Uncle Tom & Social Equality

Best known Negro in Congress is Representative Oscar De Priest of Illinois. Best-liked Negro at the Capitol is Harry Parker, messenger of the Ways & Means Committee since William McKinley was its chairman 45 years ago. Last week Representative De Priest and Messenger Parker found themselves on opposite sides of a warm Congressional controversy involving their race's relations with whites.

Trouble started three months ago when Representative De Priest's Negro secretary was refused food in the House Restaurant. Restaurant Manager Johnson takes his orders from Representative Lindsay Warren who is not only chairman of the House Accounts Committee but also a dyed-in-the-wool North Carolinian. Manager Johnson had orders to bar all Negroes (excepting, of course, Oscar De Priest) from the House Restaurant when fortnight ago a part-time Negro waiter, a student at Howard University, served a Negro. The waiter was promptly discharged. Next noon Manager Johnson was confronted by a delegation of some 30 Howard University students.

"We want to eat," said a student.

"Well, you can't. So get out," ordered Manager Johnson.

Up stepped Messenger Harry Parker:

"Jemmen," he began, "you all might as well go on back fuh ain't no good goin' to come of what you is up to. Yu is jest goin' to make trouble and hurt yo'se'ves and hurt Howard University. How is you goin' to git 'propriations ef you carry on dis way?"

"Get out of the way," retorted the college boys. "You aren't anything but an old Uncle Tom nigger."

"I might be a Uncle Tom nigguh, but you young nigguhs ain't doin' no good for yo'se'ves or anybody else. I'se respected but you all ain't nothin'."

The Howard students formed a wedge, rushed the door. Manager Johnson called Capitol police. There was scuffling, tugging, recrimination. The police began to push the students down the corridor.

Harry Parker plucked the sleeve of a Negro on the outskirts of the crowd. "You is caused enough trouble. Why don't you leave befo' somebody gits hurt?"

The boy swung at him with his fist. For all his 70 years Messenger Parker dodged nimbly, doubled up his fists, prepared for battle. A policeman arrested the striker.

Said Messenger Parker: "I knowed dem banjo heads wuzn't representin' de true spirit of de University an' I was provoked an' wore out wid de way dey wuz actin'. ... He didn't tech me, no indeedy, fuh you see I has de body motion an' weaved out de way."

After this incident, Representative De Priest redoubled his efforts to get 145 signatures necessary to bring up for consideration a resolution ordering an "investigation" of the right of Representative Warren to refuse Negroes admission to the Restaurant. A roll call on such a resolution would point up the race issue in the House as it has not been pointed up in two generations--southern Democrats against northern Republicans. Last week with 93 signatures on his petition Representative De Priest got the floor and addressed the House: ''I did not investigate this: I did not start it; but, so help me God, I am going to stay to see the finish of it. ... I have been informed that if I insisted on pressing this question it might hurt my usefulness down here. If I did not press it, I would not stay here very long. The people who sent me here would retire me next November, and they would rightly retire me. . . ." Broke in Texas' blatant Blanton: "The Restaurant is for the benefit of the Members of Congress because we have to be here at meal time. Has not our colleague been allowed to go in there every time he wanted to?" ''I am not asking privileges for Oscar De Priest," went on Oscar De Priest, "or proper treatment for him down there, because I will take care of that, but I am asking for those people who have no voice in this Congress, just like you, Mr. Blanton, would do if some of your constituents came here from Texas and were refused to be served in that Restaurant. You would raise more hell than anybody I know of [laughter and applause]. . . . "I have not imposed my society on any Member. I think every man has the right to select his own society. I would not say that, except that I received a letter from a Member of this Congress, which I am going to read: " '...I was raised among Negroes in the South and they have always been my personal friends. I work with them on my farm and pay them the same price that I pay white men for the same work. I treat them well and enjoy their confidence. I am willing to allow them every right to which they are entitled under the Constitution and laws, but I am not in favor of social equality between the races.' "And I do not give a damn about it, brother. It does not mean anything to me at all. '' 'If there are enough Negroes around the Capitol to justify a restaurant for them to patronize, I would have no objection to establishing a restaurant for their use.' "That we do not want and we will not accept. " 'I neither eat nor sleep with the Negroes, and no law can make me do so. " 'I think this explains my position clearly. " 'George B. Terrell " 'of Texas "Nobody asked the gentleman to sleep with him. That was not in my mind at all. I do not know why he thought of it. I am very careful about whom I sleep with. . . . "I dropped into Knoxville one night, and the Chattanooga papers in southern Tennessee published a statement that I was coming there to talk about social equality. I had not thought of it. Nothing was further from my mind; but after they had made that charge and in order to make the papers of Chattanooga say something that was true for once in their lives. I did say something about it. This is what I said:

" 'When the Negroes came to this country originally they were all black; they are not now, because somebody has had a good deal of social equality.' "

Two days later Congressman Warren got up to defend his action in barring Negroes from the Restaurant. He spoke for 20 minutes, but while he was speaking the 145th signature was added to Congressman De Priest's petition. Whether it liked it or not, the House was thus forced to stand up and be counted on a most ticklish issue next week.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.