The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-07-12

majority in the late arbitration between the white fremen and the Georgia rail- road in regard to the employment of ne- gro firemen; and an expression of his
 views on fair treatment of the negro in
 industrial employments for which he is fitted in the south
 To the Editor 5f The Age-Herald:
 I see by the Montgomery Advertiser of July l. which has just reached me, that
 a bill has been introduced in the Georgia
 legislature to require railroad companies
 to hire white fireman or assistant to the
 engineer "being not to prevent railroads
 from employing negro firemen, but as ad-
 ditional safeguard to public travel.'
 Partly because Chancellor Barrow and I, who recently, as arbitrators of the question involved in this bill, did not pub
 fish any opinion giving the reasons why
 we found that the employment of negro
 fremen on the Georgia railroad did not
 endanger the travelling public, and still
 more because of the abiding interest I
 have In this matter, I ask you to publish this communication.
 Let me premise that my law firm are the local attorneys of the Seaboard Air
 Line railway in Washington city, getting as compensation not salary but fees for
 such business as comes to us there. These ] fees constitute an insignificant item In my l practice, averaging not over s70o per an- mum, and I should despise myself if I | thought that this sum, or indeed, any amount of money, could account in any degree for the deep and abiding convic- T hor ba
 volved In the recent arbitration at Att
 lanta, and again in the bill now before the Georgia legislature.
 I am an intense southerner, proud to have fought alongside of Wright's glor- ious Georgia brigade under Lee. I have studied the negro question carefully for 40 years, and have been, and am now, heart
 and soul with the people of Alabama, Georgia and other southern states in their every struggle for the political su-
 premacy of the white man. This suprem- acy thank God we have secured com
 pletely. Intelligent public opinion at the
 north is at this writing so thoroughly
 with us that there Is now no longer any
 danger Of interference with us from
 Washington, either legislative or execu- tive, so long as we do not, by harsh or
 unjust treatment of the negro. now at our
 mercy. alienate the sympathles of the
 majority section of our union. The com- pleteness of our supremacy in the south
 over the negro is illustrated by the fact
 that in the recent arbitration at Atlanta,
 the right of the negro to earn living by working as locomotive firemen was argued and decided when he was not pres ent or represented by counsel. The ma
 jorty of the board decided that the negro was competent, and that his employment
 did not endanger the public safety, affix-
 ing as an addition that he should be paid
 the same price as the white fireman. l
 was not fully satisfied with this condition
 when I signed the award. Every mo-
 ment of reflection since has given me un- easiness about it. And I now wish to say this communication Is prompted only l by a desire not to be misunderstood and 1 by the notice in the papers of this bill l in the Georgia legislature. In brief dis l cussion of the case that was before the 1 board, having no papers at hand, 1 must l rely entirely upon memory but if I err
 in any of my statements, the records of all the evidence is accessible in the United ] States circuit court in Atlanta.
 1 railroad many of the firemen were ne- l groes working tremendously under and | In subordination to the engineers, who I were invariably whites. Some time last | spring representatives from the north of l the Brotherhood of Locomotive Bremen l and Engineers appeared upon the scene. | Then the trouble began; a strike came l on; many rumors filled the air, and the 1 excitement grew until representatives of l the federal government went to Georgia and brought about an arbitration under | the Erdman act.
 l The main issue was whether the Georgia ] railroad should be permitted any longer to 1 employ negro firemen. The only way by which the brotherhood could get rid of the
 negroes was to show that they were not ] competent, and the wonderful record of 1 the Georgia railroad was that, during a i lifetime of 75 years only one passenger
 had ever been killed, and that casualty
 occurred on a mixed passenger and freight l train on branch line. For 3S, a major l ity, of these years negroes had fired
 upon it, and yet, in the face of this rec
 ord, the task of showing that these ne- | groes could not be trusted was boldly es- I saved. The strikers had with them as
 witnesses and promoters in the litigation l two officials of the B. L.. F. and E., one | from Toronto, Canada, and the other 1 from Chicago. These officials had with l them many statistics and books from l other railroads which, in the opinion of 1 the majority of the board, had little bear | ing on the case, and which, if I renem- l Der correctly, were little, if any, dwelt on I by counsel in argument The strikers | were represented by MT. Dickson of Pe- l oria, H., national attorney of the broth l erhood, who made a strong opinion 1 speech, and their leading counsel was MT l Arnold, one of the foremost lawyers of I the south. The railroad was represented 1 by Major Cumming and MT. Sanders Me 1 Daniel, Major Cumming making the only l speeches, and l need not tell Georgians l how high he ranks The chief witnesses l for the strikers were 25 engineers, mostly | from the Georgia railroad, upon which no 1 traveller ever lost his life by the careless | ness of a fireman. The testimony of many l of these witnesses was the stereotyped l answer that the average white man was l superior to the average negro, which, of
 course, all know. Others testified more l specifically that the white man made a 1 better fireman than the negro. All admit l ted, however, that some negroes were en-
 tirely competent, and two of them admit
 ted that they had asked for particular 1 negroes as firemen. Now, the testimony 1 of each of these witnesses, all of them in- l tellgent and believe truthful, was main l ly from his opinion formed from the few l negro firemen who had been under him 1 individually. No concrete facts were given | which, In my opinion, could affect the 1 question. Remembering here that gen l eral conclusions drawn from individual in-
 stances are only considered valuable when l derived from many facts, and the more | the better, let us look first at such
 evidence on the other side as comes from