Page:Why colored people in Philadelphia are excluded from the street cars.djvu/5



Some remarks lately communicated to the New York Anti-Slavery Standard, on the continued exclusion of colored people from our street cars, leave the impression that no efforts have been made here to procure for this class of people admission to these cars. This is incorrect. It will be found on inquiry, that a Committee, consisting of some twenty-five or thirty gentlemen, appointed at a public meeting, in January of last year, to effect, if possible, this object, is still in existence. This Committee is evidently somewhat slow. No report of its proceedings has yet been published, and the only reason suggested for its silence is, that there has been nothing good to report: an insufficient reason.

But these gentlemen have not been entirely idle. It seems that immediately on their appointment, they called on the respective Presidents of the nineteen street railway companies, and, in a courteous manner, requested them to withdraw from their list of running regulations the rule excluding colored people. Some few favored compliance, more or less conditional, the others not; but all, or nearly all, finally settled on the subterfuge of referring the question to a car-vote of their passengers. The subterfuge answered its purpose, for the self-respecting part of the community did not vote.

Shortly after this vote was taken, a colored man was ejected from a car by the help of a policeman. The Committee called on the late Mayor Henry, and respectfully inquired if this had been done by his order. His reply was: "Not by my order, but with my knowledge and approbation; as the right to exclude colored people has been claimed by the railway companies, and has not been judicially determined, the police assists in maintaining the rules of the companies, to prevent breaches of the peace." And he added: "I am not with you, gentlemen; I do not wish