FINAL "JIM CROW" ACTION TONIGHT.
Alderman J. E. Logan, Au-
thor of Measure, Disclaims
Any Political Motive.
The council is expected to take action tonight on the ordinance requiring the Metropolitan Street Railway Company to furnish separate cars for negroes, or if permitted to ride with white passengers, to designate certain seats for them. As the measure is championed by Democratic aldermen there is every probability that Republican members will permit them to do all the voting in favor of the passage of the ordinance. This is the sentiment in the upper house, but not altogether in the lower house, for if Alderman Frank Askew, a Republican, has not changed his mind he will second a motion to be made by Alderman Miles Bulger, a Democrat, that the ordinance be passed under suspension of the rules.
This will call for ten affirmative votes, and if they are not forthcoming the ordinance will have to go to a committee.
All of these possibilities depends of course on the action of the upper house. A special committee headed by R. L. Gregory, president of that branch of the council, will recommend the passage of the ordinance and this can be done with eight affirmative votes. There are nine Democratic aldermen in the upper house, and the tip has gone out that they have been lined up to vote for the ordinance. Some of the Democrats were hesitating on the propriety of passing the ordinance on account of "political policy," but it is now stated that they have been induced to see it differently.
In political circles the cry has been set up that the ordinance has been introduced at this time to cripple the candidacy of a Republican alderman, who is seeking the nomination for mayor, and who will be called upon to cast his vote either for its passage or defeat. Alderman J. E. Logan, a Democrat, who fathers the ordinance, denies this allegation.
"There is no politics or racial question involved in the ordinance," said Alderman Logan yesterday. "Similar laws are in effect in other cities where there are large negro populations, and they are entirely satisfactory to both races."
