Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-03-02
PRESIDENT REPTILES.


 PRESIDENT REPLIES.
 Character, Not Color, Test for Office
 holding.
 ATLANTA, Ga, March 2.-Follow- ing are extracts from a letter from President Roosevelt to Clarke Howell, editor of the Constitution, in reply to a request for an exposition concerning a recent letter from Harry Stillwell 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 sacri- fcing principle. The prime tests have applied have been those of character, fitness and ability. and when have been dissatisfied with what has been offered me ip my own party lines l have without hesitation gone to the opposite party, and you are of course aware that have repeatedly done this in your own state of Georgia. cer- tatnly cannot treat mere color as bar to holding oS11ce any more than could so treat creed or birthplace, always providing that in other respects the ap- pltcant or incumbent is worthy and we'll behaved American citiBen. Just as little will treat 1t as conferring right to hold office.
 T ask you to judge not by what I say, but by what during the last seven teen months I have actually done. In South Carolina have appointed a white postmaster to succeed a colored postmaster. Again in South Carolina I have nominated colored man to fill a vacancy in the position of collector of the port of Charleston, just as in Geor- afa have reappointed the colored man who is now serving as collector of tho poRt of Savannah. Both are fit men. Why the appointment of one should cause any more excitement than the appointment of the other am wholly at loss to imagine. AS am writing to man of keen and trained intelligence 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 En- dianola with such questions as social equality and negro domination is as absurd as to connect them with the nebular hypothesis or the theory of atoms.
 T have consulted freely with your own senators and congressman as to the character and capacity of any ap- pointee in Georgia concerning whom there was question. My party advisers in the state have been Major Hanson of Macon, MT. Walter Johnson of At lanta-both of them ex-Confed derate soldiers and Mr. Harry Stillwell Ed wards, also Of Macon. A large percent age of the incumbents of federal offices in Georgia under me are, as I under stand it, of your own political faith.
 'This is true of your own state. and by applying to Mfr. Thomas Nelson Page of Virginia, to General Basil Duke of Kentucky, to MT. George Crawford of Tennessee, to Mir. John McIlhenny of Louisiana, to Judge Jones of Alabama and Mir. Edgar s. Wilson of Mississippi, all of them Dem ocrats 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 the exception, but as the rule for what have done throughout the south. may add that the proportion of colored mon among the new appointees Is only about one in hundred.
 sTn view of all these facts have been surprised and somewhat pained at what seems to me the incomprehen- ssble outcry in the south about my ac- lions, an outcry apparently started in New York for reasons wholly uncon- nected with the question noninally at issue. am concerned at the attitude 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 swerve one hairs breadth to one side or the other from the course have marked out, the course I have consistently followed in the past and shall consistently follow in the future"