DOES NOT FAVOR
TWO PLAYGROUNDS.
BUT PARK BOARD MAY ACCEDE
TO COUNCIL REQUEST.
WOULD NOT SEPARATE RACES.
LET BLACK AND WHITE CHIL-
DREN PLAY TOGETHER.
To Make Another Inspection Trip of
the North End in Search of
Available Sites -- Members
Discuss Race Question.
While the board of park commissioners, as a body, is against social equality of the races, the council resolution asking the board to designate sites for seperate playgrounds for the white and negro children of the North End yesterday brougyht expressions from members who do not believe in distinctive action toward segregating the little black folk.
Commissioners Fred S. Doggett and A. J. Dean went on record against two playgrounds because, each said, he does not believe separating the negro children from the white children the proper way to eliminate the bad in negroes.
"A negro's blood is much like water -- it's better when it isn't riled," said Commissioner Dean.
It is not probably, according to the discussion before the board yesterday, that the commissioners will insist on a single playground. The board will, some day this week, make a second inspection trip in an effort to decide the best locations for the two playgrounds. Franklin Hudson, president of the board, does not favor a negro playground on the site recently discussed in the North End, giving as his objections the predominance of white tenants in the vicintiy. Several sites on and near Fifth street have been proposed, but in each case the property fronting on at least three sides of the proposed tracts is occupied by white families.
The board originally intended, the statement was made yesterday, to build two playgrounds, but the one ground asked in their ordinance was to be built at once and a negro playground was to come later. Commissioner Doggett said yesterday that, if the council will not pass the ordinance asked by the board, he favors accepting the substitute and building the two playgrounds at once, but he added that his submission to the wishes of the council does not come from personal sentiment, for he does not believe the races can be successfully separated at play while young.
