Page:Why colored people in Philadelphia are excluded from the street cars.djvu/10

 late war, to the enlisted Blacks; and that the latter as cheerfully accepted and bravely maintained this post, many battle-fields—Fort Wagner, Port Hudson and Petersburg among the rest—testify. And it would seem that this fact might be used as an unanswerable reason for establishing equality of privilege in quarters where these soldiers meet in time of peace. The quarters being free of expense to all, those who might dislike the conditions could be made free to leave them. But it is found that this suggestion, when made, cannot be entertained for a moment.

Now let us look at the question in its political aspect. And attention may be called first to the fact that several members of the late House Passenger Railway Committee,—the gentlemen who, in their quality of legislative abortionists, prevented the anti-exclusion bill from seeing the light,—were returned to the Legislature at the last Fall election, by a full party vote, although this transaction had been fully made known through the newspapers. This shows clearly that, by their course in regard to the rights of the colored people, they had not forfeited the confidence of our so-called radicals. One of these gentlemen, the same who reiterated the assertion that "there was no such bill in the hands of the Committee," is reputed to be one of the most respectable and useful members of the Philadelphia delegation. He is an especial favorite of the Union League, of which he has become a member since his services on the above Committee were rendered, and he was lately the recipient of a complimentary gift, with appropriate ceremonials, in one of its rooms, as a token of his legislative merit. This incident is mentioned only because it serves to show what manner of spirit the League is of, in regard to this question of admission; and one is constrained to believe that this spirit partakes largely of indifference, tinged with contempt, and therefore of inert opposition. And if anything were wanting to confirm this impression, it is to be found in the fact that the League declines to permit the rare distributing powers of its Publication Committee to be used in spreading over the State documents which distinctly advocate negro suffrage. Next, it will be remembered how, last Fall, all classes of Republicans, from the most conservative to, with few exceptions,