address near New Orleans. The reporters, desiring to be complimentary, referred to him as a "cultured gentleman." In the transmission of the dispatch by wire to the New Orleans paper, the phrase was, by mistake, changed to "colored gentleman." The Times-Democrat of that city, unwilling to refer to a member of the Negro race as a "colored gentleman," changed it to "Negro," and that was the word finally printed in the report. As soon as he learned of the mistake, the editor of the paper duly retracted and apologized. But Mr. Upton, not appeased, brought a suit for libel and recovered fifty dollars damages.[6]
The News and Courier, of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1905, in reporting a suit by A. M. Flood against a street car company, referred to Mr. Flood as "colored." The latter brought suit against the newspaper and recovered damages. In the course of its opinion, the court said: "When we think of the radical distinction subsisting between the white man and the black man, it must be apparent that to impute the condition of the Negro to a white man would affect his [the white man's] social status, and, in case anyone publish a white man to be a Negro, it would not only be galling to his pride, but would tend to interfere seriously with the social relation of the white man with his fellow white men; and, to protect the white man from such a publication, it is necessary to bring such charge to an issue quickly."[7] The court adds that its decision does not violate the Amendments to the Federal Constitution, for these do not refer to the social condition of the two races, but serve rather to give the two races equal civil and political rights. Finally, the court says,
