nds that there
is a vast difference between what he gets and what they get for precisely
the same money. They get always the best accommodations for themselves and
families, while he gets the worst. There is not a restaurant along the
route where he may get a meal, and not a hotel which would give him a bed
over night. If he can afford it he may procure a seat in a Pullman, and
then again he may not be able to do so, and in this case as in the event
of his not being able to afford to buy a seat in a Pullman, he must make
the journey in a "Jim Crow" car, without separate toilet arrangements for
the sexes, deficient in soap and towels, in water and in general and
particular cleanliness, exposed constantly to the intrusions and the
fumes, alcoholic and tobacco, of white men passing to and from their
smoker, which is one-half of the "Jim Crow" coach and divided from it only
by an inadequate partition.

The colored passenger is, to be sure, an American citizen on paper, but
what is it worth to him under the circumstances? Can it compel railroads
to furnish him decent accommodations, which federal law provides shall be
equal to those furnished to white passengers, and for which the colored
passenger pays the same fare as the white one? It is notorious that the
accommodations furnished by the railroads in interstate commerce to their
colored passengers are inferior to those which they furnish white
passengers for the same fare. The Interstate Commerce Commission knows
this and knows it well, yet it makes no determined and persistent attempt
to compel railroads to give to their colored passengers accommodations
equal to those which they furnish their white ones. It is too busy
attending to the more important business relating to the property rights
and interests of shippers and capitalists to spare the time to break up an
evil which makes the existence of colored interstate passengers an
unbroken experience of bitter hardships and humiliations. Surely there are
American citizens and American citizens--citizens whom Government protects
and enables to make good their claim to equality before the law, and other
citizens whom Government does not protect or enable to make good their
claim to equality before the law. And to this latter class belongs the
Negro nearly every time and almost everywhere.

The Negro is the great American anomaly. Judged by his rights on paper his
citizenship is indisputable, but judged by his rights in fac