The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-22

waiter of Washington is lower than he
would think of prohering 10 him else
where. Figures, so to speak. tell the
story in other words. Washington's
population Of two hundred and seventy
eight thousand is one third colored,
while hut % per cent, of the two
hundred and eighty-seven thousand
people in New Orleans are black and
IS per cent. of Memphis one hundred
and three thousand is listed as negro.
Washington, then, has the largest col
ored population of any city in the Uni
ted States
IF you would look on another and a
brighter picture. walk into a Pennsyl-
vania avenue book store and observe
the olive cumplexiOned, blue-eyed girls
(their colored ancestry barely perccp-
tible) who ask the clerks for textbooks
in geometry. grammars in Greek and
Latin, the classics in French: note
their dress, their demeanor and their
accent, and if you are impartial you
must admit they are surpassed in moth
ing by the daughters of Washington's
elite. In the car that bears you home
ward, if you are on the lookout for it,
you will catch sight Of dark-hued faces
bent in study over the newest works on
chemistry or biology.
in Washington tine rigid laws and
iron rules Of caste are applied among
the various degrees of the cOlOred peo-
pie with severity that marks the
white mans exclusion of the black.
L.
where none but the chosen of the race
may enter; there are homes without
number where the ordinary illiterate,
uncouth negro is barred from entrance
by his limitations of education, con-
duct and general carriage; and this
very bar sinister acts as stimulus for
the progress of the second generation Of
the ignorant and the boorish.
The treatment, on the other hand,
which the white man extends to the
black, differs as much as in any other
city Congressman from the south
would sooner resign their positions
than mister the most influential negro
of the administration: while senators
from the north do not consider it be-
meath their dignity to shake hands and
chat with the doorkeeper of the pres-
dents sanctum. But the negro of
Washington can afford to regard the
aloofncss Of the southern offlceholder
as a negligible quantity, and rightly
enough he will tell You that the capital
is Che colored mans paradise
ut is more than possible, it is even
quite likely, that the negroes privileges
in Washington might be fewer and
these fewer strictly limited if a univer-
sal suffrage made him the white mans
equal at the polls. In a negative sense
he is the equal Of the white man there,
too; for in the District Of Columbia no
one. white or black, controls a ballot,
and the city is governed by appointees
of the United States. 1t is this mega
tive inequality which has given the ne
gro his positive equality; for the nu-
merical majority, and hence the politi-
cal superiority, of the African is not
feared by the Caucasian. Hundreds
Of Washington's citizens rebel against
the anomaly which makes them citizens
of a republic and deprives them of q
vote; but the conservative men of bus
mess, dreadlng niger rule, are quite
content to leave this paradoxical well
enough alone. And the negro, recognize
ing that his paradise rests on a para
dox, will be the last one who will wish
the present good order Of things SUBJ
verted.'