The Penn's Grove record., 1903-03-06

Atlanta, Ga.-Following are extracts
from a letter from President Roosevelt
to Clarke Howell, editor Of The Consti-
tuition, in reply to a request for an ex-
position concerning a recent letter from
Harry Stillwell Edwards, Of Macon,
with reference to the matter Of Fed
eral appointments in the South:
In making appointments I have
sought to consider the feelings Of the
people Of each territory SO far as I
could consistently do so without sacri-
hcing principle. The prime tests I
hare applied have been those of char
acter, fitness and ability, and when l
have been dissatisfied with what has
been offered in my own party lines I
have without hesitation gone to the op-
posite party-and you are, of course,
aware that I have repeatedly done this
In your own State of Georgia.
Il certainly cannot treat mere color
as a bar to holding office any more
than l could SO treat creed or birth
piace-always providing that in other
respects the applicant or incumbent is
a worthy and well-behaved American
citizen. Just as little will 1 treat 1t as
comforting a right to hold office. L
ask you to judge not by what I say,
but by what during the last seventeen
months have actually done.
In South Carolina / have appointed
a white postmaster to succeed q col
Ored postmaster. Again in South Car
DINA | have nominated a colored man
to fill a vacancy in the position of Col
lector Of the Port of Charleston, just
as In Georgia I have r%eappointed the
colored man who is now serving as
colored Collector of the Port Of Savan-
nah. Both are fit men. Why the ap-
pOintment of one should cause any
more excitement than the appointment
Of the other I am wholly at a loss to
imagine .
"As I am writing to a man of keen
and trained intelligence, 1 need hardly
say that to connect either Of these APP
pointments, or any or all my other ap-
pointments or my actions in upholding
the law at Indianola with such ques-
tons as social equality and negro
domination is as absurd as to connect
them with the nebular hypothesis or
the theory of atoms. / have consulted
freely with your own Senators and
Congressman as to the character and
capacity Of any appointee in Georgia
concerning whom there was question.
My party advisers IN the State have
been Major Hanson, Of Macon; MI.
Walter johnson, of Atlanta-both Of
them former Confederate soldiers-and
Mr.. Harry Stillwell Edwards, also Of
Macon. A large percentage Of the In
cumbents of Federal offices in Georgia
under me are, as / understand it, Of
your own political faith.
"This is true Of your own State, and
by applying to Mr.. Thomas Nelson
Duke, of Kentucky; to Mr.. George
Crawford, of Tennessee; to Mr.. John
Mc1lhenny, Of Louisiana: to Judge
Jones, Of Alabama, and Mr.. Edgar S.
Wilson. of Mississippi. all of them
Democrats, and all of them men of the
highest standing in their respective
communities, you will find that what I
have done in Georgia stands not as
stheaexception but as the rule for what
I have done throughout the South. I
may add that the proportion of colored
men among the new aDpointees is only
about n in a hundred.
in view of all these facts I have
been surprised and somewhat panied
at what seem to me the mcompre-
hensible cutlery in the South about my
actions-an cutlery apparently started
in New York for reasons wholly uncon-
nected with the question nominally at
Issue. l am concerned at the attitude
thus taken by Sc many Of the Southern
people, but I am not in the least angry;
and still less will this attitude have the
effect of making me swerve n hairs
breadth to one side or the other from
the course Il have marked out-the
cours I have consistently followed in
the past and shall consistently follow
In the future"