all the leading hotels are crowded,
the Tippecanoe club is in quandary
as to what it viii do with the cOlOred
men whom it promised to care for
Mr.. Hanna said ne felt very sorry for
the business mems league, which prom
lSed the national committee there would
be no color line drawn. 1.-THE league
has done everything in it's power to
prevent this trouble" he added, and
do not consider it in any way to blame"
Mr. Hanna's emfssaries also rented
the big exposition building for use dur
ing the convention. 1t was suggested
that cots be placed in 1T for the use of
the cOlored men, but when the man
agement of the building learned of this
they told the club the negroes could not
be CHARTERED there. 1t was finally
agreed, however, that the cOlOred dele
gates might be fed there.
The man who holds the lease of the
Kitchen at the exposition, said he could
not furnish either food or cooks to do
the work. An officer of the club said
last night cooks would be imported
from Cleveland.
Many of the colored men. have of
their own accord. gone to the homes of
cOlOred people living here and obtained
board and lodgings Some of them,
however, refuse to do this
DR. John Grant of Sherman, Texas,
who leads the cOntesting Mckinley
delegation from the lone star state, is
mad over the treatment which he is
assured Proprietor Joe CriSWOld of the
Laclede hotel expects to give the col
ored members of his delegation. Grant
has contract with CfrisWOld for quar-
ters at the Laclede for his people, black
and white alike, and this end of it the
hotel man is going to keep. The black
delegates viii not be allowed to eat in
the dining hall Meals viii be served
in their rooms and there will be no lack
of attention to them, but the discrimi-
nation viii exist just the same.
This is what makes Grant angry He
knows the disposition of the cOlOred
man well enough to understand that
that such service is usually charged
extra and INDUCED in by nOtables who
dislike the stare of the common herd
viii not appease the wrath Of the
darkeys.
When Peter Jackson, Joe Walcott
and George Dixon, the negro prize
fighters, were in St Louis, they stop
ped at the Laclede and they had their
meals served in their rooms
r. W. Wright. cOlOred delegate
from Georgia, is at the Southern. Mr..
Wright is president of the Georgia
State college He said the way the
negroes were treated at hotels was
scandalous.
It's an outrage" said he, that con-
tracts should be cancelled the way they
/ are We have to find accommodations
the best we can. I personally will
probably find a good place. but some
Of my friends viii get along very diff
ferently- There viii be about 200 negro
delegates and alternates. and they are
all good men, deserving Of better treat
ment."