Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-27
The Colored People and the Curse
of Liquor.
70 the Editor Of The Stsl

To the Editor of The Star:
So nice is the balance of interests in
the working out of municipal improve
ment. so essential is the hearing of each
distinct 'adsum'' in the decisive roll call
for social reforms OF for a more whole
some adjustment of life in the community,
that it becomes crime to leave inarticu-
late at this time a cry for a better
along with the effort now making for a
greater and a more beautiful Washing
ton.
Wealth. culture and position are always
vocal. Money talks. and connections
have the wireless outfit. But the bald
fact remains that fully third of the
population in this great city have less
weight in determining their environment
than those precious trees that concluded
the other day they wouldn't move for the
Grant monument.
In any purely impersonaI discussion of
the saloon questions the personal liberty
advocates can perhaps clearly establish
that all sumptuary laws and prohibition
for any part of the District would curtail
the divine" rights of the individual.
That men cannot be made good by con-
gressional enactment is true. But does
not society owe 1t to its own wholesome
preservation to protect its weakest ele-
mentS from the dangers from which they
casual study of saloon sites will be struck
by the frequency with which they seek
colored neighborhoods. This is hardly the
result of over-considerate attention to the
colored mans convenience. since he is
pretty generally thought none too good to
walk after what he wants as we'll as to
pay for 1t. Neither ought it perhaps to
be ascribed to the malignant effects of
race prejudice pure and simple. The
cause may be merely the general opera
Of he 10 of he inc n q CT
sistance. The saloon. wide awake, ag-
gressive powerful, persuasive, pushing.
The colored neighborhood, dumb in mu-
nicipal affairs, accustomed to submit to
evils as part of the constitution of things
and somehow interviewer in the mystic
ries of divine Providence. If the result
is what may be witnessed any night in
the neighborhood of the Colored Social
Settlement in the old Bloodfleld district,
then a protest. however obscure, becomes
a sacred duty and Silent submission a
crime, even though one have no Ian
tguage but a cry" In ltraversing the dis
lance from the car to the settlement one
notes a saloon at each corner. with two
1and a. times three extra for the middle
or fhe Stlock. One night l noticed crepe
on the Hdoor of one of these, and the
women tSaSJthe sewing circle spoke in
flushed fones OF what had happened. A
,colored nah and his wife had been quar-
reling IN TIE corner saloon In drunken I,ls1
w. z
ssuddenIy-paled and dropped dead. and
she WHISPERED comment in awed voices
has And he won't sell no mo- likker to
nobodv!
What a pity that the prejudice and
proscriptionLthat keep colored folk away
fron lectures and concerts and halls of
edifying amusement will not slam the
door in our faces when we enter the
course that leads to perdition! Is it hui
name, lis 1t public spirited, Is it even
sanelyt selfish to allow these dazZlingly
brilliant allurements to vice to remain the
only hospitable welcome that a tired black
man can turn to after the days work Is
over? Is 1t right to put upon this people
in their undeveloped weakness the prox-
unity of multiplied saloons, which a
neighborhood highly developed and strong
TO resist Temptation or able to satiate de-
sire in seclusion would not tolerate? VIII
not your Influential paper, so uniformly
and unfiinchingly devoted to the broadest
and truest service of the nations capital
lend it's splendid energies TO turn the
light upon these dark plague spots? VIII
you noa lend the tongue of power to a
plant that is none the less vital to the
commonweal because it broods feebly and
ineffectively in darkened and forgotten
corners of the community?
ANNA J. COOPER.