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.
