Page:Why colored people in Philadelphia are excluded from the street cars.djvu/25

 supposed extinct, still to disturb the peace of society. Our fathers made two great mistakes in this matter. First, the process of extinction was to be gradual, which was as if one, instead of a bullet, should give a dose of slow poison to a mad dog and then let him run; and next, it was not only gradual but incomplete. The chain of the slave was broken but his shackle was not taken off; and any degree of civil disability under which an emancipated slave is left, is just so much slavery left. It not only restrains his movements both of progress and self-defence, but it keeps alive the spirit of oppression in the "master race" as air keeps alive flame. By a natural law, whatever of the slave is left in one race will, while it lasts, always tempt into exercise and encounter a corresponding amount of the slave master in the other. So long as the law degrades a man, his neighbor will degrade him. Whoever can call to mind a celebration of our day of Independence in Philadelphia some five and thirty years ago, may remember that the part of the day's exercises which the boys took upon themselves was to stone and club colored people out of Independence Square, because "niggers had nothing to do with the Fourth of July." The fathers of these boys looked on with placid satisfaction, cheerfully and hopefully remarking to each other, how well their sons were learning to perform the duties of free American citizens. Twenty years later and a change might be seen. Colored people—place and occasion the same—were allowed to carry water about among the crowd, without meeting other insult from the thirsty than words of good-natured contempt. This was an improvement. Those whom we formerly drove forth with blows and curses, we had now learned to utilize. Twelve more years go by and still another change. We now allowed our able bodied colored men to fight for us. But we still were mindful of what was due to ourselves, as belonging to the superior race. We therefore carefully restricted the wives and sisters of our black defenders to the front platform of the cars, when they visited their wounded husbands and brothers at the hospitals. And now today, out of sixteen Philadelphia generals and colonels, most of whom are believed to have seen some service in the field, three vote in favor of permitting these returned colored veterans ac-