New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-07-10
LIN CRON" CARS.

The Interstate Commerce Commission could
not have had the convenience and comfort of
certain Southern statesmen in mind when it
decided that it was neither unconstitutional nor
against public policy to separate white and col
ored railroad passengers If equal service and
accommodations were given for the same fare.
Those statesmen have been disposed to make
fetch Of the Jim Crow" car 1t was in their
view peculiar and sacred observation-disclosures
as peculiar and sacred as slavery was formerly
held TO be. They have declared that Southern
civilization rested on the dual passenger coach,
and that every other desIderatum in politics
must yield to the maintenance of the color line
In passenger traffic They have insisted that no
government regulation of interstate commerce
was preferable to a regulation which might
obliterate this distinction and thus sap the very
foundations of civil society in the South.
The Hon. John Sharp Williams has often
warned his colleagues in the House Of Repre-
sentatives against the adoption Of policy OF
federal control of railroads which might elm
mate the color classification. He has made his
apprehensons on that score the basis Of his
refusal TO accept Mr.. Bryan's programme of
government ownership and operation of the in
strumentalities of interstate commerce. He
wants to have the Democratic party nominate
Mr.. Bryan for President next year but concur
rently to repudiate Mr.. Bryans ownership and
operation plan as inlmlcal 10 Jim Crow praC-
tees and Jim Grow" theory. We judge from
reports of the recent Vardaman-Williams debate
that Mr.. Williams is still trying to neutrallZe
Governor Vardaman's claim TO preferment gen
orally. and seat IN the Senate in particular, on
the ground that he believes IT practicable to re-
peal the Fifteenth Amendment, and would be
vastly better pleased to live under the Stars and
Bars with Jefferson Davis as President than
under the Stars and Stripes with Theodore
Roosevelt, by calling attention TO the fact that
the Governor as an out and out supporter Of Mr..
Bryan is committed to a policy which might, by
upsetting the Jim Crow" modus piUendi, make
life in Mississippi not worth living under any
flag President or political dispensation.
The Interstate Commerce Commissions de-
csion seems to put the Williams boyle out Of
business, for If 1t is to be held that the mere
separation Of passengers according to color is no
infringement of right, so long as equal service
and equal attention to comfort are given, then
Southern civilization cannot be threatened by
federal regulation Of the railroads, and Mr..
Williams and his friends will have to find other
and more substantial reasons for opposing Mr..
Bryan's ownership and operation programme
than that It will nail up the shutters of the
Jim Crow" car. We have often said that we
considered that objection on their part 10 Mr..
Bryan's proposal insincere. Mr.. Williams should
follow Senator Culberson into the open, and If
he wants to oppose government ownership Of
the railroads, should oppose 1t on the ground that
II is un-Democratc. sOcialistic and economically
and politically unsound.