The Colorado statesman., 1912-06-08
NO COLOR-LINE IN MERIT
GENERAL LAND OFFICE AN Ell DO
RADIO FOR WORTHY CoLoREE
WORKERS.

Washington, D. C.-The formal OBJ
versary of the establishment of the
general land office, highly important
bureau Of the department of interior.
brings it conspicuously into popular
notice. not only because of its valued
functions as the real estate director"
OF the United States government, but
because of the good things its chief
official and his sponsors have done for
the uplift of the worthy negroes shell.
tered benath its wing.
The sky under which colored men
live is often so DARK and lowering,
and the rewards of merit are so mea-
ger, that many of the race have come
to believe that justice to them from
members of another race is not to be
expected. AS an antidote to this
frame of mind, it is pleasant to relate
the record of Hon. Fred bennett, COM
missioner of general land office, in
Washington. There are seventeen
classified employees of the colored race
in the land office, and during the four
years of Mr.. Dennetts incumbency,
ten of these have received promotions.
Charles E. Cheatham, of North Car
olina, an expert stenographer. who en-
tered the service in 1908, has been
promoted through all the grades from
$500 to $1,000, and is now in the office
of the secretary of the interior at a
salary of $1,620 per annum; l.. NJ. Her
shaw, of Georgia. who had been file
clerk for number of years, at 81 400.
has been promoted to $1,000 and as,
signed % examine desert land claims.
Other notable promotions are W. w.
Cohran, of Mississippi, $1,000 to ST.
200; James A Davis, of Tennessee,
$1,000 to $1,000; David w. Utz, of Ala
bama, 5000 to $1,000; Charles L. Webb,
of Illinois, 5000 to $1,000; Samuel H
Webb, of Virginia, $720 to 5000; Benja-
min S. Stewart, of the District of Co
lumbla, $720 to $S40 and Gabriel
Fletcher, of Maryland, 5000 to s72O
In addition to these promotions, Ed
ward H. Hunter, of North Carolina,
who resigned to enter the ministry,
and is candidate for one of the gen
eral offic of the A. NJ E. church. was
$1,000, the first colored man who ever
held such a position in the classified
service, and Sampson H. Brent was
classified as a skilled laborer at $780,
While this is not a promotion in sal
airy, it is a promotion in grade and
tenure
Commissioner bennett makes the
merit system of promotions mean
what the term implies, namely; that
those who show capacity for and per-
formance of assigned tasks are re-
warded according to ability and per
formance. The pigmentation of the
skin and chronological alignment are
not factors which enter into the es-
innate of qualifications for advance
ment. He has fixed, unvarying
standard of Justice, and applies it to
all, having no thought as to race, po-
sition or substance. He is calm and
undemonstrative, indulging in neither
professions nor batteries nor patroniZ-
ings when dealing with members of
the colored race.
A colored clerk who had been pro-
NOTED to a high grade. went to Mr..
bennett to thank him for his promo
ton. The commissioners reply to the
clerks expression of gratitude was:
you owe me no thanks. 1 had you
assigned to a line of work that would
show what you could do. You made
good, and that's all there is to It,"