The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1911-10-26
RIDING IN PARLoR CARS
Booker T. Washington Tells Why He
Did 1t.

Writing to the. Boston Transcript
Booker T. Washington replied to those
people who criticized him for riding in
parlor sleeping car, as follows;
ITO the Editor of The Transcript;
"The recent editorial clipping from a
New York paper, headed Jim Crow
Cars" published in The Transcript
serves to create an entirely wrong inn
preston. For four years, at the re-
quest Of colored people and white people
in various southern states, ! have been
making educational tours covering dur
ing this time Arkansas, Mississippi, Ten
nessee, Delaware, Virginia, North Car
olina and South Carolina.
Recently, on the invitation of the
Negro Business league of the state of
Texas, composed Of leading colored peo-
pie of that state, made ten days
tour of Texas. Everyone can well un-
derstand that ii would be impossible
from a physical point of view for any
individual to endure ten days Of con
slant travel, speaking three or four
times a day without some provision for
sleeping at night. On the Texas trip
| had to travel practically every night
TO reach the engagements which had
been made for me, speaking two and
three times day at meetings com
posed Of from one thousand to eight
thousand persons, and shaking hands
with hundreds Of them after the meet
ings. Because Of the physical strain,
the eolored people of Texas themselves,
at their own expense, provided a Pull
man car for me and for the two dozen
other colored people, most of whom
lived in Texas, who accompanied me.
So far from getting away from the
colored people, | was with two or three
dozen colored people all the time The
white people and colored people through
out Texas understood the situation, and
registered no objection. | did not hear
a single word OF adverse criticism dur
ing the ten days | was in Texas. On
the other hand the newspapers in Tex
as We're most cordial and generous. The
treatres or halls where meetings were
held were largely provided by the white
people themselves. There was most
cordial feeting manifested at all of these
meetings, and was thanked over and
over again by mayors, judges and other
public officials, as well as by hundreds
of the leading white people of Texas,
for my visit to their state.
"The harm that such publications as
the attached can do grows out Of the
fact that they give the impression that
there is constant strife and misunder-
standing between white people and black
ppople in the South. which does NOT ex-
ist. When / came back, returning
through the states OF Louisiana and Mis-
sissippi, the railroad authorities, on
their own motion, kindly put at my
disposal, day coach, giving as their
reason that they wanted to make me
as comfortable as possible after my ten
days hard work.
so far from getting away from the
colored people, my whole life has been
spent in direct contact with them, ex-
cept during the time when / am com
PEELED to be in the North for business
purposes. and this the colored people
thoroughly understand. My purpose in
using the Pullman car provided for me
by the colored business men OF Texas,
was not, as it has been assumed, TO get
away from my own race. because in
the special Pullman ear used. | was
really in contact with more colored PEG.
pie than ! possibly could have been in
the regular day coach set aside for the
use Of eolored people.
Booker T. Washington
"Tuskegee, Ala, Oct. a."