The New York Age from New York, New York • Page 1

The New 'BLONDE BROWN CONVICTED Democratic Politician Found Guilty of Sixteen- Year- Old Girl by Jury--Assistant District Attorney Makes Plea for Negro WomenSentence to be Imposed Later. Joseph Brown, alias "Blondie," 34 years old, was convicted of rape in the Special Sessions Tuesday, Judge Rosaldegree by a jury in the Court of sky presiding. Brown is an active colored Democratic worker, and up to a few weeks ago was employed at Albany. Among those to testify 1 in his behalf were Robert N. Wood, leader of the United Colored Democracy, and James D.

Carr. A feature of the trial was the strong plea of Assistant District Attorney Medalie to the jury, who declared that the Negro race was progressing and that it should be encouraged in so doing by protecting its womanhood. He declared. that school protected. girls.

white appeal or made black, a visible impression on the jurymen. The complainant, a sixteen-year-old girl, who is soon to become a mother, alleged that on July 20, 1912, Brown induced her to go to his apartments, telling her that he had a present for her grandmother. Accompanied by another sixteen-year-old girl she visited Brown at 134 West 133d street. Instead of giving the girl the present Brown committed criminal assault on her. The statements of the prosecuting witness were substantiated by the girl who accompanied her to Brown's apartments.

Brown is well known in Harlem, and his political friends did could to get him out of his predicament. He was especially useful during the recent political campaign, and when the Legislature convened at Albany he was appointed assistant janitor at $5 a day as a reward for his services. More than ordinary interest was attached to the trial, which began March 6 Sentence will be imposed on Brown later. BILL PASSES ASSEMBLY Civil Rights Measure Introduced by Assemblyman Levy Designed to Give All Equal Accommodations, Favorably Considered by Lower House. ALBANY, N.

March Levy Bill, providing against discrimination in: public places on account of race, creed or color was passed by the Assembly Monday evening. The Senate will now act on the measure. The bill provides that no person being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent or employe of a place of public accommodation shall directly or indirectly refuse anyone accommodations, and that if found guilty shall be liable to a penalty of $500, to be recovered by the aggrieved person or shall be fined not less than $250 or no more than $1.000, or be sentenced to jail for not less than thirty days or no more than six months. Heretofore the proprietors of public places who have been made defendants in damage suits in which color or religious discrimination was charged have often put the blame on employes. The bill will be so amended as to make either the proprietor or employe liable.

DEMOCRATS PLAN FOR NEXT FOUR YEARS Hold Meeting at WashingtonRe-elect Bishop Alexander Walters as President-Wood Pledges Loyalty for Fourth Time. Special to THE NEW YORK AGE. WASHINGTON, D. March members of the National Colored Democratic League held a meeting here last Wednesday to discuss plans for the next four years and to elect officers. R.

N. Wood and a large number of his followers in the United Colored Democracy were there and Wood. for the fourth time, pledged his loyalty to Bishop Walters and the league. After adopting a constitution and appointing a steering committee, the following officers were elected for the ensuing four years: Bishop Alexander Walters, president: James A. Ross, Buffalo, N.

A. Manning, Indianapolis, James L. Curtis, New York City, and J. T. Green.

Georgia, vice presidents; Peter J. Smith, Massachusetts, recording secretary; Charles L. Barnes, Pennsylvania, corresecretary; James T. Lloyd. Missouri, treasurer: James H.

W. Howard. Harrisburg, assistant treasurer: Robert N. Wood, New York City, chairman of the executive committee: Bishop Walters, James H. W.

Howard. Francis H. Warren. Detroit; A. B.

Cosev. Newark. N. the Rev. George C.

Clemont, North Carolina; Allan D'Honey, West Virginia; Leon H. Jordan Missouri: Sully James. Ohio: S. D. ginia; Russell, W.

T. Scott, Illinois; A. H. UnOklahoma: N. B.

Clark, Virderdown, District of Columbia; Wesley L. Young. New York: A. Manning. Peter J.

Smith and John H. Slaughter, Wisconsin, members, of the executive committee, and N. B. Marshall, New York, organizer. Leading Negro Newspaper VOL.

XXVI. No. 24. 'JIM CROW' LAWS THREATEN STATE Many Anti-Negro Measures Introduced in Illinois Legislature PREJUDICE IS RAMPANT Springfield is Teeming with "Colorphobia" and all Parties are Introducing Hostile Bills NEGROES ARE PREJUDICED So-called Friends of Race Showing Little Interest -Jack Jahnson Incident Ssid to Be Cause of All. Special to THE NEW YORK AGE.

SPRINGFIELD, March date seven bills have been introduced in the Illinois Legislature, all of them antagonistic to the Negro. They are known as the Shaw Bill, the Campbell Bill, the Bill, the Poorman Bill, the Hollenbeck Bill, the Karch Bill and the Full Crew Bill. With the exception of the latter, the sponsors these measures place the for for their action upon the Jack Johnson incident. The Campbell Bill seeks to establish the "Jim Crow" car on the transportation lines of Illinois, especially on the street cars of Chicago and the other large cities. The Full Crew Bill will eliminate the railroad porter, and is believed to be the first step in the thorough elimination of Negroes in railroad service.

The other five measures aim at the prevention of marriage between Negroes and whites, thus permitting illicit intercourse and wholesale miscegenation. It is significant that these bills have been introduced by Democratic, Republican and Progressive members Legislature. The Full Crew Bill has been made a party measure by the Progressive Party. What is still more significant is the attitude of the so-called friends of the They are not anxious to assert themseives at Springfield. The opposition is thoroughly active and gaining force.

The Negro having no membership in the Legislature and no leader in either of the ties, with whom he votes anxious to voice his position, is in a a dangerous po- sition. Atmosphere Anti- -Negro. The whole atmosphere, at Springfield is anti-Negro. prejudice is more rampant, more vulgar and more arrogant in State Capital of Illinois than in the City of Louisville, and many other of the metropolitan cities south of Mason and Dixon's line. Unfortunately, the colored people quietly accept these conditions.

Your correspondent is speaking as a whole. There may be, and there are many individuals who chafe under the state of things, but up to the present, there has been no organized effort to protest against this backward civic attitude. When one walks along the streets and hears the "barker" for a five-cent theatre yelling out brazenly "Show for white folks only," goes to the leading theatre in city and is only permitted to buy a seat in the "Jim Crow" gallery, you get a fair idea of Springfield. Upon this anti-race poison, the sensationalist feeds from the moment he enters the State Capital until he leaves. All of these bills are in committee but are likely to be reported out.

Your correspondent has found the average member of the Legislature very reasonable and anxious "to be shown." Much the following named members, addressgood can be done by writing letters to ing mail to General Assembly, Springfield. Hon. Duff Piercy, Hon. Willis R. Shaw, Hon.

John M. O'Connor, Hon. Niels Juul, Hon. Samuel Ettelson, Hon. John T.

Denvir, Hon. F. C. Campbell, M. Foster, Hon.

William T. Hollenbeck, Hon. Edward F. Poorman, Hon. Charles A.

Karch, Hon. Medill McCormick, Hon. Thomas Curran, Rev. F. E.

J. Lloyd, Hon. Michael Igoe, Hon. Seymour Stedman, Hon. Hull.

Hon. Shanahan, Hon. Henry M. Hon. Morton Leo Neil Browne, Hon.

Homer J. Tice, and Hon. John' J. McLaughlin. Special WILLIAM H.

LEWIS RESIGNS. to THE NEW YORK AGE. William H. Lewis D. of Boston, March served WASHINGTON, as Assistant who during the Taft administration, has tenney dered his resignation.

new AttorGeneral has not decided whether successor will be appointed. It is not likely that Lewis will be succeeded by a Negro, even if his department is continued. Lewis has been made several alMr. luring offers to practice law. It is m- mored that a law partnership is to be formed between the ex-Assistant Attorney General and Wilford H.

prominent Negro lawyer of New Smith, York, a Mr. Lewis will move to that Gotham. Dork THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1913. a GRAND MASTER Grand Master Spencer one of the most prominent Negro Masons In America. Be sides being the head of ancient craft Masonry in this jurisdiction he is Deputy Grand High Priest of the Royal Arch Masons in the jurisdiction of New York (ineluding Connecticut), Deputy Grand Commander of Knights Templar, chairman of the committees on Foreign Correspondence fecting Negro than Political Appointments.

Bishop Alexander Waiters, leader of the Wilson movement among Negroes during the last Presidential campaign, and who is presider National Colored Democratic League, denies that he has taken up residence in Washington, in last week's issue of THE Bishop Walters states reported, that he will continue to make New York his home and says he has no idea of residing in the Capital city for political reasons. In a letter to THE AGE Bishop Walters declares that he is more deeply concerned the policies of the new administration which are to benefit the members of his race than in the appointment men to office. He raises the point that if the white citizens of the United States were being discriminated against as are the Negroes of to-day, that Bishop Greer of New York would also go Washington to prevent the passage of unjust laws against his race. NOT TO LIVE IN WASHINGTON Bishop Walters Says He Will Continue to Reside New York City-Says He is More Concerned in Policies Af- Writes Letter to The Age. Bishop Walters' letter to THE AGE follows: To the Editor of The Age: I notice in the last issue of The Age that your Washington, D.

correspondent states that I am to make my permanent home in Washington. This is a mistake. 1 have no idea of pulling up bag and baggage and moving to Washington. I expect to do business at the old stand in 134th street for the years to come, at least I hope so. Washington is about the center of my episcopal 1 district, hence a convenient place to spend a considerable portion of my time.

I have been assigned by my church to the district for four years. Besides this, as president of the National Colored Democratio League the organization expects me to be in touch with the administration. Again have neither the time nor inclination to be a general dispenser of political patronage; it is not mine to give. I am a great deal more concerned in the policies which are to benefit my people than I am in the appointment of men to office. If the white people were in our condition without one of its own representatives in Congress, Bishop Greer would do as Alexander Walters is doing if he had any interest in his race.

When our condition in this country is as the condition of the white people then I will do what Bishop Greer does. shall look to time and events to justify my actions. Yours with thanks, ALEXANDER WALTER. Bishop Walters is in Maryland this week attending to his church duties. ATKINS IS IN JAIL.

John H. Atkins, head of the defunct Metropolitan Mercantile and Realty Company, is a prisoner in the Raymond Street Jail. Brooklyn, awaiting the decision of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court as to whether he shall be given a new trial on the charge of conspiracy to cheat and defraud. Atkins gave himself up to the authorities Tuesday. March 4, and has been in the Raymond Street Jail ever since.

His attorneys are said to be asking an appeal be granted the prisoner on the ground that the assistant district attorney made improper remarks during Atkins' trial. when the defendant's attorney stated to the court that Atkins would not be put on the stand to testify in his behalf. Age. THREE CENTS IN Greater New FIVE CENTS everywhere else HENSON GOES TO WORK North Pole Hero Gets Appointment in Correspondence Bureau of Customs House at $1,000 Year -Collector Charles W. Anderson Instrumental in Having Henson Put Under Civil Service.

Matthew A. Henson, who accompaned Commander Peary to the North Pole, went to work Monday in respondence bureau of the Custom louse. under $1.000 Collector Loeb at the a last salary a year. During week of his administration Mr. Taft issued an executive order making Henson a civil service appointee without taking an examination.

Collector Charles W. Anderson is said to have been instrumental in securing Henson's appointment. It was in May, 1912, that Collector Anderson wrote to Charles D. Hilles, Secretary to President Taft, asking that Henson's case be put before Mr. Taft for favorable consderation.

Collector Anderson's letter to Mr. Hilles follows: May 10, 1912. Hon. Charles D. Hilles, Secretary to the President, Washington, D.

C. My Dear Mr. Hilles: Will you not be good enough to lay this proposition before the President. strongly urge that some position with a compensation of from $1,200 to $1,500 per year be to Matthew A. Henson, the colored man who accompanied Commander Peary to the North Pole.

Henson was the only civilzed man who MATTHEW A. HENSON stood with Peary at the Pole. He is the only man who every accompanied Peary on more than two Arctic trips. He was with him twenty-one years, and on one trip remained in the Arctic regions four years, after the other members of expedition had returned home on relief ship. He and a man by of Lee, alone, stuck to of Greenland.

Mr. Peary is now Mr. Peary and explored the interior on Rear Admiral, and has received hondrs and gold metals galore, while Henson is still unrecognized and unrewarded. I am confident that a small place given to Henson would delight the race of which he is so satisfactory a representative. give you some idea of his quality I quote from Mr.

Peary's (Continued on Page 2) MOVEMENT TO OUST RAILROAD PORTERS Full Crew Bill Being Introduced in States of the West and Middle West- Measure Does Not Affect Pullman Porters Special to THE NEW YORK AGE. ST. Louis, March as there has been an organized movement to have anti-intermarriage measures passed in the various Legislatures throughout the country, so is there a well-engineered plan on foot to have the colored railroad porter ousted in the West and Middle West, although several States have refused to consider the plan seriously. The Locomotive Brotherhood is said to be back of the movement. The scheme is to prevent the employment of colored men as train porters.

Porters in the Pullman service are not affected. As usual, the train porters are unorganized and are fighting the hostile measures the best they can. In each of the States in the West and Middle West bills have been introduced in the Legislatures at the instance of the Locomotive Brotherhood. known as the Full Crew Bill, which, provides for a brakeman and flagman on all passenger trains carrying more than three coaches. The purpose of the Full Crew Bill is to do away with the colored train porter.

as he carries a switch key the same as the brakeman and performs similar duties. The Locomotive Brotherhood is opposed to Negroes earning a living where white men show a preference to accept employment. Has Largest Circulation WOMEN OPPOSED TO TURKEY TROT Mrs. Booker T. Washington Says Ban is Also on Ragtime ABOUT NEGRO WOMEN Tuskegee Teachers Hear Address on "What Negro Women are Doing for Themselves" HAS MEMBERSHIP OF 50,000 National Association of Colored Women's Clubs is Doing Effective Work fer the Race, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE, March 11.

-Mrs. Booker T. Washington, president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, delivered an address before the teachers of Tuskegee Institute, in which she took occasion to speak on the subject: "What Negro Women Are Doing for Themselves." Mrs. Washington declared that the association was opposed to the turkey trot and ragtime. She was frequently applauded.

Mrs. Washington said: "Women's organization, like all others, do not spring up like mushrooms but are called into existence by necessity to establish or meet some great truth. So with the Federation of Colored Women known as the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, to distinguish it from the general federation of white women's clubs. "Early in the nineties an English friend became alarmed as to the moral life of the American colored women. She wrote a letter to this country and a newspaper man answered her, declaring that this woman was not improving morally.

She was sorely lacking in all that goes to make a clean womanhood in a race. The unpleasant subject was discussed pro and con by everybody except this woman herself. She was not indifferent, however. She was wondering all the time that she was being talked about how much of what was being said was really true and finally woman-like, she decided that this thing was not as bad as pictured by the press and that the surest way to prove that the facts were overdrawn was to organize herself: thus bringing before the country from time to time the best women of the race She realized also that the womanhood of the race was not all it could be and so another reason for concreted effort The First Call. "In '95 a call went out from the women of Boston, led by the grand old woman, Mrs.

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. We went up from every section of the country, eager to prove that with equal opportunities to make a living, equal chance for an education we were not unlike other women of our race. "How well I recall at this moment that little group of women, some old, others very young, about forty in numbers, that first day in a little house on in the city of Boston, discussing, themselves--a most distasteful thing to do and yet a very necessary one at times. The result of that first call meeting was a permanent organization of colored women for their own moral and intellectual growth.

happened to be selected president of that First National Federation of Col. ored Women's Clubs, as it was ther called. Prior to this there had been chain of clubs of colored women; thirteen in number, bad luck, doing gooc work. Its headquarters were in Washington, D. and its leader was Mrs John Cook of that city.

After a few years we succeeded in breaking this chain and uniting all forces of colored women's efforts into one great body. We changed the name at that time and since then we have been known as the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs of America. The Scope. "We are composed of local clubs, state federations and sectional federations. We have affiliated with us organizations in Canada, Liberia and Madagascar.

We have thirty federated states. We have a membership of fifty thousand women and girls. There is no State in the Union without its colored woman's club and few cities where we do not hold our own. have our membership in the National Council of Women, the most advanced organization of women but one in the world, and we are always represented at the executive meeting of the council, paying a hundred dolthe opportunity, as all other organizations who are represented do We are controlled executive by the board general and of ficers and an mus show at the biennial meetings agair in numbers and in worth. Our las biennial was held at Hampton, Ve There were three hundred regularl; elected delegates and hundreds of alternates and volunteer representative present at that meeting.

How Conducted. now having given you an in troduction to our work shall tell yo how we conduct it. We de our wor through departments, the most impor tant of which are: Social Service, (Continued on Page 5.) York HARRIET TUBMAN DIES MONDAY Heroine of Underground Railroad Expires After Lingering Illness FUNERAL SERVICES THURSDAY Frederick Douglass Was Regarded as De. ceased's Only Peer in Service of Enslaved Negro. Special to THE NEW YORK AGE.

AUBURN, N. March Tubman, Harriet," affectionately Monday known evening as after "Aunt a lingering illness at the Harriet Tubman Home. Short services will be held over the remains at the home at 11 a. m. Thursday morning, after which the body will lie in state at the A.

M. E. Zion Church from 12 to 3 p. m. Well-known persons will participate in the funeral services held at the church.

Harriet Tubman, who was about 98 years old, was one of the most widely known colored women in this country. Harriet Tubman's achievements as conductor on the underground, nurse and THE LATE HARRIET TUBMAN scout in the Union Army and guide and friend to her people during and after the war will never be fully chronicled. She was a friend of Garrison, Phillips, John Brown, Gerrit Smith, Seward and Lincoln. Her only peer in the service of the enslaved Negro was Frederick Douglass, but unlike Douglass she is without education of the sort learned from books and she could not write or even relate the marvelous story of her long life. Of pure Negro blood, she was born on 8 plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland.

When she was 13 her instinctive antagonism against the tyranny of master over slave showed itself. An overseer was pursuing a slave with club. Harriet charged the white man and knocked him off his feet. The raged overseer hurled an iron weight at Harriet, crushing her skull and inflicting an injury which resulted in fits of somnolency, to which she was subject until long after the war, when she obtained relief at the Massachusetts General Hos- pital. Her Unusual Strength First Brought Her Into Prominence.

At any rate the injury played an important part in fitting her for the struggles to come, for on account of it she was unfitted for the ordinary work of women and she was set to work by her master lifting heavy barrels and drawing weights. She grew so strong that when she was 19 she was a match physically foxhibited" strongest man and her master her to visitors as one of the sights cinch place. She ew while confined to her cabin became very religious developing an almost fanatic faith that carried her through dangers where strong men of race faltered. master died and word went around the quarters that the slaves were to be "sold South," the thing most dreaded by Negroes of the upper tier of Southern States. Harriet counselled the Negroes to run away, but none had the courage to follow her.

She knew only that if she followed the North star it would lead her to freedom, and one night she stole away Of the terrible journey North she remembers little, her instinct guided her and her great strength enabled her to stand the privation. So she won to the liberty side of the line and lifting her great a arms to the sky she said: "You're mine now and you'll work for me and nobody She obtained employment and saved all she earned. Then she disappeared and was not seen for months. She had dared to go back to the land of bondage to show others the path to freedom. Was Aided by Quaker Abolitionist.

Aided by Quaker abolitionists in Philadelphia, she soon had her underground railroad in working order. and so perfect were her plans that a few years ago when she was introduced by Susan B. Anthony to a woman suffrage audience in Rochester as "the conductor of the underground." It wasn't long before throughout the plantations of Maryland and Virginia were spread rewards for a Negro woman who was lurine the slaves away from their masters. The price for the capture dead or alive of Harriet Tubman rose to over 840.000. but she was never taken.

She made ever nineteen trips into the very heart of the country where the head Com ingel on Page 2) to H. A. SPENCER for the two last bodies and Secretary of the International Conference of Knights Templar; also Deputy of the Valley of Western New York, 33d degree, Scottish Rite Mason. Mr. Spencer is an indefatigable worker in the cause of Free Masonry, a close student of and an authority on masonic jusirprudence.

He is respected by all who know I him and loved by the craft. INTERMARRIAGE BILL WOULD BREAK UP HOMES Lower House of Ohio Legislature Passes Unjust Reppert Bill MIXED FAMILIES IN PERIL President Scarborough of Wilberforce Would be Among Those Affceted Bill Becomes a Law. Special to THE NEW YORK AGE. COLUMBUS, 0., March Wednesday the lower house of Legislature passed the iniquitous Reppert Bill prohibiting intermarriage in this state by a vote of 63 to 33. It now goes to the Senate, and if it also passes the bill it will cause the immediate separation and breaking up of a number of families in this state in which the husband or wife is white.

It will cause President Scarborough of Wilberforce, to leave the State, as under the provisions of the Negro already married and living with a white wife will have to separate or leave the state. The bill prohibits and makes felonious "the intermarriage of white sons with Negroes, mulattoes or Chinamen, or their living together as man and wife in this state." It is practically a copy of the Georgia law, which, when put into operation, caused the breaking up and dispersion of thousands of mixed families. Representative Terrell of Cuyahoga tried in vain to have the measure restricted so as not to interfere with existing marriages. Calling it a "Jim Crow" matrimonial. bill." Mr.

Reid Fayette said there were not over fifty-five licenses for mixed marriages issued in Ohio last year, that the effect of the bill would be merely to, prevent the legalizing of children born of illicit relations of whites and blacks. and that education, not a penitentiary sentence. was the remedy for the evil of mixed marriages. Mr. Acker of Hocking declared under the bill of rights the Legislature could not deny him the right to marry, a Negro if he wanted to and that the only sensible amendment to the bill Ohio Legislature Chinamen and would be to include, members of the Negroes in the prohibited marriage category.

Negroes in the State opposed the bill. and sent delegates to argue against it. but a deaf ear was turned to their pleadings. The author of the bill exbibited a letter from J. Silas Harris, a school teacher of Kansas Citiy, favoring the passage of the bill.

Harris is said to be after a job under the new administration. LINCOLNITES TO MEET. All graduates and students of Lincoln University who are interested in the memorial tablet to the late I. N. Rendall, to be placed in the institution at the coming June, commencement, are respectfully invited to meet in the lecture room of St.

James' Presbyterian Church. West Fifty-first street. near Ninth avenue. Sunday afternoon, March 16. at 3.

o'clock..