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174

THE CRISIS

  Dr. Francis was a member of one of the oldest colored families in Washington.  Born in 1856, he attended the public schools of that city and the academy at Wilbraham, Mass.  In 1878, on being graduated from the medical college of the University of Michigan, he returned to Washington to begin his career as an eminently successful practitioner and a leading civic influence among the colored people of the capital.

  Dr. Francis was a member of the board of trustees of Howard University and had served on the executive committee of the board.  He was also a member of the Washington board of education, the board of children's guardians and president of the Social Settlement for Colored People.  Professionally he was recognized as one of the ablest physicians in the city, and he had the distinction of being the first Negro to equip and operate a sanitarium for colored patients.

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A LEGISLATOR.

BY a majority of 564 over the nearer of his two rivals, as disclosed by a recount of last November's ballot, the original count having given him third place, R. R. Jackson, of Chicago, major in the 8th Illinois Infantry and major-general of the Knights of Pythias, has been elected a member of the house of assembly of Illinois.

  Major Jackson is a young man of energy and ambition, as displayed in his successful fight, at his own expense, for a recount of the vote.  He is a committeeman on Chicago charter, fraternal and mutual insurance, Federal relations, military affairs, miscellaneous subjects, printing, senatorial apportionment, municipal courts of Chicago.  Rather a long list, but the major has been handling it with credit to his race and State.

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A SUCCESSFUL PASTOR.

CALIFORNIA is a country where men and things move rapidly, and they usually go ahead, except in anti-Asiatic legislation.  Few Californians, however, under the circumstances, could have excelled the record of E. Wesley Kinchen for rapid forward movement.  Six years after he had attended the Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, in Los Angeles, as a stray Pullman porter, Mr. Kinchen returned as its pastor.

  Mr. Kinchen is one of the most influential leaders in Los Angeles, for he has had the training to fit him for efficient and effective service among an intelligent people.

[[image:  ASSEMBLYMAN R. R. JACKSON]]
[[image:  REV. E. W. KINCHEN]]

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OPINION

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FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS.

The Supreme Court of the United States has, by declaring unconstitutional the Sumner Civil Rights Act, decreed that henceforward a colored woman traveling from Norfolk to Boston must either starve or eat from the soiled linen used by white people.  A Negro going from Charleston to New York, or vice versa, now has no hope of escaping the hideous filth of the third-class accommodations on the steamers, for he has no civil rights on the high seas nor on land or waters within the jurisdiction of the United States.

  The colored press is inclined to regard with a rather cynical philosophy the unanimous verdict of the highest tribunal in the land.  Says the St. Paul Appeal:

  "As the Supreme Court has never but once decided anything in favor of the 10,000,000 Afro-Americans of this country its action Monday is not surprising." 

  Others, like the McDowell (W. Va.) Times, take it more seriously:

  "The Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the civil-rights law of 1875 and turned the Negroes of the country over to the will of the States.  No longer can the Negro complain to the Federal courts because he is charged first-class fare for second-class accommodation, or because he is otherwise discriminated against on account of his color.  He must fight his battle for manhood rights and equality before the law in the several States, and as every person with an ounce of brain knows there are many States in which at least 8,000,000 Negroes live that they will have no more chance of winning than a snowball has of remaining solid on the equator.  We should bear in mind that this second 'Dred Scott decision' was handed down by a court, the majority of whose members are Republicans.  The last vestige of hope for the civil and political rights of the Negro in the South has been swept away.  The contention of the South in 1860 has been established in 1913.

  "Must the agitation of the quarter of a century previous to the Civil War be repeated?  Must the bloody battles of the war of rebellion be fought again?  Must devastation and destruction again swoop down upon this nation of hypocrites before she realizes before she realizes that the black man will be free?  God forbid.  Patience and forbearance will not always be a virtue of the Negro race, the worm will turn, and a race of peace-loving, mild-tempered, good-natured patriots will be converted into wild-eyed, bloodthirsty anarchists, who will court extermination, preferring death to slavery and oppression.

  "To the Negroes we advise that in the States where you have the ballot you should use it intelligently and to the interest of your race.  Keep the subject of human rights alive, preach it from the pulpit, impress it upon the children on the roadside, in the schoolhouse, tell it in your lodges; wherever two or more assemble talk about your rights; get the people interested.  There are white men with big, broad hearts who will help fight your battles.  The majority of the American people are fair; they will help and the Negro will win and get his due.  All men, even black men, will be free and equal."

  The editor of the Morning Telegraph (New York) is not of the majority from which the McDowell Times expects fair play.  Like most of the Southerners who have invaded the Northern press, he is trying to make his readers believe that the Negro's most cherished dream is to be able to sit down to a meal with a white man.