"Then let me get out," rejoined the genuine republican. "It disturbs my conscience to ride in a public conveyance, where any decently behaved person is refused admittance." And though it was raining very fast, and his home was a mile off, the old veteran of seventy-five years marched through mud and wet, at a pace somewhat brisker than his usual energetic step; for indignation warmed his honest and kindly heart, and set the blood in motion. The next day, he called at the rail-road office, and very civilly inquired of one of the managers whether conductors were instructed to exclude passengers merely on account of complexion.
"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "They have discretionary power to reject any person who is drunk, or offensively unclean, or indecent, or quarrelsome."
Friend Hopper then related how a young woman of modest appearance, and respectable dress, was pushed from the step, though the car was nearly empty, and she was seeking shelter from a violent rain.
"That was wrong," replied the manager. "We have no reason to complain of colored people as passengers. They obtrude upon no one, and always have sixpences in readiness to pay; whereas fashionably dressed white people frequently offer a ten dollar bill, which they know we cannot change, and thus cheat us out of our rightful dues. Who was the conductor, that behaved in the manner you have described? We will turn him away, if he doesn't know better how to use the discretionary power with which he is entrusted."
Friend Hopper replied, "I had rather thou wouldst not turn him out of thy employ, unless he repeats the offence, after being properly instructed. I have no wish to injure the man. He has become infected with the unjust prejudices of the community without duly reflecting upon the subject. Friendly conversation with him may suggest wiser thoughts. All I ask of thee is to instruct him that the rights of the meanest citizen are to be respected. I thank thee for having listened to my complaint in such a candid and courteous manner."
"And I thank you for having come to inform us of the circumstance," replied the manager. They parted mutually well pleased; and a few days after, the same conductor admitted a colored woman into the cars without making any objection. This improved state of things continued several weeks. But the old tyrannical system was restored, owing to counteracting influence from some unknown quarter. I often met colored people coming from the country in the Harlem cars; but I never afterward knew one to enter from the streets of the city.
Many colored people die every year, and vast numbers have their health permanently impaired, on account of inclement weather, to which they are exposed by exclusion from public conveyances. And this merely on account of complexion! What a tornado of popular eloquence would come from our public halls, if Austria or Russia were guilty of any despotism half as mean! Yet the great heart of the people is moved by kind and sincere feelings in its outbursts against foreign tyranny. But in addition to this honorable sympathy for the oppressed in other countries, it would be well for them to look at home, and consider whether it is just that any well-behaved people should be excluded from the common privileges of public conveyances. If a hundred citizens in New-York would act as Friend Hopper did, the evil would soon be remedied. It is the almost universal failure in individual duty, which so accumulates errors and iniquities in society, that the ultra-theories, and extra efforts of reformers become absolutely necessary to prevent the balance of things from being destroyed; as thunder and lightning are required to purify a polluted atmosphere. Godwin, in some of his writings, asks, "What is it that enables a thousand errors to keep their station in the world? It is cowardice. It is because the majority of men, who see that things are not altogether right, yet see in so frigid a way, and have so little courage to express their views. If every man to-day would tell all the truth he knows, three years hence, there would scarcely be a falsehood of any magnitude remaining in the civilized world."
In the summer of 1844, Friend Hopper met with a Methodist preacher from Mississippi, who came with his family to New-York, to attend a General Conference. Being introduced as a zealous abolitionist, the conversation immediately turned upon slavery. One of the preacher's daughters said, "I could'nt possibly get along without slaves, Mr. Hopper. Why I never dressed or undressed myself, till I came to the North. I wanted very much to bring a slave with me."
"I wish thou hadst," rejoined Friend Hopper.
"And what would you have done, if you had seen her?" she inquired.