Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/543

Rh Enthusiastic state organizations have been effected in New York, Ohio, and other states, while local leagues are being set up daily. In Ohio, state organizers have been commissioned by the state league to organize every township and city into a league.

Upon a recent meeting of the New York state league at Rochester, The Democrat and Chronicle said, editorially, the following words of commendation:

"The delegates from Afro-American leagues of New York state who have assembled in convention in this city for the purpose of forming a state organization, are a fine-looking, representative set of men, and their proceedings are marked by evidence of intelligent thought and an earnest desire to improve the opportunities which are offered in the commercial and intellectual world. The object of this league, as we understand it, is self-development and the creation of relations which shall be eventually beneficial to the members in the various enterprises in which they may engage. Necessarily, the beginning must be small; but it is a step in the right direction, which will have a strong tendency to stimulate self-respect and honorable ambition."

The national league has already begun its humanitarian work. In the case of Fortune vs. Trainor for ejection from the Trainor hotel of New York and false imprisonment, the league has indorsed Mr. Fortune in the suit for $10,000 damages, instituted in the courts of New York. The follow-eminent counsel have been retained by the league, through Mr. Fortune: Hon. J. M. Langston, M. C., T. McCauts Stewart, attorney for New York state league, Jacob Simms, Esq., New York City, and E. H. Morris, Esq., of Chicago, attorney for the national league. These able and efficient lawyers will defend Mr. Fortune's rights, which, in a measure, involve the right of every other Afro-American leaguer.

This unity of the race promises to be the best means yet