SENATE BILL FOR JIM
CROW STREET CARS.
WAS ORIGINALLY FRAMED TO
APPLY TO STEAM ROADS.
May Pass Senate, but Is Sure of
Defeat in the House -- Senator
Wilson Framed the
Amendment.
JEFFERSON CITY, April 23. -- A street car Jim Crow bill has been introduced in the senate. This is the Oliver bill, which in its original form was to have applied to steam railroads only. The bill turned up this morning amended so as to apply to street cars.
The street car amendment was put on it by Senator F. M. Wilson of Platte, a personal and political friend of the mayor of Kansas City, Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., the mayor having loaded the senator from Platte up with reasons why the street cars of Kansas City should be arranged to segregate the races.
The amendment was not put on without much maneuvering, and while the bill may pass the senate in this form it is absolutely certain to be defeated in the house.
When asked for his reason for making the bill apply to street cars Senator Wilson said:
"If it is desirable the races should be separated on the steam cars, they ought to be separated in the street cars. Kansas City, so I understand, has something like 30,000 negroes living there. Without advancing any reason for providing separate places for them I merely refer to the state's reason for providing separate schools, the Kansas City park board excluding them from the public bath house and the church custom of letting them flock by themselves.
"The negroes prefer to be to themselves, as shown by their church habits. Accordingly, they must want to be by themselves in the street cars."
