The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-23
Colonel Roosevelt and the COIOred
Troops.

Most Americans find no difficulty in
sympathizing with those representative
colored men who have publicly and with
more or less temperance protested
against the discharge without honor"
of the three companies Of the Twenty
fifth Infantry. Nothing could be more
natural than the feeling which inspires
this indignation and resentment. II is
true, nevertheless, that some of these
orators, editors and clergymen in ques-
ton have ~overstepped the bounds of
wisdom and discretion, thereby injuring
their own cause and seriously embarrass-
ing their would-be friends and coad-
tutors among the whites. This is a
cause OF serious and sincere regret with
us. There is in the past conduct Of
the colored troops 80 much of valor
and devotion that it, seems a pity to
impair the argument Of splendid fact
and glorious achievement by introducing
the dilution of silly fable and ~hysterical
assumption.
We refer especially to the persistent
reiteration of that preposterous and ut
terly groundless story touching Colonel
Ro~OsEvELT'S rescue at San Juan Hill by
~the colored troops" II is a story which
originated in the fevered dreams Of
war correspondents"-an incident wit
messed by their back hair as they sought
asylum on the transports of Siboney.
The truth is that President ROOSEVELT
vas not engaged in the assault Of the
San Juan blockhouse, July 1, 1898, and
therefore could not by any possibility
have been rescued" there by troops,
black, white, red, yellow or brown. As
a matter of fact, while General HAMIL-
TON s. HAWKINS was leading the charge
on the hill surmounted by the block
house, a charge magniicently successful,
Colonel THEODORE ROOSEVELT watched
the assault from the summit of Kettle
Hill, two-thirds of a mile distant, and
was at no time in the slightest danger.
He tells the story himself in that ex-
tremely interesting book The Rough
Riders Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909,
and on page 1874 he says:
we had a splendid view OF the charge on the
Ssn Juan blockhOuse. TO our left. where the infantry
OF KENT. led by HAWKINS, were climbing the hill.
. . lpage 1891 The infantry got nearer and
nearer the crest OF the hill. At last we could see
the spaniards running from the rifle pits as the
Americans came on In their hnal rush"
SO it was that our troops, led by Cen
eral HAWKINS, stormed the heights Of
San Juan and captured the formidable
blockhouse. But THEODORE ROOSEVELT
does not pretend to have participated
in that affair. He describes it, Of the
contrary, a a spectator at a virtually
safe distance, and chivalrously gives the
credit to those who so nobly and vaIor-
ously earned it. To talk, therefore, Of
the. colored troops as having saved
ROoSEVELT's life at San Juan" is unwar-
ranted, ridiculous and impertinent. He
was IN no need Of rescue at any time. He
had shown a week before San Juan, at
the outpost skirmish of Las Guasimas,
that he knew how to take care of himself,
and when he led the charge on the ridge.
something like three-quarters Of a mile
to the right Of the captured ~blockhouse
July y, he exhibited qualities of leader
ship which effectually removed him from
the list Of the inept and the dependent.
Every one who reads The Rough
Riders" must see that Colonel ROOSEVELT
is a born soldier, and those who criticise
him on account of his action with refer
enoe to the Twenty-fifth Infantry will
be wise 10 dismiss tho stupid fabletof his