The National tribune., 1902-01-23
WARTIME CASTE.
Col. Higginson Discusses Jews and Negroes
in the Army.

III Lue hlIny.
Col Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the
veteran patriot, writes as follows in an
swer to an article in the Boston Herald
| of recent date:
To The Editor of The Herald:
| Allow me to express regret for your
editorial called Negroes in the Army and
Navy" an editorial which pays, | am
sure, too little heed to the first need of
Republican Government, which is to have
q plain principle and hold TO it. 1t seems
to NE also to ignore the experience Of the
past in regard to this particular point of
colOrphObia. .-s...
To those who, like myself, can recall
the period of negro pews in churches and
the time when negroes were excluded or
elected from public conveyances in Mas
sachusetts, the whole matter of prejudice
against color presents itself as a shifting
and flexible thing and to be met not by
concession, but by quiet and consistent ac-
ton.
On the very point at issue it must be
borne in mind that the precise question
involved was repeatedly brought up dur
ing the civil war in the case of colored
| Chaplains Of cOlored regiments, where the
other officers were almost invariably
white. When we consider that the whole
| number of colOred soldiers enlisted was
| 17S,975, it is evident that there must
1
but | can recall no trouble produced by
this, except in single instaDce, on a
| transport from New York to Port Royal,
where the Captain of the steamer under
| took to put the Chaplain of a colored
regiment mot my OWN into the steerage.
on the ground, which | had reason to dis
| believe, that there was no place to be
had in any staterOOm-a matter which
I easily settled by taking him into my
own, after which he had all the priyi-
| leges of an officer.
The same point of view which makes
concessions to the spirit of colorphUbia
will make at the end, if consistently car
red out, just the same concession to diff
ferences of race, religion. or social posi-
ton. Living in Cambridge. 1 am con
Stantlv struck with the fact that in Har-
ward University the prejudice against the
Jewish race, for instance, is much more
marked than against negroes. In our vol
unteer army, during the civil war, in some
Of our very best Massachusetts regiments,
the element of mere social distinction
was carried so far that one heard the
question of promoting from the ranks Sc
riousiy debated among men of good sense
and character.
In my Massachusetts in the Army and
Navy there win be found abundant in
stances of this. The position was Sc
riOIlsly taken by many that regiments
should be differed from ''the upper
classes" as in England, and that a man
once in the ranks should remain there
! After the fearful losses in battle occur
ring in one of the best Massachusetts
regiments at the very beginning of the
war, Gen. then ColcneD Charles Devens
said to its commander. who seriously
urged this view. "Cnlonel. the sooner you
get this blue-bloOd notion out of your
head the better for yourself and your regi-
ment" (Ths was told me by Cen
! DcvenS himscf)
| Fortunately, the democratic spirit of
Gov Andrew settled promptly the policy
of the State. and there was no more com
plant. But it illustrates the same gen.
| eraI proposition that men belonging To any
favored class can easily convince them
selves that they and their cousins are
the only persons who can safely be put
into a privileged position. You, yourself
assume that as a matter of course there
must be representatives of the Southern
States" serving as officers in the army or
navy, and that they must not be required
to associate on equal terms with ''a race