The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1907-04-18

l
| osition.
| "Why doesn't Congress provide scps-
| rate windows for mail delivery i'm thu
| postoffices, one for the whites and ons
| for the blacks, so that our wives anf
daughters, when they 20 to ask for tfs
| mail will have a separate Window
What is to prevent it from doing it,
Nothing, except that Congress does not
want to. What is to prevent Congress
from so legislating as that black and
| white railway mail carriers will not be
| working over the same letters and
| breathing the same sitting atmosphere!
| Nothing under the sun, except that Con-
| gress does not want to do it. WHY ara
white women and negro men in the de-
| partments at Washington doing the
same work in the same rooms, and the
former frequently under the orders of
| the latter? Why does not Congress stop
it? Because two thirds of Congress be-
| ing Northern men do not want to stop
1T. Why does not Congress pass my
friend Tom Helms bill to have jim
Crow cars in the District of Columbiaf
| Why cannot it be gotten out of the COM
mittee?
! Next the Governor says that Con-
| gress has no less power now undor the
clause of the constitution which enables
1T to regulate commerce between the
States than it would have if it were the
absolute owner and the practical oper-
ator of the trains. This ex cathedra as
sertion in its badness and lack of pos
sible basis of law or fact is paralyzing.
| The power to regulate commerce arms
Congress only with the power to see to
1T that safety of passengers and en-
] MI md
| of charges for interstate service are Sc
| cured to the people; and that a corpora
ton shall not carry disease from one
State to another. In all other respects
the railroads within a state are sub
ject to the State authority.
"My friend the Governor returned to
his levee analogy and is equally as I'M
fortunate as before. He saws that we
are appealing to the Federal govern
ment to take charge and ownership of
the levees. That is true, but while we
are doing it we are at the same time
proposing, as a condition precedent, to
turn the levees over to the exclusive
| jurisdiction of the Federal government,
to do what it thinks best in the inter-
est of navigation and land protection
surrendering all State jurisdiction.
Would the Governor turn the race ques-
| ton over to the Federal government in
exactly that same way? If he would,
then his logic is good. If he would
not, then his logic is by analogy Ia
mentally bad There are many per-
fectly willing to have the State surren-
der all of their authority and jurisdic-
tion over the levees on the banks of
the Mississippi. They feel that they
can trust the Federal government on
that question. Are there any of us so
blind as to be willing to have the States
surrender one iota of their authority or
jurisdictional control over the race
question? | for one am not.
"Some comparison has been at
tempted between my friend, the Gov
ernor, and Senator George as men who
do things The difference is palpable.
Senator George appealed to Caesar to
take his hands off, as the Head Block,
of Lumberton, Miss, in an editorial
some days since said, while Governor
Vardeman is appealing to Caesar to put
his hands back on When we have edu-
Gated Caesar, our Northern Caesar, to
a knowledge of the race question by
confronting him in his own home with
enough negroes to teach it to him, then
| will be willing to Join in asking him
trust him-not until then.
Governor Vardaman, by calling it
demagoguery, cannot escape this fact of
law, to-wit, that if the Federal govern
ment shall become the owner and oper-
ator of the railroad it can and it will
operate them from the apex of the COW
catcher on the locomotive to the rear
platform of the last sleeping car, re-
CARELESS of race, color or previous con-
dition of servitude.' Nobody but child
would expect any other result.
"The former Indian Territory and
Oklahoma Territory are now engaged in
adopting a constitution. 1t is fact
too we'll known about Washington to be
denied that if they shall put in that
constitution a clause providing for sep
arate coaches between the two races,
Congress will not approve the consti-
tuition nor admit the new State of Okla
homa until that clause is stricken out
1t is further a known fact that the
President stands ready to veto the en-
abling act if it shall contain such a
clause.
Governor Vardaman and / are both
grown men, and we ought to respect
facts. These things to which / am call
ing your attention are facts. The con-
sequence of these facts is that Senators
Tillman, Money and McLaurin and ali
Southerners in Washington, as far as I
know, are united in advising the dele
gates to the Oklahoma constitutional
convention to adopt their constitution
without any reference to Jim Crow
cars. Their advice is to get themselves
admitted to the Union first and then.
after they are admitted, to have their
legislature pass acts providing for sepa-
rate schools and separate coaches, or
later, if they desire, being once admitted
as State, with the rights of a State,
to amend the State constitution by
provision of organic law to the same
effect
"a Congress which will not let. a Ter
ritory, upon the eve of being admitted
as State, adopt a constitutional pro-
vision for separate coaches, is a hope
less body to look to pass on its own
initiative an identical provision, isn't itf
my friend, Governor Vardaman.
finally closes by saying that until he is
convinced that railroads are stronger
than the people, he is opposed to Fed
eral ownership and operation, but that
| when the time comes that he is con-
WINGED that vse railroads are stronger
than the people, then he will favor fed
| eral ownership. Has it occurred to him
that if the time ever came when the
railroads were stronger than the people,
it would then lie impossible for the peo-
pie either to acquire them or to own
hem, or to operate them, unless by the
consent of railroads and on their