The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-05-14
ANACONDA news.
BRAVE BLACKS N BLUE
Colored Soldiers Suffer From
Southern Race Prejudice.
25TH HAD SOME TROUBLE
Defenders of the National Honor enubbed
by the Citizens Of the south-Dsuisd
- Privileges Accorded the Com
monest Hobo on the Gulf.

According to this account the 18th
infantry from Missoula ran up against
all kinds Of disagreeabIe nub in the
South, where the citizens. as a rule, ap-
pear to have about as much use for a
colored defender Of the national honor
as they have for a leper. F. Thomas
Fortune. a well-known colored man,
wrote to the New York Sun as follows:
1T was to have been expected by
those familiar with the restrictions, le-
gal and other. based upon race and
color. which exists in all the Southern
states, that there would be more or less
OF trouble of one sort and another when
the four black regiments Of United
states regulars were ordered from the
Western army posts to Southern points.
to be in readiness for active service on
the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts and
in Cuba In the war between the United
States and Spain. The members Of
these regiments ave spent the last 90
years in army service in the Western
states, where they have been as free
from determinations based upon race
and color as their white companions in
arms: they ave consequently. and
r1gbtfully. come to believe that they are
entitled to the same privileges and i'm
munities in public places and accommo-
dalton and the like as white soldiers.
Having enjoyed this freedom and
having been held in the highest esteem
by the people OF the West because OF
their sobriety. manliness inc courage
10 defending life and property from In
dian ~depredations, when ordered to go
into other states to uphold the honor
and integrity of the. nation against the
common enemy they naturally rebelled
against a lot of restrictions of small and
large degree. the enforcement of which
worked great inconvenience and the
degradation of their manhood and self
respect. This came about in short order
when the 25th infantry reached Chatta-
o and found that they were de-
barred by law and custom from enter
ing all places OF common resort. amuse-
nlent and entertainment, and were real
ly free from insult and arrest nowhere
except in the camp at Chickamauga.
On the public streets they were nsulted
and arrested upon fiimsy pretexts. The
uniform of the United States army was
no more protection than il they had
been a lot of black loafers scrubs,
as they found upon more than oneToc-
casion. A Southern policeman is. the
biggest thing on h streets, and even
a soldier Of the. national defense has Ito
move OF when ordered or get pulled
WIFI OF WITHOUT pTONOcdtlOn. II u
necessary to see a Southern policeman
in action to appreciate his Importance.
But the straw that broke the cameIs
back was the enforcement of the sepa-
rate car law of Tennessee on the rail-
road between Chattanooga and Chicka-
manga park. The black. soldiers were
given. to understand that they could not
ride in the common cars with the white
soldiers. but must ride by themselves in
tL4 Isr Traxb oarC rnadn aD1 rn-
vided for Afro-American people. black,
yellow n almost white, as the case
may be. Anybody who knows any
thing about these Sim Crow cars
knows that they are. i'm most cases. of
the poorest and vilest character. no bet
ter tina the smoking coaches, and
oftener than otherwise being one-half
of the common smoking car and invar-
iably damned up against the baggage
car or the engine.
THE soldiers of the 25th infantry re-
belled against this Jim Crow car ar
rangement between Chattanooga and
Chickamauga. When ordered to get
out OF the common coach and into the
Jim Crow car they refused to obey
orders. The conductor stopped the train
and refused to order it to move on I'M
ill the soldiers should obey him. The
chances are hat the train wou be
standing or the track until now IL a
post adjutant had not been aboard and
commanded the soldiers to obey the
conductor. The adjutant's right to give
the command is not disputed. but the
propriety Of his doing so Is. The only
legality that inheres in an unjust law
or regulation is physical ability to en-
force 1t. The separate car laws of the
Southern states are of this character.
They were conceived. in iniquity and
enforced in brutality. pure and simple,
The soldiers obeyed the officer. but the
injustice and the insult remained with
them, and the whole of them decided
to use the cars only when they were
forced, by necessity to do so. But this
must prove an Intellectual remedy, ever
for the black boys in blue.
The incident, based upon a. degrad-
ing condition. should challenge the at
tention of the whole country to a body
Of laws which should have no place on
the statute books of any state. The
Northern and Western states long ago
discarded all such laws, and there is
no rhyme or reason for their existence
and enforcement in any Southern state,
the white people Of which are in no
senses better than the white people OF
the Northern and Western states.
But il was the detachment of the
25th infantry sent straight through to
Key West that had the hardest time
of it with the race and color prejudice.
They were no sooner on the island
han the press dispatches related that
the white citizens were indignant and