The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1916-03-18
.COLORED COMMITTEE
REFUSED A HEARING IN WASH
INGToN BY VINSON OF
GEORGIA.
On Bills Favoring Jim Grow Cars and
Making Marriage Of CoIored and
White People Crime-Rep. Tink-
ham Conducted Hearing Alone.
(From the Boston Guardian, }

S~~S ~~SSSSAA
Mr.. Archibald H. Grimke, president
of the Washington, D. c., Branch of
the National Association for the Adj
vancement of Colored People, reports
in the Boston Herald of Monday his
attempt to get hearing on bills for
separate street cars and against inter-
marriage of white and Colored per-
sons, introduced into Congress. He
says that Rep. Ben Johnson, of Ken
lucky, chairman of the District Com
m1ttee, ignored his request and hear
ing before the subcommittee was Sc
cured through Congressman George
Holden Tinkham of Boston.
When this ColOred committee an
peared Rep. Tinkham telephoned to
the subcommittee chairman. Rem.
Vinson of Georgia, that some citizens
were on hand, which brought him to
the scene. The latter, however, on
viewing these citizens took Rep. Tink-
ham into an ante-room and practically
accused him of deception in that those
present were Colored Americans, sup
posing they were white ones, who
favored the bills. He fatty refused to
hear this committee and is alleged to
have said to Rep. Tinkham:
never was more astonished in
my life when l saw the committee
rooms filled with lot of niggers and
mongrels."
Tinkham Conducts Hearing.
Rep. Tinkham then conducted the
hearing himself, having stenographic
report made of everything said. Pre-
sumably no white member of the Or
ganization was present, and no Colored
woman spoke. Colored men mentioned
as speaking were Dean Kelly Miller
and Prof. Geo. w. Cooke of Howard
University, Mr.. Grimke, Mr.. White.
field McKinlay, a wealthy business
man, ex-Collector of the Port of
Georgetown, James A. Cobb, ESQ.,. and
ex-Asst. w. S. District Attorney of
D. c..
Indifferent to South's Aggression.
The article says that there will be
no printed report of these arguments,
because Colored persons are not con-
sldered as citizens by the Democratic
majority in Congress, and that the
South has deprived the Colored people
or all representation in Congress (of
course with the acQuiescence of the
Republican North) and introduces
hostile bills upon which now it tries
to refuse hearing, and asks how long
this disregard of the rights of Colored
CITIZENS under the Constitution is to
go unchecked by the american ma
tion."
Mr.. Grimke summarizes the argu-
ments used, especially against the
stigmatizing and degrading anti-inter-
marriage bills as follows:
We showed why the bills ought not
10 become law; that white and Col
ored people have been riding in the
same cars since 1865, without race
friction; that there is no public de.
mand for separate cars and street
railway companies are opposed to
them; and while we did not advocate
the inter-marriage of the races. far
from it, yet we were opposed to these
anti-marriage bills because there is
no necessity for such law, as in
ter-marriage between the races is very
rare and is, in fact, negligible
quantity in the District of Columbia.
as such marriages constitute but a
small fraction of one per cent of the
marriages in the district. We went
turther and deeper, and showed that
such law would operate not to raise
public morals but to lower them; not
to prevent the inter-mixture of the
races but to make amalgamation an
pallingly easy. .,,.
Laws Against Inter-Marriaae Do Not
Stop but Increase Inter-n,ixture
Of Coiored Blood. .-.
He showed how such laws operate
to preserve race purity in the South
by establishing double moral and legal
standards, and how white men can
and do live in concubinage with
Colored women there, having chill.
dren by them with impuity; that thew
live in lawful union with white women
in their world and in unlawful union
with black women in their world at
one and the same time, producing in
consequence vast number of mixed
FLOODS every year. We showed that if
Colored women had the same legal
redress against white men which
"hlte women possess, by action for
seduction and bastardy process, and
that If these white men could be
forced legally to support their Colored
chlldren, could be brought to book by
the criminal law for adultery and forni-
cation with Colored women, there
would be vastly less inter-mixture Of
in $h@