Miscegenation

Protests of Negro organizations from many parts of the country, descending about the ears of a Senator, caused him to change his mind. Senator Capper of Kansas is leader of the farm bloc and of the "marriage bloc"--if such a thing there is. In the last Congress he brought forward a Constitutional Amendment and a supplementary bill to make marriage and divorce laws uniform throughout the country. One of the provisions of the bill prohibited " marriage between members of the white and black races or of the white and yellow races." Letters of protest--from Negroes have since poured in upon Senator Capper, threatening, not least of all, political revenge.

Accordingly, Senator Capper decided to amend his bill by striking out the passage which is " unnecessarily offending to the Negro population." Many states have laws against miscegenation, and the Senator regards the provision as an unnecessary troublemaker. The withdrawal of this section by the Senator is made easier because he himself did not write the bill. It was drawn by the attorney of the American Federation of Women's Clubs.

He has announced his intention of pressing the bill and the Amendment to the Constitution, which would give Congress power to make laws " on marriage and divorce, the legitimization of children, and the care and custody of children affected by annulment of marriage or by divorce."

* The attitude shown by these letters is by no means universal among Negroes. Some members of his own race freely condemned the pugilist Johnson for marrying a " white." It was also one of the planks in the platform of the once popular Marcus Garvey, now convicted of fraud, that Negroes should not contract mixed marriages.