The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1896-06-17
SHUT oUToF 1HE HOTELS.
Cleveland Delegates Given the Cold shoul.
der ut st. Louis.

ST. LOUIS, June 1O.-The st. James
Hotel today openly refused to enter
tain negro delegates and cancelled a
S G,000 contract it had made for feed
ing and housing delegates.
Three weeks ago the officers of the
Tippecanoe Club, under the direction
of M. A. Hanna, ,made a contract with
Thomas P. Miller, the proprietor of
the st. James Hotel, to take care of a
certain number of delegates for five
days during the convention. The
club officers then wrote TO certain
Southern delegations that rooms had
been engaged for them at the st.
James. When Mr. Miller learned that
the club intended to fill the rooms with
negroes he objected.
Eff permit you to bring negroes
here" he said, '"all my help, will
leave. 1t will put me in most en-
barasing predicament."
Upon the arrival of Mr.. Hanna
from Cleveland today he was told of
what had occurred.
II am sorry for Mr.. Miller" said
Mr.. Hanna to his agent, "but he signed
a contract and unless he lives up to it
he will find himself involved in most
unpleasant legal complication"
When the hotel man was notified of
this, he made the folio owing written
reply:
"ST. LOUIS, June 10, 1896. -,
''Mr. J. G. Dorm, Agent Tippecanoe
Club:
"DEAR SIR: [cannot entertain the
colored delegates in our main dining
room or under the contract with your
club. Yours truly,
THOMAS P. MILLER
AS all the leading hotels are crowd.
ed, the Tippecanoe Club is in q guam
dary as to what it will do with the
colored delegates whom it promised to
care for. Mr.. Hanna said he felt very
sorry for the Business Mems League
which promised the national commit
tee there would be no color line drawn.
"The league has done everything in
its power to prevent this trouble" he
added, land I do not consider it in
any way to blame. Mr.. Hanna's
emisaries also rented tho big exposi.
ton building for use during the con-
vention. 1t was suggested that cots
be placed in it for the use Of the col
ored men, but when the manage
ment of the building learned of this, it
told the club that negroes could not
be quartered there. It was finally
agreed, however, that the colored dele
gates might be fed there. Tony Faust,
who holds the lease of the kitchen at
the exposition, said he could not furn-
ish either food or cooks to do the work.
An officer of the club said tonight
that 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 lodging.
Some of them, however, refuse 10 do
this. DR.. John Cant of Sherman,
Texas, who leads the contesting Nc
Kinley delegation from the Lone Star
State, is angry over the service which
he is assured Proprietor Griswold of
the Laclede Hotel expects to give the
colored members of his delegation.
Cant has a contract with Griswold
for quarters at the Laclede for his peo-
pie, black and white alike, and this
end of it the hotel man is going to
keep, but black. delegates will not be
allowed to eat in the dining hall.
Meals will be served in their rooms
and there will be no lack of attention
to them. This is what makes DR..
Cant angry.