The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-02

city can succeed in business for them
 selves.
 Besides the annoyances connected with his work, the negro has to meet l diSagreeable things in a hundred other ] ways If he happens to go into a sa-
 loon, he has to pay twenty-five cents for
 a ten-cent drink-a device which works
 almost as well as the forbidden one of
 refusing to serve a negro. In restau-
 rants, too, the walters keep within the
 law. They do not say, we will give
 you no dlnner,"' but "We are busy 1 now" And the negro may look at his
 empty plate, if he will from six o'clock
 until midnight, and the excuse will still
 be the same.
 l Lack of pportunity-that is what
 afflicts my people," said one minister, an earnest man, with whom any white
 minister might be glad to cross intellec-
 tual weapons DO think their oppor-
 tunity in New York is growing? No, I
 fear it is lessening. Take colored ser-
 wants, for instance. Among rich fami-
 lies they have gone out of fashion. They may come back again, but just now many are thrown out of work on this account
 Fifteen years ago, too, every other coachman you saw on a carriage was colored man. But colored coachmen have gone out of fashion, and janitors the same way.
 Educated men? No, there Is scarce ly any place in New York for them
 To-day in walking a dozen blocks down Sixth avenue, you might meet four or five colored men out of work with their hands in their pockets who could pick up their Cicero or Xenophon and read it easily. But they can't get any chance to use what they know. Oh, know any number of colored people who would pack their trunks and leave the country tomorrow if they could. They find this land of freedom so restricted"
 Asked why colored people found it harder than before to get work, he re- piled that he thought it was because the generation which had worked for the freedom of the slave, and which had appreciated the difficulties of the negro, and had tried to help him, had given place to another, which did not have the problem in it's mind or conscience. At the question of what the future of the negro in New York might be, the min ister's face grew sad
 ''If I did not believe in the principle l of ultimate justice and in the goodness | of Providence" he answered q should | be utterly discouraged. But I do."
 Other ministers who talked on the | subject found little more hope than this | one for the negro Tn present conditions, | but they all had the buoyant hope that, | in some way, the future must adjust | things more fairly.
 The reason for a large amount of the prejudice against the race, according to the opinion of another minister lies in the failure of people outside to draw distinctions. "They lump us all In to- he explained pathetically. A is on foot now among respec- table colored people to band themselves together and to show the city at large that they are no more allied with crim- inal negroes than honest white men and women are with white thieves and mur- derers. The society, which has for its purpose the union of respectable col ored people all over the city for the pur- pose of self defence. while it has not &C., all it set out to do, has al- ready made slight impression on pub lie sentiment It's promoters are the ne- groes who suffer most from the preju- dice of white people and who might lead their race to better things if they had a chance.
 By the formation of this society of the Citizens Protective League, the most intelligent of them feel that a long step forward has been taken. They feel that ,olored people will sometime hold a bet er position in the commonwealth. But hey believe that the colored man must not learn from the white, that he must put aside the habit of dependence, which long years of slavery taught him, md stand up alone.
 When the trials and limitations of the New York negroes are so definite it seems a trifie remarkable that one of he churches should have secured enough coppers and nickels from it's lardworking congregation to send two { to preach freedom and ruth to their brethren in Africa.-New York Sun.