Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/152

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room was licensed, and added: "It cannot be supposed that it was the intent of the legislature to prescribe the manner in which persons should use their own premises or permit others to use them, if they did not carry on therein an occupation or business, or suffer other persons to appropriate them to a purpose, which required a license in order to render such an appropriation lawful."


SALOONS

Only two States, Minnesota and Wisconsin, mention saloons in their Civil Rights Bills. And in Minnesota, they were not added till 1899, as a result of the following case: A Negro was denied accommodation in a saloon. At that time, the statute required equal accommodations in inns and "places of public resort, refreshment, accommodation, or entertainment." The court[63] of that State, in passing on the case, held that a saloon is not among the other "places of public refreshment." The court suggests that "or other" means "other such like" and includes only places of the same nature as those already mentioned specifically in the statute. About the Negro, the court said: "It is a well-known fact that, owing to an unreasonable race prejudice which still exists to some extent, the promiscuous entertainment of persons of different races in places where intoxicating drink are sold not infrequently result in personal conflicts, especially when the passions of men are inflamed by liquor. Hence the legislature might have omitted saloons for that reason." The next year the legislature answered otherwise by adding saloons to the Civil Rights Bill.