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190 THE CRISIS

quested for the lawyer's salary was raised at this meeting and the balance pledged. The branch renewed its hearty invitation to the National Association to hold its next conference in Baltimore.

Washington.

In Washington the secretary addressed a meeting held in the Shiloh Baptist Church. Over $100 was collected toward the new lawyer's salary and more pledged. A number of subscriptions were taken for The Crisis and about twenty new members were secured.

An unfortunate difficulty has arisen in Washington. At the May meeting of the board it was decided that the secretary, then absent, should be directed upon her return to take up two points with the Washington members: First to secure a larger representation of prominent white friends on the advisory board and, secondly, the case of Dr. Waldron as president. Everyone present expressed a high regard for Dr. Waldron's fearless position for many years, but the majority felt that since he has taken a definite political stand and was an applicant for office, he would unduly antagonize many Washington people whose help we needed. That he is an applicant for office is proven by letters in our possession. 
  The board felt that this matter could only be taken up by going directly to Dr. Waldron and putting the matter up to him. We all felt that he would understand our point. 
  Dr. Waldron was interviewed and did not agree with the board. 
  The matter was then taken up with the execitive committee of the local. No action wa staken, but the sense of the meeting was that Dr. Waldron should follow the suggestion of the board of directors of the National Association. After the secretary left Washington another meeting of the executive committee of the local was held, at which four out of nin members were present. Dr. Walden declared that no business could be transacted, as there was not a quorum. The matter was then taken up at a regular meeting of the local, which was held in Lincoln Temple, June 20, at which Dr. Waldron presided. 
  Here again the ruling of the chair prevented the introduction of the matter and precipitated a scene of confusion, which resulted in 127 members (a large majority of the members present) adjourning to another room in the building. Mr. L. M. Hershaw was elected temporary president and Mr. Thomas H. R. Clarke temporary secretary. By unanimous vote the office of president was declared vacant and the vice-president empowered to act as president. 
   The final disposition of the matter is now in the hands of the committee on branches, of which Dr. J. E. Springarn is chairman. 
                     NEW YORK. 
   The vigilance committee reports that its fighting squad of fifteen has held two meetings, at which subcommittees were appointed as follows: Committee on restaurants, Mr. Henry C. Parker, chairman; committee on theatres and summer amusement places, Mr. George Harris, chairman; committee on police and automobile conveyances, Mr. Newton W. Griggs, chairman. 
   In its publicity campaign the vigilance committee has sent 840 personal letters mostly to colored people, advising them of the work and aims of the committee and requesting their co-operation. A system of membership fees has been worked out and a membership committee of ten has been appointed. Two thousand leaflets giving full information with regard to the work have been printed for circulation. 
   The committee has pushed its work of fighting discrimination in restaurants and theatres, of which some account was given in the last issue of The Crisis. In addition to these cases the committee reports a wide variety of cases, ranging in seriousness from the grievance of the lady whose butcher sold her short weight in pork chops to the serious charge of homicide. Space forbids our printing any but the most important case, which was that of discrimination in the sale of the Morris Park Race Track lots, which involved the rights of colored people to attend the public auction sale of land and their unrestricted right to buy property. The vigilence committee, represented by attorney J. William Smith and ex-Congressman Wm. S. Bennett attempted to secure an injunction preventing the sale of any lots until colored

THE N. A. A. C. P.        191

depositors of the Northern Bank and the Carnegie Trust Companies were permitted to bid. Their case, brought in the name of Mrs. Emma Murray and G. A. Brambill against George C. Van Tuyl, Jr., Charles A. Horne, Joseph P. Day, Clarence Davies, was contested for two days at the special term of the Supreme Court before Judge Giegerich. He denied the action for an injunction on a technicality, but stated that any citizen, regardless of race or color, had the right to attend a public sale of this kind and bid on all property offered. The following letter was received by Congressman Bennett from the superintendent of banks: 
DEAR SIR:
   I am in receipt of your telegram of even date. I have not authorized, and shall not authorize, the restrictions referred to by you. Since receiving your telegram I have advised the auctioneers in charge of the sale that I should insist that the sale be conducted in such manner that no charge of race prejudice or race discrimination could be justly brought against myself or the banking department. 
            Very respectfully yours, 
                 (Signed) GEO. C. VAN TUYL, JR.
                          Superintendent of Banks. 
   The next day several colored citizens were denied admission when they attempted to enter the grounds. Mr. George W. Fields, who shoved and assaulted, requested officer James A. Dougherty and mounted policeman O'Connor to arrest the guards who prevented his entry to the track. This they refused to do. The matter was taken up with Commissioner Waldo, who stationed a sergeant and sufficient officers at the grounds with instructions that colored citizens were to be admitted. The next morning, when colored men went up and were again refused admission, two of the guards were arrested. After that four other colored citizens were permitted to enter, and later all others desiring admission were allowed to enter until the close of the sale. 
               A LETTER.
Frederick E. Wadhams, Esq., 
   Treasurer American Bar Association, 
My Dear Sir:
 As I cannot respond in the usual form to your reminder of my annual dues, you are entitled to know my reasons. 
 The action of the association at Milwaukee and the conduct of the executive committee which preceded it, in trying to expel the colored members in open disregard of the constitution, and when this attempt failed, in drawing the color line, by application of the gag, against all other colored lawyers equally entitled to admission under the constitution, dissolved my relations with the association. Of the various offences involved in that proceeding, color prejudice, contemptible as that appears to me, is perhaps the least. Conduct of which the prevailing elements are cowardice, hypocrisy, fraud and force is not the conduct of gentlemen, or of such lawyers as I am accustomed to associate with, though I make no pretensions to superior virtue. This is not merely my own opinion of it. The public press recognized its true character, and made the association deservedly an object of public ridicule and contempt. Would you or would Judge Dickinson, the putative father of the bastard resolution, like to see the specifications or the press comments in that part of the country where the press is free, collated and published? 
  I was invited to join in the remonstrance of ex-president Storey and other Massachusetts members, but regarded it as inadequate to the case. Apparently that faint note of dissent is not likely to be heard of again, though the action of the association is peculiarly an affront to Massachusetts, which is responsible for two of the three colored members. Undoubtedly the action at Milwaukee will stand, as anybody who saw the riot there would expect. There is at least one Massachusetts member who takes the metamorphosed association at its true value. A handful of Southern colorphobes, with the help of the usual subservient Northern majority, have captured it and turned it into a sort of Bourbon club, to which professional character and standing is not a title to admission, the first qualification now being one unknown to the constitution and having no relation to anything professional. I never came into any such compact as this. The association is no longer a Bar Association in any proper sense. As the association which I joined, it has ceased to exist, and I am relieved from paying it the formal compliment of resigning my membership. 
                  Very truly yours, 
                      A.E. Pillsbury

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