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90 THE CRISIS "I assert that it cannot make the right to depend upon ancestry at all. Why? Because there is no rational connection between the fact that a man's grandfather was a soldier or a voter and the question whether the man himself is qualified to vote. The so-called qualification is no qualification. It does not afford the slightest presumption that the descendant is fit for the duty. It is purely arbitrary and unreasonable. You might as well make the right to depend upon a man's height or the color of his eyes. The only theory upon which it could be defended would be that qualities and political rights are inheritable, which is a theory contrary to the spirit of our institutions and the very stuff of aristocratic and monarchial institutions, which are not to be tolerated under our organic law. When a State makes certain of its citizens electors it invests them with the power and the duty to vote as representatives of the whole body of their fellow citizens. They exercise a public function. They perform a public duty. To that extent and in that sense they are officers. They hold an office – that of elector. May an office be made hereditary in this country? Suppose the legislature were to pass a law to that effect – that certain offices should descend from father to son. Would it not violate the Constitution of the United States? Could the courts hold it to be a valid law and the officeholder to have a valid title? Suppose Massachusetts should confine the right of suffrage to the descendants of those who landed from the 'Mayflower.' Would her form of government be any longer republican? Is it anything else when Louisiana or North Carolina or Georgia gives the right to vote to those who were voters on the 1st of January, 1867, and to those who are descended from them, and refuses it to others unless they can comply with various conditions not imposed upon the first. The registration rolls of the South have been made up under such laws. Every man who holds office under those states to-day derives his title, such as it is, from elections conducted under such laws. I do not wonder when I read in conservative legal journals that the South is 'uneasy' over the 'grandfather' clauses." EXECUTIVE SESSION. The report of the Chairman of the executive committee, Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, reviewed the work of the year, and noted the two very important cases upon which the association's legal committee is working– a "Jim Crow" case and a case to test the "grandfather" clause. The secretary of the association ,Miss May Childs Nerney, gave some details of the executive work of the year, and the national organizer, Dr. M. C. B. Mason, also spoke. The hour was so late when "new business" was reached that only one matter came up. Mr. John E. Milholland urged that the members endorse the movement, which he is heading, for Federal aid to education. The meeting did so endorse and moved the appointment later of a Federal Aid Committee from the membership. The meeting announced the acceptance of the Springarn medal, of which an account will be given in another issue of The Crisis. THE ASSOCIATION'S President. The conference was most fortunate in having its president, Mr. Moorfield Storey, at all but one if its sessions. Mr. Storey brings to the association a record of laborious days spent in the championship of oppressed races, and he never lets us forget the high ideal of liberty that is the birthright of every American. BRANCHES. The association now has about 1,400 members and fourteen branches; Baltimore, Md.; Boston, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; Detroit, Mich.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Kansas City, Kan.; Lynchburg, Va.; New York, N.Y.; Northern California; Orange, N.J.; Quincy, Ill.; Tacoma, Wash.; Topeka, Kan.; Washington, D.C. It has also a college chapter, recently formed at Howard University, Washington, D.C., which was represented at the conference by Mr. Leroy Locke. Representatives were present from Baltimore Md.; Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y., and Washington D.C., and all the branches sent in reports. the reports were of great interest, but as much of the material is already incorporated in the annual report of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for 1912, only a brief outline will be given here. MEETINGS. Every branch reported propaganda work through meetings. Many of these gatherings were devoted solely to the association and the THE N.A.A.C.P. 91 spreading of its propaganda, while others celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation or were meetings of protest against Negro discrimination practiced by city or State. The association scarcely overestimates the value of these meetings held, as they have been, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. CIVIL RIGHTS. Every city branch has its important work of civil rights. In large and small ways discrimination against the Negro creeps into our city administration. In Boston it takes the form of removing a colored girl from the grammar school, where she is doing satisfactory work, to a trade school. The branch takes up the matter with the school board, the girl is reinstated and graduates with her grammar-school class. In Baltimore discrimination was legalized by a segregation ordinance. Readers of The Crisis have read how magnificently the Baltimore branch, aided by the legal department of the association fought the fight against segregation and won on April 24. The Kansas City (Kan.) branch has a fight before it on this issue. In New York the branch has struggled, with success, for the right of colored citizens to sit with the orchestras of theatres and is slowly winning the battle to secure the right of a colored man to purchase a meal in a restaurant. Since its inception this branch has taken a vigorous stand against the brutality of the police toward colored citizens. In Detroit the branch has been working with success along civil-rights lines. Increasingly the colored people of the cities of the North are gaining hope regarding their rights. They are coming to believe that it is worth while to appeal to the civil-rights bills existing on their statute books and to insist on their enforcement. The association is doing no more important work than in its encouragement of this attitude on the part of Northern colored people. ANTI-MARRIAGE BILLS. A number of bills against the marriage of whites and Negroes have appeared in Northern legislatures. Believing these laws to be unjust and to degrade the colored race and especially the colored women, the branches have taken active part against such legislation. The New York, Kansas City (Kan.) and Tacoma branches helped defeat it in their States, and the Chicago branch is opposing it in a vigorous and diplomatic campaign. FULL-CREW BILL. The Kansas City (Kan.) and Chicago branches have worked to defeat the full-crew bill, which would deprive members of colored porters of their positions on railroad trains. FINANCIAL SUPPORT. Increasingly the branches are aiding the association by raising money for its national work. Boston, during the past year, turned over all but $6 of the money it raised through contributions and memberships to the national body. Washington recently cent $100 as a contribution to the association. By their constitutions all branches retain 50c. of their membership fees and give the rest to the parent body, and all increase of membership aids the association. Indianapolis, Quincy, Kansas City (Kan.) and Orange are all expressing their appreciation of the importance of the national work, and are striving to help it financially. We have outlined the main lines of the work of the branches, and we call the attention of readers of The Crisis to the fact that branch news is to be found each month in the N.A.A.C.P. notes. BALTIMORE SEGREGATION ACT. The association has had its moment of triumph when, on the second day of the conference, word appeared in the papers that Judge Elliott had declared the Baltimore segregation act invalid. It was announced at the executive session, and the members of the association had the opportunity to congratulate in person Mr. W. Ashbie Hawkins, the Baltimore lawyer, who fought so long and so successfully against segregation. This decision is of importance not only to the colored people of Baltimore, but to all those who dwell in cities of the South. It will have its effect in discouraging further attempts at legalized segregation. SETTLEMENT HOSPITALITY. The members of the conference were delightfully entertained by Miss Frances Bartholomew at the Eighth Ward settlement. This is one of the oldest settlements in a colored neighborhood in the country, and the members were interested to go over the building and to learn of the admirable work accomplished there. They had two delightful hours of social intercourse and cordial hospitality.
