“YOU CAN’T TALK LIKE THAT NOW.”

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16406, 3 April 1919, Page 6

“YOU CAN’T TALK LIKE THAT NOW.”

“In a passenger coach of a Southern train tho other day 1 espied a veteran of .Pershiugs army. Upon an empty plcove were two six months’ foreign service stripes and a wound chevron, and ou his breast a medal of honour,” jays a writer in the New York Nation. “As he sat there the conductor of the train came to him, and touching his worn uniform said, ‘You’re in the wrong coach. You b’long in the Jim Crow car. Get out of here.’ Tho negro looked him steadily in the eyes. ‘i’ll, stay right here,” he said firmly. ‘You could have talked to me that way once, but you can’t now!’ and ho pointed to his empty sleeve. ‘All r ight,’ said the conductor, ‘l’ll soon fix you.’ “Whereupon he called a burly brake-; man, and they were about to throw this one-armed veteran out of the car, when the gorge of tho Southern men who witnessed this humiliating scene rose, the train hands were ordered to desist, and .Pershing’s veteran rode on in peace, the sole coloured man in a car-' load of whites. “ ‘Oh, very well,’ said the conductorjust before he slammed the door, ‘that’s just like you white folks; first you make tho laws and then you break them.’ “There are a good many laws that ought to be broken nowadays which affect tho coloured people. After the 150,000 coloured men-now in Franco return from their glorious share in Pershing's victory, shall we continue to Jim-Crow them, disfranchise them, and remind them that though they may he good enough to fight for Uncle Sara, they are still to be despised at home?”