The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-09-28
The LABOR LINE IN ILLINOIS.

The people of the South tax them
selyes more in proportion to their wealth
10 educate the negro than the peop.e OF
Tho North do to educate their own child
NON We have laws providing separate
schools for the races, but afordlng the
same school term and equal facilities to
each race. In the North there are no
neparate schools in the sense that we
have them, but in many places provision
In made for separation where there IS
objection to mixed schools. 1t is al
ways attended, however, with much fric-
ton, and much bad blood, slowing that
the Southern method of separate schools
would work better in the Northern cities
than the attempt to do the impossible.
The Illinois State Register of last
Friday contains the following editorial
detailing the trouble in an Illinois town,
1t says:
''The republican school authorities at
Alton have drawn the color line in the
public schools of that city, and as a
result there is some loud talking and
heavy kicking. On Monday last each
child in the seven public schools of
Alton was given ticket of admission
to certain schools. The blacks were
all assigned to the Douglas and Love
JOY schools, and the white children to
the ether buildings. Less than twenty
of the colored children accepted the
assignments, many of them going to
the other schools, where they were
treated as visitors and not called upon
to recite.
''There is much Indignation in colored
circles in Alton over this action of the
directors. An associa ton has been form
ed to fight the assignment of colored
pupils, and the president declares the
action of the directors is an evasion of
the constitution; that the pupils nearest
a certain school should attend that
school without regard to race, and not
sent to a school further away from
their place of residence. The school au-
thorities tried to appease the blacks by
offering them colored teachers for their
schools, but the colored organization
cares nothing about the teacher phase.
but openly declares the refining influ-
ence of the whites is what the negroes
need and what they seek. The deter
mination is. therefore, to demand en-
trance for the black pupils to all the
schools. No halfway business will do.
1t must be all or none: and, if none, the
courts must pass upon it.
"The probability is, therefore. that
there viii be legal battle over the mat
ter, and that the case will be carried to
the Supreme court. II SO, this will be
the fourth time the Supreme or appellate
court has wrestled with the question.
She three previous cases are known as
the Quincy Galesburg and Upper Al
ton cases. While under the constitution
no objection can he made to the admis-
sion Of pupils to the pnhlic schools Of
Illinois ON account Of color. or race. the
court has decided that within n district
the board may assign pupils as it sees fit.
II is sad commentary on party grati-
tude. that In republican Illinois. a State
made Republican by negro votes. the
color line should he drawn in the public
schools. This species Of discrimination
In the south has been held up by north
ern Repuhlicare MS evidence Of Demo-
cratic unfairress and prejudice against
the negro. Rnf this Alton case estops
any further use of such camnaign am
munition. A northern Republican will
snub and Insult negro on account OF
his color more vic'onsly end with greater
ingenuity than will Southern Demo
crat"