Year: 1870

Tie arrest q Manager Ford, at ChaTiet0a.


CFrom the Charleston ;. c. News,


The arrest of Manager Ford, of Bali-
more, the lessee Of the Charleston Acade-
my of Music, for refusing to allow coli
ored man to occupy a seat in the oFches-
trail stalls of that building, viii most prob
ably lead to final settlement Of a ques-
ton which has vexed for long the busi-
ness men of the South.


As soon as the political equality of the
blacks and whites was an accomplished
fact, the Southern radicals turned their
attention to securing for their dusky con-
stituents social equality with the whites.
Equality before the law, equality IN the
jury box, equality in the legislative halls,
and equality in the public streets, did not
satisfy them. They demanded for the
freedmen absolute social equality-equal-
ity in the church, equality in the theatre,
equality in the restaurant and saloon !;
that the negro, in fire, should thrust HIM
self In as equal wherever white man or
a white woman might go. 1t is the gen
eral belief that most Of this agitation is
due to the radical whites, who desire to
make political capital by dilating upon
the wrongs of the black men. As rule,
the colored people care but little to push
themselves where they were not wanted !;
but their numbers and political power In
this State are so great that nod and a
cunning word may easily induce them TO
believe that they are outraged and abused
because Of their color, when, in truth,
they are the subjects of a purely business
regulation.


Manager Ford did, doubtless, violate a
law of this State in refusing, on recount
Of his color, to admit a colored man to a
particular part of the Academy of Music.
But the principle at stake cannot be meas
ured by the terms of the statute. Unless
man has the right to carry on his own
business in his own way, to determine
who shall be admitted and who shall be
refused to require that certain classes
shall occupy certain parts of his building,
what certainty has he that he can make
his business successful? His. regulations
have as their object the pleasing of the
public, not the persecution of class; and
if he is of opinion that the admission of
men with black faces, or women with
white hats, will intefere with his business
profits, he has clearly the right to refuse
to take them in. In the present case the
colored people have comfortable seats,
equal in every respect to the seats given
at the same price to the whites. Why,
then, do they complain, or why do their
leaders complain for them? 1t would be
hard to show that any of them suffer pc
cuniary damage by their exclusion from
the dress-circle of the academy but it is
easy to prove that the admission of color
ed people to hat part of the house reserv-
ed for the whites would be ruinous to
Manager Ford, and tantamount to closing
the building.


And this brings us down to the bottom
of the whole matter All the laws that
ever disgraced the statute book cannot
compel the white man to seat his wife and
children by the side of the negro nor to
frequent the restaurants where the colored
people 90; nor to the customer of the bar
Der shop whose towels and brushes are
used for white and. black alike. If the
courts decide that the negroes can go
where they please, they viii go-but the
white people will stay at home. The
courts may determine that Cufee has
legal right to touch shoulders with the
whites in the theatre, in the church, and
the saloon; but the right will be barren,
for the white people will stay away. The
supreme court may Kill profitable branch
es of trade, and violate private rights,
but it cannot make the negro the social
equal of the white man. That, at least,
is certain.