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proceeded to endeavor to procure from ommended that the petitioner be furnishthe Board of Education a "decision" ed with a copy of the report and that he from which an appeal might properly be be advised to confer with the supervising taken. That the reader who is at all principal regarding the matter. A copy interested in this story of an improved of this report was sent to the petitioner. method of establishing the color-line, a May 9th petitioner's counsel addressed method very likely to invite imitation a letter to the secretary of the board askelsewhere, may understand the difficul- ing whether he was to understand from ties encountered by the petitioner in this the report of the committee that the recase in his unsuccessful effort to secure- instatement of the children was refused. not the vindication of what he claims to The secretary replied, May 9th, that the be his rights-but even any adjudication report "covered all the issues raised." at all on his claim, the subsequent pro- May 25th the petitioner addressed a letter ceedings are given in somewhat tedious to the supervising principal, giving in detail. Without this full presentation, detail his reasons for objecting to the however, the final outcome could not be transfer of his children and setting forth so well appreciated. A consistent policy, his belief that they were transferred on like a golden thread, runs through the account of color. To this letter no reply entire conduct of the case, indicating that was received. June 6th the petitioner there is much more involved than the again wrote asking for a reply to his letter question of admission or rejection of the of May 25th. To this letter no reply was applicant's children to the particular vouchsafed by the supervising principal. schools in question, that a deeply-laid June 22d the petitioner again addressed plan for separation of the races is here the board, recounting the letters to the revealed. supervising principal, the latter's failure to reply, and again requesting the board to take up the consideration of his petition of February 24th, and to grant to him the reinstatement of his daughters in the public-schools from which he claimed they had been illegally transferred. June 29th the petitioner again addressed the board a communication, asking that the board take "speedy and definite action" on his application, to the end that he might know his status as a parent and the status of his children as pupils in the public-schools of the city of Burlington." To this communication the secretary of the board replied, July 26th, that "the supervising principal will doubtless make reply to the communications, which you state that you addressed to him, in due season. Until his reply is made known to the board and a report on the allegations which you make is submitted by a committee, it is not likely that the board will take any further action."

On February 24, 1904, written application was made to the Board of Education for a restoration of the children to their former positions in the public-schools. The secretary of the board, on February 26th, stated by letter that the communication had been received and referred to the Committee on Teachers. March 1st inquiry by letter was made of the board whether the committee was instructed when to report. The secretary replied that there were no instructions as to time. March 3d the petitioner addressed a letter to the president of the board asking that he exert his power to secure an early report on the petition. On March 7th the president of the board replied that he did not feel that "a reasonable time had elapsed" for a report on the case. March 24th the Committee on Teachers made their report to the board, stating that the supervising principal had made the transfers "for the purpose of more nearly equalizing the number of pupils in the classes and grades" and to add to the efficiency of the work, etc., and they rec

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The board took no further action. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction had officially informed the petitioner

that until the local Board of Education should act he could not entertain a complaint, nor "could" any legal action "be taken in connection therewith by his department." Here, then, was such a situation of affairs that, to all appearances, the petitioner was without a remedy, unless some power could be found to compel the board to act in the matter and to reinstate his children if they were, under the law, entitled to such reinstate

ment.

The petitioner, then, through his counsel, had recourse to an application to the court for a writ of mandamus-the precise remedy which proved effective in the Pierce case above alluded to.*

A rule to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not issue was allowed September 21, 1904. In accordance with the established practice, which might seem to have been devised to prevent persons of small means from having recourse to the courts for vindication of violated rights, witnesses were examined before a commissioner, the depositions were written out and printed to be submitted to the court which could much better hear the witnesses direct on the argument of the rule. This involved an expense almost prohibitive to one of the petitioner's means, but the case, with counsel's briefs, was printed.

In the taking of the testimony it was *One word of explanation here may be of service to the lay reader. A writ of mandamus issues out of the Supreme Court to compel subordinate officials or bodies to do certain things which the court shall have decided ought to be done. It is a rule established in New Jersey that this writ will not issue where the applicant has another specific remedy, i. e., can secure his specific relief by some other means. Thus it was held where mandamus was applied for to compel a road overseer to repair the roads and objection to the issuing of the writ was made on the ground that there was a remedy by indictment of the official for non-performance of duty, that the remedy by indictment was not specific, that the recalcitrant official might suffer imprisonment as a punishment and still the roads remain unrepaired. Accordingly the writ was granted and the overseer was commanded to perform his official duty. Now the New Jersey State Educational Law provides no means of enforcing obedience by local school authorities to the orders of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction or of the State Board of Education, beyond the

shown that the colored school, which petitioner's children had been ordered to attend, did not offer the same educational advantages as the school from which they were removed, since the increased number of grades in the school required fewer recitations per week and shorter periods of recitations in a number of the branches taught. It was claimed on behalf of the local board that the transfer was made to equalize the classes, since the total number of pupils of the various grades in attendance at the colored school was small, while, on the other hand, it was disclosed that if the truant-law should be enforced the colored children out of school would fill the colored school without a transfer of those in attendance at the “white” schools.

The case was submitted to the Supreme Court, November Term, 1904. In due course the court announced its decision not to pass at all on the questions raised by the application for a writ of mandamus and which had been at so great expense submitted to it, on the ground that the applicant for the writ should first have proceeded by appeal from the action of the local Board of Education to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and from his decision to the State Board of Education. As a precedent to support its decision the court cited a then recent case, in which the court had refused to power of withholding the part of state funds which might otherwise be apportioned to the district of the offending local officials. Counsel reasoned, following the analogy of the road official's case, that this power of withholding money was not a specific remedy since it was conceivable that the local authorities, in a given case, might prove obstinate and suffer the schools to be closed if need be, for want of the state funds, or, if the community's prejudices were sufficiently strong, the local schools might be kept open by private support rather than obey the order of the State Board. In such a possible case, the aggrieved individual would be as completely without a remedy as in the road official's case. Thus reasoning, and relying on the Pierce case, where the facts were identical with the facts as alleged in this case, counsel asked in the usual manner for a writ of mandamus. But the workings of the judicial mind are sometimes disappointing and one who relies solely on what he conceives to be logic and the rules of ratiocination to forecast judicial action in a given case, is liable to go astray.

grant the writ to the applicant until he should have first exhausted his remedy through the State educational authorities. But in this last-mentioned case, which now became in the eyes of the court a precedent for refusing to consider the merits of an application for mandamus where the charge is exclusion from a school because of color, the court justified its action on the ground that the case at that time before it was distinguishable from the Pierce case, where the question of exclusion for color was involved and in which a mandamus was allowed. Inasmuch as the case we are considering is, if the facts alleged are sustained by the proofs-and whether they are so sustained or not was what the court was asked to pass upon-precisely such a case as the Pierce case, it is just a little puzzling how the court could refuse to hear this case on the ground that it had refused to hear a former case because that former case was not like the Pierce case and, consequently, not like this case, since according to the old mathematical formula, "things equal to the same thing are equal to each other."

By this deliverance of the Supreme Court the petitioner found himself, in the game of shuttlecock and battledore, back where he was at the beginning, and, nothing daunted, he again applied to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, resolved to follow up his decision, if need be, by an appeal to the State Board of Education, and the latter's decision, if adverse, by a second application to the Supreme Court, which might then, perhaps, consent to hear him.

Accordingly an application was made to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the sworn testimony taken by both sides for presentation to the Supreme Court was submitted by the petitioner's counsel. This was on April 7, 1905, and the Superintendent, not unnaturally, took time to consider the matter. Nothing further was heard of the case and the petitioner's counsel addressed, July 6, 1905, a letter to the State Super

intendent of Public Instruction respectfully asking for a determination of the case. No response by decision or otherwise was made to this letter. On August 22d, counsel again addressed the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, stating that their client had started the proceedings in good faith for the maintaining of his rights; that as a citizen and taxpayer he was entitled to have the question of his right passed upon by the regularly constituted tribunals of the state of which he was a citizen and taxpayer and that the circumstances of the case were such that further delay was practically a denial of a hearing. this application and to these communications no response has been made. With this long and seemingly unwarranted delay, the conclusion would appear to be justified that no decision is intended to be made.

To

If a decision adverse to the petitioner could, on the facts, be made, there is no apparent reason why it should be delayed. Thus, after an expenditure of money which he could ill afford, a citizen and taxpayer guaranteed certain rights by the law of the state cannot find a tribunal to adjudicate his charge that he has been deprived of those rights solely on account of prejudice of color. Thus is established in New Jersey, by what seems like official hocus pocus, the color-line in the publicschools, without any change in the statute and without incurring the inconvenience of opposition involved in an effort to amend the law.

That the spirit of this article may not be misunderstood, it should be stated that the writer believes in separate colored schools, where there are enough colored children to warrant their maintenance, for the two-fold reason that such schools, taking in the greater part of the colored school-children in a community, avoid the practical difficulties arising from race prejudice, and that they offer a career of usefulness for the more ambitious people of color as teachers-a career they could not hope to have in white or

Such action might command popular approval. It might be capable of support as being entirely just. This would be a proper subject for argument and no opinion upon it is meant to be here expressed, further than to say that it is not obvious what objection there can be, save from sheer prejudice, to the presence of a few decent colored people among whites engaged in the pursuit of knowledge.

mixed schools. In nearly every com- amend the statute in the sight of the world. munity—and it is so in Burlington-the colored population is largely grouped together, and the vast majority of the colored school-children can be assigned to such a school without violating either the letter or the spirit of the law which, according to the court's interpretation, entitled the citizen to have his children attend the school nearest his residence. But where the exceptional case exists and the "colored" school is farther removed, the statute is plain that no discrimination because of color shall be made. If, however, it is the public sense that this provision of the law is unwise, if it is desired that local Boards of Education shall have the power to compel all colored school-children to attend the colored school, where one is maintained, then the just, the fair thing to do, would be to

But to blazon before the world a statute proclaiming absolute impartiality of treatment, and then to discriminate by refusing to recognize the statute in the local bodies or to enforce it in the higher official circles is of a piece of hypocrisy which should cast contempt upon a state.

LINTON SATTERTHWAIT. Trenton, N. J.

MAYOR JOHNSON ON MUNICIPAL CONTROL OF VICE AND THE CHIEF CAUSES OF THE SOCIAL EVILS.

AN EDITORIAL SKETCH.

I. THE CLERGYMEN OF CLEVELAND IN-
TERROGATE MAYOR JOHNSON.

For to-day, next to the exhibitions of moral turpitude and intellectual cunning and daring on the part of privileged in

EXHIBITIONS on the part of public terests and their vast army of retainers

officials of candor, sincerity and an earnest and conscientious desire to further the highest interests of society are all too rare at the present time; and when in addition to these things a public servant evinces the profound insight of a philosopher and the broad vision of a true statesman, which enable him to distinguish clearly between fundamental causes of evil conditions and remedies that must necessarily be applied to reach the taproot of crime, vice, poverty and moral deterioration, and apparent immediate causes and remedies that are essentially palliative or partial in character, the phenomenon calls for special consideration.

that constitute the supreme menace to democracy, nothing is more discouraging to the friends of free institutions than the spectacle apparent on every hand of earnest and true-hearted men and women devoting all their energies to the promotion of measures that at the very best can merely prove partial or palliative, while often their only result would be to relieve temporarily the hurt-in other words, something anodyne in character, soothing, affording brief relief, which might easily lull society into a dangerous sense of security while the evil more firmly rooted itself in the body politic.

The reply given a short time since by

Mayor Tom L. Johnson to the Ministers' Union of Cleveland affords a striking exhibition of the seeing eye, the feeling heart and the broad intellectual vision of the truly philosophic statesman so sorely needed in public life to-day.

The Ministers' Union of Cleveland addressed a communication to the Mayor relative to municipal control of vice in that city. In reply Mr. Johnson entered into a somewhat extended examination of the subject of vice and its effective treatment, dividing the subject into a consideration of the immediate repressive measures needed and the fundamental treatment required to reach the chief causes of vice, crime and poverty.

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With a broad, generous spirit that is a marked characteristic of the man, Mr. Johnson freely grants the disinterested motives and praiseworthy desires of the clergymen, at the same time claiming for himself and his administration the same earnest and sincere desire "to make Cleveland a good place to live in, to promote the happiness of the people, and to surround them with such freedom from temptation and such encouragement in right living as will discourage vice and promote morality."

The aim of the city administration in coping with the extremely difficult problem, he asserts, is precisely the same as that of the clergymen. The only difference, in so far as any difference may exist, lies in the best method for dealing with the evil.

"There are three courses or policies," observes the Mayor, "which may be followed with respect to public dances, winerooms, disorderly houses, gambling, and the liquor traffic: First, official toleration; second, attempted suppression by crusade; third, administrative repression. The first course, we would agree, could not be followed by an administration seeking the end which you and I have in view. It is usually accompanied by

blackmail, graft and official corruption, which no possible foresight can prevent, and it cannot be adopted by a decent administration."

He then passes to a careful examination of the result of the attempted suppression by crusades and that of administrative repression. The attempted suppression by crusade he believes under present social conditions to be at once ineffective and fraught with very serious evils, in that it results in dispersing the moral pollution throughout the municipal body, thereby starting new centers of corruption in quarters hitherto unpolluted-centers that in the nature of the case frequently become pest-holes whence contagion becomes widespread long before the evil is suspected by or known to the authorities, because hidden in sections regarded as ultra-respectable. The Mayor's views in this respect are in agreement with the conclusions of many of the most earnest social reformers whose deep study of the grave problem entitles their views to serious consideration. In the second place, Mr. Johnson insists that experience has amply proved that this method is thoroughly ineffective. It has failed, and signally failed, wherever it has been tried, and "I doubt," he observes, "if there is a city in the country in which there has not been, at one time or another, a formal crusade against vice; but I equally doubt if a time or place can be named where such a crusade has effected even temporary betterment." Moreover, "it invariably results in blocking the courts." He then gives the results of the last attempt to carry out this plan in Cleveland, which ended in a dismal fail

ure.

"Six years ago our police court dockets were choked and the courts themselves paralyzed by the liquor cases alone. At that time some sort of a crusade was being made. Saloonkeepers were arrested wholesale, many of them arrested many times. The result, however, was that by uniting and securing legal counsel at a very small

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