parate coach bill recently passed by the
Legislature. No class of people in the State have so many and so largely
attended excursions as the blacks. All these have been abandoned, and
regular travel is reduced to a minimum. A competent authority says the
loss to the various roads will reach $1,000,000 this year.

A call to a State Conference in Lexington, Ky., last June had delegates
from every county in the State. Those delegates, the ministers, teachers,
heads of secret and others orders, and the head of every family should
pass the word around for every member of the race in Kentucky to stay oil
railroads unless obliged to ride. If they did so, and their advice was
followed persistently the convention would not need to petition the
Legislature to repeal the law or raise money to file a suit. The railroad
corporations would be so effected they would in self-defense lobby to have
the separate car law repealed. On the other hand, as long as the railroads
can get Afro-American excursions they will always have plenty of money to
fight all the suits brought against them. They will be aided in so doing
by the same partisan public sentiment which passed the law. White men
passed the law, and white judges and juries would pass upon the suits
against the law, and render judgment in line with their prejudices and in
deference to the greater financial power.

The appeal to the white man's pocket has ever been more effectual than all
the appeals ever made to his conscience. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is
to be gained by a further sacrifice of manhood and self-respect. By the
right exercise of his power as the industrial factor of the South, the
Afro-American can demand and secure his rights, the punishment of
lynchers, and a fair trial for accused rapists.

Of the many inhuman outrages of this present year, the only case where the
proposed lynching did _not_ occur, was where the men armed themselves in
Jacksonville, Fla., and Paducah, Ky, and prevented it. The only times an
Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and
used it in self-defense.

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well,
is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black
home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to
give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as
great risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he