with individuals.

He has reckoned with the American people once, and He will reckon with them again if they do not do justice by them and evey body else.

Now, we appeal to you gentlemen for the remedy.

STATEMENT OF MR. CYRUS FIELDS ADAMS.

Mr. ADAMS. I am opposed to the jim-crow law, because I believe it is contrary to the spirit of the American institutions. We claim that this is a free country, a country in which all citizens are free and equal, and for that reason I think that all citizens should be treated alike on the common carriers of the country. I claim, gentlemen, that a republic has absolutely no right to discriminate between its citizens. We are either slaves or citizens. Many years ago it was said that the country could not exist half slave and half free. The chains have been taken from the limbs of the negro and the mixedblooded people of this country, but they are not yet free. They have been declared free, but they are not yet free, and will not be free until they are allowed to enjoyed all the privileges, all the rights, and immunities of other citizens.

Mr. White, in speaking of the law in Georgia, called your attention to the discrimination there, but there was one point that he omitted, and that was this: The Georgia law required separate cars. The separate cars are furnished, but they are not equal. Now, in order to compel negroes and mixed-blooded people to go into those separate cars, to go into those cars where they are degraded, they have passed another law in Georgia which forbids the selling of tickets on a Pullman car, so that there is no way to evade it in that particular State. In some of the other States the person who does not wish to travel in a jim-crow car can buy a Pullman ticket, but that is prevented in the State of Georgia.

Another thing. One of the gentlemen spoke of the number of the colored people in this country. The census shows that there are about 9,000,000, but you gentlemen know that that is very wide of the mark. There are not less than twenty-five or thirty million colored people in the United States. That may be an astounding statement, but it is a fact.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Where do you get that information from?

Mr. ADAMS. From knowledge of conditions that I have in the South. We know that the people in the South have so mixed up, the blood is so badly mixed there that it is pretty hard to tell who is white and who is colored, and if you doubt it just gaze on me.

Mr. WANGER. How are you enumerated in the census?

Mr. ADAMS. Well, they are enumerated as negroes in this last census, but it is claimed that there are only about 9,000,000 negroes in this country. That is not true. It is absolutely untrue. From the best information we have, there are not more than 2,000,000. I think Bishop Grant in his book estimates that there are about two or three million negroes in the country. Even my friend Mr. Brooks there, who is a dark man, has some white blood in him, and many of the men whom you meet in the streets who are darker than he is have some white blood.

Mr. WANGER. How do you account for the fact that the enumerators make such a mistake as that?

I-C L29

Mr. ADAMS. Because of the conditions in the South. It is a great insult for a man to ask a white man in the South if he is a white man, and suppose a white man, if he is white, and the census enumerators were to dare to make such an inquiry of him-they would not dare to ask such a question of a white man.

Mr. COOMBS. I do not understand your statement. You say they are not enumerated under the head of blacks?

Mr. ADAMS. They are all enumerated as negroes.

Mr. COOMBS. Yes. Now, if that is true, and the enumeration shows but 9,000,000, how can you say that there are from 29,000,000 to 30,000,000 negroes in the United States?

Mr. ADAMS. That is an estimate. I think there are that many because there are many of the best families in the South are of mixed blood, and they are called white people. Senator Tillman admits it, and certainly the race has no worse enemy in the country than he. He admits that the mixture is so great that it is impossible to distinguish in many cases. When the question was discussed in the constitutional convention of South Carolina they declared that a person having less than one-eighth negro blood was a white man. They wanted to make it a little stronger than that-some people didbut Senator Tillman said that would not do. If they made it any stronger than that, one man said, it would hit 400 families in his district who claimed to be white people.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Do you claim that anywhere in the South a man who has negro blood in him is classed as a white man?

Mr. ADAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Whereabouts?

Mr. ADAMS. Thousands of places in the South.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Name one place.

Mr. ADAMS. I do not need to name

Mr. LAWSON. Ex-Senator Gibson and Judah P. Benjamin were instances of that.

Mr. ADAMS. Alexander Hamilton, the man who founded the Treasury, had negro blood.

Mr. LAWSON. Ex-Senator Gibson said:

If you take it through Louisiana, I could buy for a dollar and a half gumbo enough to feed all the people of pure blood in Louisiana.

That was his statement.

Mr. ADAMS. And there can be no doubt in the minds of our people who are investigating the matter; and we find that many of the most illustrious names in this country have come from the fact that they have negro blood in their veins; and if they were on earth to-day Alexander Hamilton would be compelled to ride in a jim crow car, if they knew it. I have traveled in the South, and if they had known I was a negro they would have pushed me into those cars.

Mr. RICHARDSON. What quantity of negro blood did Alexander Hamilton have?

Mr. ADAMS. Probably a very small portion; one-sixteenth perhaps. Mr. STEWART. The coloring of the negro indicates Caucasian blood. Now, then, by what deduction of reasoning can you say that the lightness of the man shows the negro blood in his veins; how does the lightness of Alexander Hamilton evidence his negro blood?

Mr. ADAMS. We looked up his history and found that his grandmother was of mixed blood, and was so known and recognized in the

island where he was born. Mr. Nevis here has looked up the matter and has the data.

Mr. TOMPKINS. You are not compelled to ride on jim-crow cars? Mr. ADAMS. They look at me and are afraid that they might insult a pure white man by asking me, and they would not dare to do such a thing as that.

Mr. LAWSON. I could give you an instance of a woman who was practically perfectly white, and when she attempted to ride, they took her out, baggage and all, and thrust her into the other car.

Mr. TOMPKINS. The reason I ask is that you are very light. When a man bears the mark of the white man as you do, he is not compelled to ride in the jim-crow cars?

Mr. ADAMS. No, sir; when a man is as white as I am, as a rule, he is not necessarily compelled to go in the jim-crow car.

Mr. STEWART. When you were questioned by the census enumerators, was that question put to you?

Mr. ADAMS. No, sir.

Mr. STEWART. Whether you were a negro or a pure white?

Mr. ADAMS. No, sir.

Mr. STEWART. Then you were enumerated as a white person?
Mr. ADAMS. No, sir.

Mr. STEWART. How do you know?

Mr. ADAMS. Because I gave it in myself.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Have you ever been mistaken for a white person in the South?

Mr. ADAMS. I have been taken for a white man; yes, sir.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You have been mistaken for a white man, have you?

Mr. ADAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. WANGER. You are generally presumed to be so?

Mr. ADAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. WANGER. Where you are not known?

Mr. ADAMS. Yes, sir; that is the point. While might not be disturbed, still my friends here who happen to be a little darker, who happen to have a little more of negro blood, would be; but they are gentlemen of responsibility and gentlemen of property and gentlemen of intelligence, and they are gentlemen of culture and refinement, and they are entitled to the same rights and privileges as I get and you get, gentlemen, or anyone else gets.

Mr. BROOKS. I have a friend who is a minister, and he and his wife came to Washington and traveled from their old home in Virginia. They attempted to put his wife in a jim-crow car and insisted that the husband should go into the white car. He was fairer than my friend here, and the woman was of an Indian color; but both of them were colored people.

Mr. ADAMS. This is a very serious question. When I look around and see the very many shapes and forms in which the race is confronted with these difficulties on the steamboats and railways and in the hotels and everywhere else in this country, which is claimed to be a free country, the more I am convinced that this is a very serious question for us to consider, for you to consider, gentlemen, and to the interests of the nation. The question occurs to me, Is not this but the beginning of the dissolution of this nation; when we see that

American citizens are denied their rights, the simple rights as citizens, is it not the beginning of the death of this nation, the dissolution?

Nations do not live forever. History shows in the past that they come up they are born-pass through youth, maturity, and old age, and back to dissolution; and I say that this is a serious question, because I believe that unless this question is settled and settled rightly, settled on the lines of justice to all men without regard to race or to color, that this is but the beginning of the dissolution of the nation, and that in not many years. Years in the life of a nation are centuries. I do not mean to say that this nation will pass away in a few years, but unless this question is settled right, in less than one hundred years or so this nation will cease to exist.

Mr. LAWSON. Thanking you, gentlemen, I wish to say with regard to the amendment just one word, and then I am through. We offer an amendment to the interstate-commerce law, and in that amendment we insist not only upon an equivalent of right, equal accommodation, but we insist upon identical accommodations and identical rights as American citizens, as soldiers, as everyone appertaining to the honor and glory of this country, we think that we ought to have it. I hope that you gentlemen will look into it and will bear that in mind.

Then we insist upon it for this reason: You have in Mississippi what is known in voting as the understanding clause. A man must either read or write or own property or understand what is proposed to him. They have one line of questions for the colored and one line for the whites. They ask the white man how much are two and two, and he will say four. They may give the colored man something in calculus, something that will involve a series in trigonometry or in logarithms, so that if he knew how to evolve the series of logarithms it would take several days, so that he can not possibly complete the process within the time which he has to vote. So that one man may get a vote in in Mississippi, but it may take him all day, according to the understanding clause. So that if you put it down as equal accommodation, the accommodation that is said to be equal will never be equal, and they never will get it.

The only way that we can get equal accommodation is to have the same thing, just as you have in this country one money for the black man and for the white man. If you had a silver dollar for the black man and free coinage of silver, you would give him that silver dollar under the free coinage of silver. And so the only chance for the black man to have equivalent accommodations is to have the identical same thing as the white man has. He has the identical money now, the identical greenback and gold dollar, and everything in that way, and if we do not have the identical thing in the way of accommodations, we will never get an equivalent.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Do you not know that the Supreme Court of the United States has passed upon the constitution of Mississippi and pronounced it constitutional?

Mr. LAWSON. No, sir. I know that it has passed upon a certain phase, which was not upon the merits of the case, in the Williams case but as to the constitution of Mississippi, as to the essence of the constitution of Mississippi, the Supreme Court has never passed upon that. But the Supreme Court will pretty soon have a chance to pass upon that, in Louisiana and Alabama, and all the rest of the States,

for we have cases going through the courts of Mississippi and Alabama which will bring the matter before the Supreme Court on its merits.

On the jim-crow law the supreme court has only passed upon something which the State court had made a law, and there was no Federal legislation respecting it; and I believe that the Supreme Court has always held that where the Federal court has had jurisdiction, where the Federal Government has had jurisdiction, and the State legislature has also had jurisdiction, that each may legislate for it, and in the absence of any Federal legislation the State law will control; but if Congress has jurisdiction over that subject-matter under the Constitution, then the laws of Congress supersede all the laws of the State. I think that is the doctrine of the Supreme Court as always held.

Now, having that in view, that is why we want Congress to legislate. Congress has not legislated, and if there is not the right under the interstate-commerce law, by the first article of the Constitution, or under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, there is that right, and having that right we want the Congress to put it in there so that it will not be mistaken.

And then again, we want Congress to put it in there fixing the penalties, so that the juries down there may not award 1 cent damages and put a man to enormous expense and more inconvenience than he had before and still he get nothing out of it, so as to discourage us in bringing actions. And we ask this of the Republican Congress-of the Republican Congress that has put everything in the Constitution that has been for our people. We ask that of them, and we expect them to do it.

The people all through this country are thoroughly aroused on this matter, as will be shown by the petitions presented to this House from all over the country, and we hope that there will be no mistake, and when this measure comes up and when this measure has gone through Congress there can be no mistaking its meaning in any way, shape, manner, or form. And we ask it and expect it, and I believe that we have a right to expect it of you gentlemen.

Mr. ADAMS. Gentlemen, I want to say before leaving that we are not willing to accept any bill that speaks of separate and equal accommodations. We do not want separate accommodations. We want the same kind of accommodations that all other American citizens get.

Thanking you, gentlemen, for your attention, that is all I desire to say.

(Thereupon, at 11.45 a. m., the committee adjourned until Monday, May 19, 1902, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.)