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204   THE CRISIS

for other branches and which may be obtained by application at the New York office. 
¶ Mr. William Pickens, professor of Latin at Talladega College, and a member of the advisory board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, gave an admirable talk in New York at Bethel Church, on Sunday afternoon, January 14. 
¶ On Lincoln's Birthday the New York branch held a meeting at St. James Presbyterian Church, Among the speakers were Judge Robert H. Terrell of Washington, Dr John Lovejoy Elliot of the Ethical Culture School, New York, and many prominent colored men of New York. The subject discussed was "The Problem of Race Prejudice and How to Combat It." Prof. Spingarn presided. 
¶ The N. A. A. C. P. and the New York branch have now a flying squadron, a band of young women who have organized to help the work in New York and to help it quickly. The colored churches and societies of Greater New York are divided among them and can be swiftly circularized. Three of the members do circularizing in New Jersey. The members of the flying squadron usher at meetings, and they are now making plans for a benefit performance to be given in April. Each of the twenty members of the squadron is a "captain" and is gathering about her group to aid in the work. The executive head is Miss Dora Cole, and the secretary Miss Lurline Saunders. 
¶ The last piece of association news is one of the pleasantest and most encouraging THE CRISIS has ever had to recount. For some time it has been apparent that if the association was to do far-reaching constructive work, if it  hoped to attack the larger phases of segregation, lawlessness or disfranchisement, it must have a fund at its disposal. Such a fund should be called a fund for legal redress and its money should be appropriated under the direction of the board of directors and the association's attorney. Mr. Julius Rosenwald, of Chicago, started this fund on February 1 by a gift of $2,000. Shortly afterward, Mr. Samuel Fels, of Philadelphia, augmented it by a gift of $500. This splendid beginning will make it possible for the association during the coming year to carry on a much greater mass of important work than before, always providing that it increases steadily in members.
  Forty-one persons joined the association in January, 1912, paying $161 in memberships. 

¶ The secretary of the association spoke in Detroit on January 18 before what it is hoped will soon be a new branch of the N. A. A. C. P. Her audience consisted of a group of twenty-five colored men, who have formed themselves into a vigilance committee and are combating with marked success the discrimination which has crept into their city. Detroit has always stood for justice and liberality to the Negro, but recently the caste feeling that manifests itself in annoying ways in the Northern cities has attempted to get a foothold in Detroit. The Detroit Negroes, however, have taken this at the beginning and have stopped discrimination on excursion boats, in parks, at moving-picture shows, soda-water fountains and restaurants. In this they have been aided by some of the best white lawyers in the city and by a strong civil-rights law upon the statute books. The wisdom displayed by the Detroit colored men in attacking race prejudice at its beginning cannot be too much commended. 

¶ Throughout the country colored men and colored organizations have been active in protesting against the appointment of Judge Hook to the Supreme Court of the United States. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, through its membership, sent nearly a hundred letters of protest to the President, and on February 6, by order of its board of directors, dispatched the following night telegram:
"To the President of the United States:
 "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People respectfully protests against the elevation of Judge William C. Hook to the Supreme Court bench. 
 "We base our protest on his concurrence, without expressed opinion of his own, in the case of McCabe vs. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad,  186 Fed., 966; not alone because that decision gave the sanction of law to a dreadful injustice to colored citizens, but because it did not deal with the principles involved in this decision with the constructive grasp which we have a right to expect from a judge of first rank. 
  "The opinion did not work out any principle of constitutional law, but, on the contrary, established a precedent not only unjust and at variance with the law of the land, but one lacking in the principle of humanity.' 
   In reply to this telegram, the following letter was received at the office of the association:
"To Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard.
"My Dear Sir:
  "The telegram of February 6, signed by you and other members of the National Association for the Advance-

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A FEDERAL REMEDY FOR LYNCHING     205

ment of Colored People, protesting against the appointment of Judge Hook to the United States Supreme Court, has been received and promptly brought to the attention of the President. 
  "Very truly yours, 
          "CHARLES D. HILLES,
        "Secretary to the President." 
  On February 8 the press announced the withdrawal of Judge Hook's name, owing to the opposition on the part of the colored citizens of the United States. 

¶ On January 23 the vigilance committee of the New York branch won an important victory in the conviction of Harry A. Levy, assistant treasurer of the Lyric Theatre, for refusing on October 13, 1911, to permit a colored man, Louis F. Baldwin, and his companion to occupy orchestra seats. 
 The case was a criminal one and was decided by three judges of the Court of Special Sessions. Baldwin's testimony showed that he had purchased two orchestra tickets and, then, on the night of the performance, entered the theatre accompanied by a colored woman and was turned back by the usher to whom he showed his seat stubs. This usher directed him to the box office. At the box office Baldwin found Levy, who told him that it was not the custom of the house to allow colored persons to sit in the orchestra, but that he could give him front-row balcony seats, or would return his money. Baldwin refused both offers and left the theatre. 
 The young woman who accompanied Baldwin, gave corroborative testimony. 
 Levy and several of the employees of the house, including the manager, denied that there was any rule prohibiting Negroes from sitting in any part of the house. "Have you ever refused an person admission to your theatre for the reason of color?" the manager was finally asked. 
 "No, sir," was the answer.
 At this point the prosecution called Prof. Spingarn, but some legal question was raised and he was barred as a witness in the case. The defendant having been proved guilty, the prosecution again asked that Prof. Spingarn be permitted to make a statement. This was granted, and Prof. Spingarn told how, several weeks after Mr. Baldwin's experience, having a desire to test the truth of it, he had gone personally to the Lyric Theatre and asked for two orchestra seats, mentioning to the man in the box office that he desired to bring a colored man with him and hoped that no objection would be made.
 "'I am sorry,' the man in the box office said to me," Prof. Spingarn concluded, " 'but I cannot give you orchestra seats then.  We do not permit  Negroes to sit in the orchestra.'"
 The sentence imposed was a fine of $50. 
 The success of the Baldwin case was primarily due to the energy and persistence of Mr. Gilchrist Stewart, chairman of the New York  Vigilance Committee, who first called in to the attention of the District Attorney, and carried on the work despite many delays and disappointments. Credit is also do to Mr. Charles H. Studin, whose legal services, gratuitously given, were all the more valuable because of his former experience in the District-Attorney Whitman took a personal interest in the case, which was ably conducted two of his assistants, Mr. MacDougal in the Magistrate's Court and Mr. James Smith in the Court of Special Sessions.

A Federal Remedy for Lynching
By the Honorable Albert E. Pillsbury, formerly Attorney-General of the State of Massachusetts
[Reprinted by special permission from the Harvard Law Review, Vol. XV., No. 9.]

Has the United States power to protect the lives of its citizens, or the lives of resident aliens to whom it owes protection, against mob violence within the States, if the States fail to protect them?

Probably a majority of public men and constitutional lawyers, "under prepossession of some abstract theory of the relations between the State and national governments," as Mr. Justice Bradley once said in the Supreme Court, [[footnote]] will incline to answer this question off-hand in the negative.
[[footnote]] Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 383.

An offhand answer is not enough.  The progress of mob law in many of of the States invites, if it does not compel, a serious inquiry into the constitutional question of federal power to put an end to it.  This is not a sectional question, not is it to be approached in a narrow or sectional spirit.  The fact that the victims of lynching are usually of the colored race does not limit the importance or the object of the inquiry.  It is not a race question, but one which affects the integrity of the government.  Lynch law is actual and concrete anarchy; the one complete form in which anarchism appears in our midst.  The United States cannot afford to tolerate it within the national domain if the power of preven-