The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-01-15
APPOINTING A BOSTON NEGRO
DOES MOI CHANGE THEsIrUA-
TON WITH RESPECT 10
SOUTH CAROLINA

On Sunday this paper copied q vigorous
and wise editorial from the New York
Herald protesting against the appoint
ment by the President OF the negro, DR..
Crum, as Collector of the Port Of
Charleston. Yesterday note was made of
carrying at it's mast head the name of
Roosevelt for President in 1904, had
taken it down. That was very significant.
Following upon the appointment of
Crum, the President, in order to reply
TO the query: why didn't you appoint
negro in Boston?" appointed a negro as
Assistant District Attorney in Boston.
He thought by that act to confound his
critics. According to the special to the
Herald from Boston, the office to which
the negro was appointed was created for
that purpose and there are already more
assistants in the office than are needed.
The New York Herald's editorial COM,
ment upon the appointment of
the Boston negro is an able
utterance, written by broad-minded and
thoughtful man. 1t is a full and COM
plete answer to Roosevelt and We give
space to it without abridgment:
"COLORED FEDERAL OFFICIALS
MASSACHUSETTS, AND SOUTH
CAROLINA.
THE news this morning that a colored
man has been appointed Assistant United
States District Attorney of Boston is of
peculiar interest at this jurcture.
In the general protest from the South
against the nomination of DR.. Crum for
Collector of the Port of Charleston stress
was laid on the fact that it was South
Carolina ard not Massachusetts that
President Roosevelt had chosen as the
place in which to select colored man
for an important Federal office.
Hence, yesterdays appointment will
be generally regarded as due to Mr..
Roosevelt's personal influence and as a
reply to his Southern critics. Mr.. Will
liam II. Lewis, the Boston appointec, is
graduate of Amherst and of the Har-
ward Law School, and became famous as
the centre rush of the university's foot
ball team.
"In this one fact lies exposed the wide
South Carolina in respect of the public
and social sentiment affecting the colored
race. 1t is not necessary to bring the
character or attachments of either DIR.
Crum or Mr.. Lewis into the discussion.
The Presidents error in naming Dr.
Crum Law not in the nomination of a col
ored man. but in violating local senti-
ment and wishes and in disregarding the
-Io,,, fhn
Collector would have to serve.
'If the appointment of Mr.. Lewis is
satisfactory to the people of Massachu-
setts the color of his skin is no objection
and there is no possible parallel between
the two instances of Massachusetts and
South Carolina One nation does not send
diplomatic representative to another
without being first assured that the in
dividual named is persona grata to the
people to whom he is accredited and a
similar if unwritten law governs the Sc
lection of an important Federal official
at was condition not theory that
confronted President Roosevelt in the Sc
lection of a Collector for the port of
Charleston. In nominating colored man
for the post he acted as if it were mere
question of the theory and ignored the
condition created by public sentiment
and local race prejudices.
There is no need of discussing the
character or ground of those prejudices.
That they exist and are intense is not
denied by anybody, and their existence
is a fact that practical statesmanship
should not ignore. 1t is stated that the
President acted on the theory that the
colored race was entitled to the recoS-
milton implied in ta;5 nomination because
the blacks largely outnumbered the
whites in South Carolina. The extent to
which this is true was shown in an article
in Sundays Herald annalyZing the Stats
tics of population within circuit of ono
hundred miles around Charleston.
While the blacks in the sixteen coun-
ties thus dealt with outnumber the whites
two to one, the census of the adult male
population tells different story, the lit
crate whites being much more numerous
than the literate blacks, and as the law
exacts an educational qualification for
the suffrage it follows that a majority
of the voters are white In selecting ?
Collector for the port, therefore, it is
clear that on the ground of mere num-
bers the President should have been in
fiuenced by the white citizens of Charles
ton. who protested against the nomna-
ton of black man
"In the matter of culture. wealth and