Page:Why colored people in Philadelphia are excluded from the street cars.djvu/6

4 the ladies of my family to ride in the cars with colored people." It is proper to state here, that at the time of this interview, the latest three decisions of the Courts of the country, bearing on this question, had been directly against the right of exclusion,—the last being that of Judge Allison, of our Court of Quarter Sessions.

The Committee then turned to the Legislature. A bill to prevent exclusion from the cars on account of race or color had been introduced into, and passed by the Senate, early in the session of 1865, and was referred to the Passenger Railway Committee of the House. Here it was smothered. No persuasion could induce this Railway Committee,—twelve out of its fifteen members being Republicans, and eight, Republicans from Philadelphia,—to report the bill to the House in any shape. According to the statement of the Chairman, Mr. Lee, the school-boy trick was resorted to of stealing it from his file, in order that it might be said that there was no such bill in the hands of the Committee. This assertion was made to an inquirer, several times over, by Mr. Freeborn, one of its members.

Finally, recourse was had to the Courts. Funds were raised, and within the last sixteen months, the Committee has attempted to bring suits for assault in seven different cases of ejection, all of which have been ignored by various grand juries,—the last only a few days ago. In one case, a white man,—a highly respectable physician,—who interposed, by remonstrance only, to prevent the ejection of a colored man, was himself ejected. He brought an action for assault, and his complaint was ignored also. In five of these cases civil actions for damages have been commenced, which are still pending. One of them, by appeal from a verdict, given under a charge of Judge Thompson, in Nisi Prius, against the ejected plaintiff, is now on its way to the Supreme Court in banc, where it is hoped the whole question will be finally and justly settled.

The colored people at present rarely make any attempt to enter the cars. As is their wont, they submit peaceably to what they must. The last case of ejection was that of a young woman, so light of color that she was mistaken for white, and invited into a car of the Union Line by its conductor. When he found