Evening journal., 1903-03-02
COLOR NO BAR To
HOLDING OFFICE
President Explains Appoint
ments in South to Atlanta
Editor
FITNESS AND ABILITY PRIME TEST

Atlanta, Ca, March 2. - Following
are extracts from a letter from Presi-
dent Roosevelt to Clark Howell. editor
OF the Constitution, in reply to a re-
quest for an exposition concerning q
recent letter from Harry Stllwel Ed
wards, Of Macon, with reference to
the matter of federal appointments in
the south:
In making appointments | have
sought to consider the feelings of the
people of each territory so far as
could consistently do so without sac
rihcing principle. The prime tests /
nave applied have been those of char
acter, fitness and ability, and when
have been dissatisfied with what has
been offered within my own party
lines / have without hesitation gone
TO the opposite party-and you are of
course aware that | have repeatedly
done this in your own state of .Geor-
gia. l certainly cannot treat mere
color as a bar to holding Office any
more than l could so treat creed or
birthplace-always providing that in
other respects the applicant or in
cumbent is worthy and well behaved
American citizen. Just as little will
treat it as conferring a right to hold
office. ask you to judge not by what
l say but by what during the last II
months have actually done. In South
Carolina have appointed a white
postmaster to succeed a colored post
master. Again in South Carolina |
have nominated a colored man to fill
vacancy in the position of collector
of the port Of Charleston, just as in
Georgia I have reappointed the col
ored man who is now serving as col
ored collector Of the port of Savannah.
Both are fit men. Why the appoint
ment of one should cause any more
excitement than the appointment of
the other l am wholly at a loss to
imagine. AS l am writing to a man OF
keen and trained intelligence, I need
hardly say that to connect either of
these appointments or any or all my
other appointments or my actions in
upholding the law at Indianola with
such questions as social equality and
negro domination are as absurd as to
connect them with the nebular hypo-
thesis or the theory of atoms. I have
consulted freely with your own sena-
tors and congressman as to the char
acter and capacity Of any appointee
in Georgia concerning whom there was
question. A large percentage of the
incumbents Of federal Offices in Geor-
gia under me are. as I understand it,
of your own political faith.
"This is true not only of your own
state, but as the rule for what have
done throughout the south. may
add that the proportion of colored men
among the new appointees is only
about one in a hundred.
'In view Of all these facts, have
been surprised and somewhat panied
at what seems to me the Incompetent
sible outcry in the south about my ac-
tions-an Outcry apparently started in
New York for reasons wholly uncon-
nected with the question nominally
at issue. I am concerned at the atti-
tude thus taken by so many of the
southern people; but / am not in the
least angry; and still less will this
attitude have the effect of making me
y iswerve one hairsbreadth to one side or
the other from the course 1 have
marked out-the course l have con.
3 sistently followed in the past and
shall consistently follow in the future"
Sermon On "The Person of Christ"
~ Princeton, N. J., March president
Francis I. Patton, Of the theological
seminary, delivered a sermon before
the students of theology yesterday on
"The Person Of Christ" The sermon
was evidently suggested by the recent
discussion Of the views Of Professor
Delitzsch, Of Berlin, concerning the di-