We are not undesirable; no. You want the labor, but we are going to say and can say that along with that response and the giving of labor we are going to ask for our God-given rights, and it is our duty as far as possible to demand them.

There

There was a question raised this morning as to loyalty. seems to be some little idea that possibly the negro is not quite as loyal as he used to be. The Attorney General of the United States shows that in 30 pages, I read almost all of it night before last and there are some in the South who feel the same way.

Mr. SUMNERS. Just a moment. I made the statement that there was no evidence. I made the statement that there was no general evidence of disloyalty on the part of the colored man toward the Government. I made that upon my own responsibility.

Mr. Cook. I meant simply the question that came before us. I want to say now, sir, that the colored man is loyal. He is loyal in secret and he is loyal openly, and there is but one way to shake that loyalty. He sings, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," with all the luster and all of the sincerity that you sing, and there is now but one way to shake that, and that is to continue the lawlessness against him, and when you find him raising his hand in defense it is against the mob. He never voluntarily raises his hand against the Government, never has, never was an assassin, political assassin or menace, never was a traitor, there is not one that betrayed the confidence in all of the wars, and in all you have had he has engaged. There never was one. Therefore, I appeal to you now to help us because we are a weak people, financially, economically, but with all the opposition we have had we are stronger than we were 50 years ago, and it is not only in strength that we would come and ask you, we would come and ask you in our helplessness, that we, as American citizens, in the Thomas Jefferson declaration sense, are willing to die rather than continue our serfdom.

It is only necessary to be a little honest. You gentlemen who have studied the Elaine case understand it. These four brothers were not in the riot. They were out hunting when that treacherous gang came to them and told them they had better go home because they might get into trouble, and "let us have your guns in order that you will not be considered in the mob." They got their guns and then shot them to death. They had not done anything and did not even know a riot was going on in the town. I appeal to every man on this committee and I am sorry they are not here to hear these other gentlemen speak. I am only taking up the ravelled ends and appeal to you upon pure justice first, and then on the lower ground of political necessity, to give us our rights. Do not allow your communities to deny the colored man an accounting when he has given his sweat toward the cultivation of the crop. Let him have an accounting and treat him fairly.

We bring this general proposition to you and we can support every one of them by cases upon cases. The most horrible thing of it all in that lynching, when they shot these four brothers to death, that they scarcely knew for what they were being shot. That was a lynching. Now, it is too late, and I am glad to see by the public press, the white press, that the white man is half ashamed of bringing attacks upon women as the great cause for lynching. The record has been too well kept by the Chicago Tribune and by The Crisis. We

know why it is. Men have been lynched for nothing else but wearing the uniform of the United States Government. It was but yesterday that a young man in my class in commercial law said to me: "I will tell you something." I went to him when I came out of the classroom. He said: "I was simply standing in the street down in South Carolina talking when a young white man came up and said, "What are you doing with this on?" He says, "I just came out of the Army." "Well, you can not wear that down here." Can not wear the uniform of the United States Government down there? Just a few feet away they brought up another one and he left for nothing but wearing the uniform. He said he went to the post office for his father's mail and the postmaster said to him, "Do you want the package that is here?" He said, "No, I can not carry that, I will wait for the car to come in." This young man said, "What did you say to me?” I said, "No, I will not take that now." He said, "I want you to know you can not talk that way to me. You must say, 'sir,' to me, if you propose to stay about here," and started to come out to him. He talked up and said, "If you come after me on a charge like that, one or both of us will report to God to-day."

That is just yesterday. Do you blame the man for saying it. No security from attack upon a colored man even though he had the uniform of the United States Government upon him; this young man in the post office assuming to chastise a man who had given his all for the life of the Government, offered his all, for the protection of the flag of the United States. He said his father said to him, “You had better go. They might take out revenge on me and burn us out." He was not wrong in telling that young man to go away. The other young men had gone away. These cases are not imaginary cases. These have happened.

Now, there are two points I wanted to make. One is will you continue to teach the younger element of the 12,000,000 of people to ask the question, Is loyalty worth while? One you have driven out of the country. We are bereft of our son, as I told you. He made up his mind that he would not die like a dog and that he would get out of it. Are you anxious to lose loyal citizens? If the economic condition of the Negro was such, hundreds of them, not as immigrants to Liberia or some place set apart for them, would migrate upon economic grounds, you may say, and go out as pioneers, but we have been chained down in America for over 300 years, the sweat of our brow has gone into the wealth of the Nation; it is undeniable because the statistics of your own department records will show it. What we ask now is protection under the flag that we have fought to keep aloft in as many wars as you have engaged in. Well might we repeat what Carney said when he returned at Fort Wagner, "The old flag never touched the ground," you have never heard of a Negro color bearer of the United States going to the rear unless ordered there. That is a sample of the feeling of the colored people.

We are born here. "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," I sing. You will find some few colored people, and probably with just convictions, who will not sing it. I sing it. Why? It is my country. Born here, my mother and father before me and my grandmother and grandfather, and what they added in honest industry went to help build up this Nation and to make it strong. It is my country. I will not forsake it. Why? I will treat it very much as I will a

leaking house. I will repair the roof. I will not abandon it. The United States to the black man has a leaky roof, and we are here to-day to ask you to repair that roof in order that we may live in comfort and in peace, and the challenge that I spoke of to you was a challenge to you who have not thought the matter out to think it out and come on the side of justice. Let no man go out of here and say the Negroes are arguing for social equality. What some people call social equality we disdain. I want my company and I never seek other company, which does not want me, and so it is with every self-respecting colored man, but I tell you what else I want, whether you want me or not, I want my civic political rights, and if you call that social equality, I say that you have made a misrepresentation and you give a wrong distinction. For me to be driven to travel from here to New Orleans and forced to ride and sit in a dirty car is what I protest against. I do not protest for social equality. I protest for civil rights, for civic privileges, for a discharge of the contract on the part of the railroad people to give me what I have paid for, and when you allow, as was done Sunday night, a man to step up and put a pistol to the body of an attorney of the District of Columbia and say to him, "You get out of this car or I will shoot you," when you allow that, gentlemen, you are only inviting the downfall of the Republic, because not only will the 12,000,000 finally be affected by that, but the whole Nation will be affected.

Some people speak of the unrest of the Negro. The Negro has always been the most quiet man in the United States. There are a few criminals who are among us, naturally, just like the white criminals, but the unrest in this Nation is not only with Negroes, and I pray to Almighty God that when the time comes for you to put down unrest in the form of anarchy, that the 12,000,000 of Negroes will have a just cause to be on the side of the United States, and if that is not realized, then may God help, for my country is lost. Do not misunderstand

us.

We are here to ask you to attempt to do something, even though there is a doubt as to the constitutionality of it. Don't I remember when I walked down to pay my income tax? There were men who said it was unconstitutional before you passed it, and you put it up to the Supreme Court of the United States, and you remember there was some little juggling up there and finally it was declared unconstitutional. Somebody changed. They inveighed against it because there was some doubt. They all said let us do it, and to-day what have you? An amendment to the Constitution for an income tax to be operated. Now, let us for the hope of our common good and of justice to all and for a fair understanding, let us pass some bill that will look toward stopping the greatest crime that you have in the land, that of lynching.

STATEMENT OF MISS ESTHER MORTON SMITH, RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Miss SMITH. We have heard to-day of almost unbelieveable atrocities, and we truly can not wonder that at times our colored brothers and sisters feel hopeless. I want to ask my brothers of the white race if we have not cause to feel hopeless of ourselves if we allow these things to continue in this land?

(Thereupon, at 3.30 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned.)