asked if we were willing to leave this country and said he believed three-fourths of us would not leave. No. Nine hundred and ninetynine out of every thousand would not leave. This man has falsely stated that this is a white man's country. He knows nothing of the history of his people. The Negro came here when the white man did, and he has contributed to the upbuilding of this country by his labor, by his suffering, by his sacrifices and blood. There are none of the highest callings he has not entered. In art, the highest calling of man, the greatest name is Henry O. Tanner, a Negro, whose paintings the French Government seeks and purchases and puts in her great art galleries as soon as they are painted. So it is foolish to talk about this being a white man's country; it is the country of all of us Americans, and we are not going to leave in spite of our sufferings, but are going to work out our destiny right here in our own land. We have almost enough law in this country. What we want is enforcement of the law. We have a Constitution with 19 amendments, and with its imperfections, it is the greatest political document that has ever come from the hand of man. What we want Congress to do is to enforce it. Think of it; even the House of Representatives has closed its public restaurant to Negroes, where we have been going for 50 years without friction. This was done at the very time that brave black boys were dying in the trenches in France. This is a new reward to give the returning black soldier for his heroic sacrifices in every part of far-off France.

In this town the theater, the great educational agency, supported by the black as well as the white, since it is a public institution, is closed to the black people, and I have to go to New York when I want the cultured entertainment of the opera. Is this right? No. We have done our full share of the dying for this country, and it is high time we were getting some of the living. This war, which was waged for world democracy, as President Wilson said, has meant no democracy for us. It has not only given us no relief for the thousand burning wrongs we were suffering before the war but it has increased discrimination against us. The black boy who left this country at the command of Woodrow Wilson to go to France to die for democracy comes home to find more obstacles placed in the way of those he fought to save. At this very hour there are thousands of brave black heroes who never knew what liberty was that are now sleeping on the hill slopes of France, and we, who are left behind, would be unworthy of the glorious tradition of sacrifice they left us, if we did not work to secure the democracy for which Mr. Wilson told them to die. We would be false to their sacred memories. We are determined to get democracy in this country. We expect the cooperation of our honorable Congress and all just white men, and we are going to urge it and continue until we set up here in this Western Hemisphere the first democracy the world has ever seen. Think nothing of segregation. We have difficulties in this country, it is true, but the solution is not surrender. We should face the problem with courage, with resolution, and with statesmanship. We should enforce the laws that are flagrantly violated in most of the States of this Union; admit all the citizenship, regardless of color, into all public places, and if there is friction punish the transgressor and not his innocent victim. That is justice; nothing else will we accept, and we ask nothing more.

STATEMENT OF DR. WM. H. WILSON.

Dr. WILSON. I thought, Mr. Chairman, I might have some thing to say; it has been said for me and I feel that if I should make any effort to say anything I might detract from what has preceded me. I shall not use the whole 10 minutes allotted me, making reference to but three things and to them only in passing. The three things I would mention in part are these: In the first place the bill brought before you, as I understand, from its reading, has as its reason for being the assumption that the Negro has concluded there is no justice in America; that you will not do the right thing; will not live up to your laws and will not abide by the Constitution and its amendments. Thus the Negro must leave America because you do not intend to be just. I am unwilling to agree that you gentlemen have any such idea. I do not believe you mean to be hypocrites; that you intend to disavow the country's laws. I am sure, therefore, you will consider no such bill as this.

Mr. DYER. You will understand that there is no such bill as that before us.

Dr. WILSON. I thank you and am very glad to know it is not pending and hope it will never be, even prospective. I had three things to mention, but will now mention only two; that is, one other. Yesterday, before another Judiciary Committee, I heard a report from the Departinent of Justice on the cause of race riots and Negro unrest in America. It said that these riots had their origin largely in the fact that the I. W. W. was doing its utmost among the Negroes to make them a force against the white man in America. This is an immaterial factor in the Negroes' discontent. It arises from the fact that the laws and customs of America as applied to him, are different from those applied to other Americans. He resents being made less than an American, and enjoying less than the protection guaranteed by American laws. I feel that it is possible for the Negro to have Americanization in America as the law stands to-day, because I can not conceive that the white man will forever insist that Negroes pay taxes and have no representation; abide by the law but not profit by it, support the Nation, but not be protected by it, and give their all without receiving a commensurate return.

I am bound to believe that insofar as the Negro is concerned his only concern in race riots is the fact that he is being made to feel that he has no hope but that which is in himself. Governments too often offer him no protection and he is forced to the protection of himself and it is unwise to expect that he will not do so. You tell us that the man who will not protect himself is no man. We are putting your teaching into practice. There exists no reason for a consideration of this proposition. The Constitution and the laws which do not abrogate it when obeyed make it possible for all Americans to thrive in contentment in America.

STATEMENT OF REV. R. D. JONES.

Rev. JONES. I represent the Ethiopians of Abyssinia. Until there is a consul established here I am the agent of the Ethiopians who are coming here. I saw that Congressman Mason was trying to gather facts. I have been there for 14 years and have some knowledge relative to Liberia, Africa, Ethiopia, and Abyssinia, but I can

not give them to you in three minutes. It is a question that this body should give time to consider. The Abyssinians are coming here next month. They are coming here in order that there may be better relations established between this country and Liberia. How many men are there that know that Jesus Christ came from the Hamitic family; that Solomon was married to the Queen of Sheba? I desire to give information to this committee so that when these Abyssinians come here you will have the facts, but I can not do so in the time at your disposal.

FURTHER STATEMENT OF MR. MADDEN.

Mr. MADDEN. I am astonished at the gentleman who got up here succeeding me. I have stated that when education was introduced among the Negroes and understood by him common sense would do away with race riots, but to take from the Negro his privileges and debar him from them and you are only putting flame to smoking flax. This is not an individual movement; it is a race movement, and I feel safe in saying that 90 per cent of the Negro people would join in it.

Mr. DYER. Will you submit with your statement to this committee the names of any colored people in this town who are in favor of your proposition? I represent a colored district in St. Louis and have had letters from many of them.

(The committee thereupon adjourned.)

SEGREGATION AND ANTILYNCHING.

PART II.

ANTILYNCHING.

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., Thursday, January 29, 1920. The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Andrew J. Volstead (chairman) presiding.

Mr. DYER. Mr. Chairman, this hearing is called for the consideration of some bills before the committee touching the question of the enactment of a law to punish those who participate in lynchings or mob riots. There are three bills before the committee. One is by Mr. Moores of Indiana, which is H. R. 11873; there is one, H. R. 4123, introduced by Mr. Dallinger of Massachusetts, and one, H. R. 259, introduced by myself.

I do not care to take the time of the committee in calling attention to the features of my bill. Mr. Moores of Indiana is here and also Mr. Dallinger, and perhaps they would like to say a word about their bills before we take up the hearings generally.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you care to be heard at this time, Mr. Dallinger?

Mr. DALLINGER. Certainly; if it is agreeable, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF HON. FREDERICK W. DALLINGER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Mr. DALLINGER. I will state that the bill which I introduced is very similar, almost identical, to the one introduced by Mr. Dyer. I did not know Mr. Dyer had introduced his bill in this Congress. Both of these measures, H. R. 259 and 4123, are substantially the bill that was drafted by Hon. William H. Moody at the time he was a Member of Congress. Mr. Moody was one of the leading lawyers of the United States and was, as you know, Attorney General of the United States and later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He believed that this bill was constitutional. The first section reads:

That the putting to death within any State of any citizen of the United States by a mob or riotous assemblage of three or more persons openly acting in concert, in violation of law and in default of protection of such citizen by the officers thereof, shall be deemed a denial to such citizen by that State of the equal protection of the laws and a violation of the peace of the United States and an offense against the same.

In other words, it is based, as I understand, upon the provision of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees to

every citizen of the United States the equal protection of the laws and denies or prohibits the passage of any law by any State denying the equal protection of the laws.

The CHAIRMAN. Simply the fact that a State did not take any action to protect him is supposed to be sufficient?

Mr. DALLINGER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is the ground on which it is made a Federal offense.

Mr. SUMNERS. Mr. Dallinger, does your bill go to the extent that this Federal law would be applicable in the event the State made no effort to protect? Would not the fact that the State did not protect, regardless of the question of whether an effort was made or not, give the Federal court jurisdiction under the bill?

Mr. DALLINGER. The section reads in default of protection.

Mr. SUMNERS. Do you consider default to mean the absence of an effort to protect, or in the absence of protection?

Mr. DALLINGER. I should say in the absence of protection. Mr. SUMNERS. That is what I thought. That is the way I construe the bill; the fact that a man was lynched, the issue of whether or not an effort was made to protect would not be involved?

Mr. DALLINGER. Of course there might be some insincere efforts to protect.

Mr. SUMNERS. Yes, I understand. I was asking for information, purely; I was just trying to get at the legal status.

The CHAIRMAN. Take, for instance, where a sheriff tries to protect and fails, he is overawed; would this afford any protection?

Mr. SUMNERS. He may be shot and the prisoner taken away from him.

Mr. DALLINGER. I think it would; I do not think that would be protection. If a community where those things are occurring does not give to the sheriff and the officers of the law the protection which they should have for the enforcement of the law, I do not consider that there is the equal protection to which every citizen is entitled. Mr. HUSTED. Does not default of protection mean the default of adequate protection?

Mr. DALLINGER. I think so, sir.

Mr. SUMNERS. Effective protection?

Mr. DALLINGER. Yes.

Mr. IGOE. Have you examined the authorities and decisions under the fourteenth amendment, Mr. Dallinger, as to the extent of the authority of the United States in the way of legislation under that amendment?

Mr. DALLINGER. I do not think this matter has ever come up or ever been passed upon this particular phase of it.

Mr. IGOE. Yes, I recall one case; I can not put my hand on it now, but a case came up from Alabama. There was one case that arose; I think it came up in the Federal court for the District, perhaps in the Court of Appeals, which indicated that Congress might go pretty far, and subsequently there was a case that came up from Alabama. I can not recall just now what the case is, but it seemed to overrule that District case or to overrule at least the reasoning of that case. And I wondered if you had those authorities. I will find it after awhile.

Mr. HUSTED. There is a case in 184 U. S., holding that the guarantee of equal protection of the laws means no person or class of per