Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/137

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of Delaware. That statute reads: "The rule of the common law giving a right of action to any person excluded from any hotel, or public means of transportation, or place of amusement, is hereby abrogated; and hereafter no keeper of any hotel, or public house, or carrier of passengers for hire, or conductors, drivers, or employees of such carrier or keeper, shall be bound, or under any obligation to entertain, carry, or admit any person, whom he shall for any reason whatever, choose not to entertain, carry, or admit, to his house, hotel, carriage, or means of transportation or place of amusement; nor shall any right exist in favor of any such person so refused admission, but the right of such keepers of hotels and public houses, carriers of passengers, and keepers of places of amusement and their employees to control the access and admission or exclusion of persons to or from their public houses, means of transportation, and places of amusement, shall be as perfect and complete as that of any person over his private house, carriage, or private theatre, or place of amusement for his family." This Tennessee law is even more sweeping than that of Delaware. In the latter, common carriers may provide separate accommodations for persons that would be disagreeable to the major portion of the traveling public; in the former, the common carrier might exclude such persons altogether. According to the Tennessee statute, every railroad company in the State had a right to refuse absolutely to carry Negroes on its cars. Of course, this has been changed by its "Jim Crow" laws. The case of State v. Lasater,[28] dealing with the second section of the Tennessee statute, has the following to say about the whole enactment: "This is an extraordinary statute. It