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62

The CRISIS

When Professor Finch took his master's degree in Chicago University it is said that he stood the second highest of anyone who had ever studied in the university.

Robert H. Holmes, who was appointed a policeman, is the second colored appointee in Manhattan. He has taken up his duties in the 28th precinct.

Mrs. Agnes Smallwood, the well-known singer of Washington, D. C., died there October 7.

MEETINGS.

The Kentucky State Teachers' Association held its annual session in Louisville from November 12 to 14. The colored schools were closed on these days.

The Afro-American Council of Presbyterian Churches held its twentieth annual session in Baltimore last month.

THE CHURCH.

THERE was a special meeting of the Episcopal convention, which was held in New York last month, to discuss the welfare of the Negro. The most important issue discussed was the appointing of colored bishops over each diocese having colored members. As usual, no decision was reached, and the question will be brought up again at the next general meeting three years hence. The music at this meeting was furnished by six vested Negro choirs, ranging from small boys to young men.

At the national council of Congregational churches, which met in Kansas City, Mo., the last of October, a resolution was passed appealing to President Wilson to use his good offices against the "humiliation, oppression and segregation of Negro employees under the government at Washington, D.C."

The House of St. Michael and All Angels in Philadelphia, in charge of the Sisters of Saint Margaret, an order belonging to the Episcopal Church, is perhaps the only institution of its kind in the United States.  It is a home for young colored cripples, where they are given surgical care and such schooling as their physical condition allows. These children either pay or not, according to the circumstances of those sending them, and the school is supported by donations.

COURTS.

JUDGE E. T. WADE, of the Branch Municipal Court of Chicago, dismissed the case brought against the proprietor of the Monarch Theatre for discriminating against a colored man, Robert Anderson, and his wife.

On petition of some colored citizens the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has granted to Frederick Brown, a colored man who is charged with murdering a white man, J. T. Durst, seven years ago in South Caroline, an appeal from the decision of Judge Ferguson dismissing his writ of habeas corpus in resisting extradition to South Caroline. It is said that Cole Blease has expressed himself as being willing to lead a mob to lynch Brown if he returns to his State.

When George W. Boyles, a colored man accused of murder, was acquitted in the Quarter Sessions Court No. 1, in Philadelphia, Assistant District Attorney Rogers was very angry and asked Judge McMicheal to order the jury from the box. The judge did as he was asked, reminding the second jury that was called that they had a duty to perform toward the commonwealth. The decision in the case of the colored man stood.

The Supreme Court of Mississippi has rendered a decision upholding a statute of that State which requires interstate railroads whose trains pass through the State to maintain separate accommodations for white and colored passengers. This decision was the result of a suit for damages brought by a white woman who had been compelled to remain in a Pullman coach in which there were three colored men. The jury awarded the woman a verdict of $15,000.

By a new law barkeepers in Pensacola, Fla., who have separate counters for white and colored people must buy two licenses.

Annie Ellis, a colored woman of Macon, Ga., was awarded a verdict of $4,747 for the death of her husband, who was killed by a live electric wire. This is said to be the largest verdict ever given a colored person for personal injuries. The damages asked were $10,000.

Miss May Hicks, a colored actress, went into Joel's Broadway restaurant, in New

ALONG THE COLOR LINE

York, with several white actresses, and the proprietor refused to serve her. When the matter was carried into court Joel was fined $100 by Judge Nathan Oppenheimer.

THE GHETTO

THIS is the law recently passed by the legislature of Florida and signed by Governor Trammel, viz.:

Chapter 6490, laws of Florida, act 1913. 

An act prohibiting white persons from teaching Negroes in Negro schools, and prohibiting Negro teachers from teaching white children in white schools in the State of Florida, and providing for the penalty therefor.

Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of Florida:

Section 1. From and after the passage of this act it shall be unlawful in this State for white teachers to teach Negroes in Negro schools, and for Negro teachers to teach in white schools.

Sec. 2. Any person or persons violating the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $500, or by imprisonment in the county jail, not exceeding six months.

Sec. 3. This act shall take effect upon and after its passage and approval by the governor.

Approved June 7, 1913.

Dr. Marcus Wheatland, a well-known colored physician of Newport, R. I., has been denied a renewal of his membership in the Vanderbilt Young Men's Christian Association of that city. The same organization has refunded the membership fees of another colored member, asking him to resign.

At the eleventh annual national convention of the rural-mail carriers of Evansville, Ind., it was decided that Negro delegates should not be allowed to attend the national conventions.

A colored girl was prevented from taking an examination in the Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles recently by the mysterious disappearance of her typewriter until the examination was over. Another colored girl was prevented in the same way from taking a county examination at the courthouse.

The formal organization of a North Carolina commission on rural race problems has been completed. It is the opinion of the members that "some steps should be taken to enable white communities to protect themselves from the evils of what is at present held to be the result of the wholly unregulated presence of white and colored farms in the same neighborhood."

One member of the Oakland Center, of the California Civic League, has resigned and a general dissension is threatened because there were present at a lunch given by this club five women from the Colored Women's Alameda County Center.

The Birmingham (Ala.) segregation bill has been declared unconstitutional. 

The indignation of the white public-school children of Newport, O., and of their parents was aroused because these children attended a stereoptican lecture at which colored children were also auditors. The superintendent stated that this was the result of a mistake and that hereafter colored children would be given lectures when no white children were present.

Anderson, S. C., has passed a segregation ordinance.

The Kansas University football team is complaining and attempting to refuse to play with Nebraska because there is a colored man on Nebraska's team. So far Nebraska has refused to change the team.

A bill is now before the legislature of North Carolina which, if enacted, will provide for the separation of white and colored people in all the towns of that State.

A private home for Negro children, operated by Mrs. Eldridge in Morgan Park, Baltimore, has been closed by the health authorities. The purpose of this move was undoubtedly to discourage Negroes from moving into this section of the city.

Five colored postal clerks were dismissed in St. Louis October 16. This is said to be the beginning of the "Negro elimination" by the new postmaster.

In Omaha, Neb., the high-school band is composed of white and colored boys. The white members, following the precedent which is being established everywhere, struck and refused to play with the colored boys/ The school board and faculty gave the recreants a certain time to return in or else be expelled. The white boys returned and took their places in the band with the colored boys.