The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1914-03-21

AAosu AuOyu HARRISON,
;he North American Review.
sood enough to die alongside Of white
m 44t,1 ID saving the day at San Juan
LII are now learning to Know the
gratitude of Republics.
Ihese colored people who are thus
branded are not roustabouts, or cor
ner 1oa1ers, or worthless laborers.
Iney are educated men and women.
c0llege graduates many of them, from
al over the country who have passed
tnelr civil service examinations and
entered the Governments employ
with FULL faith in it's justice, asking
merely the right to serve on equal
terms with their fellows. The readers
OF The North American Review will
understand the bitter humiliation or
the segregation orders if they can i'm.
aglne themselves set apart as un-
worthy by brute authority, but thew
can hardly appreciate the added sense
or injury which comes from the fact
tnat this is an act OF the Federal
government. The colored people have
borne as patiently as the children OF
israel bore Their burdens, the wrongs
OF dlsfranch isement, the lynchings
ana burnlngs of innocent and guilty.
the humiliation of the tJim Crow,
car the constant personal insults OF
low whites; these were the acts Of
individuals or of States lately in re-
beil1on. But that the Federal Gov
eminent, under whose flag they have
fought in every war, under whose
,aegls they are working, which struck
their letters from their limbs. should
now take the side Of the oppressors
; IN the year OF the tiftieth anniversary
OF Llncoln's Emancipation Proclama-
tlon-thls Is what hurts and rankles
beyond all else. Is it any wonder that
one or the leaders of the race of ma.
tlonal renown writes that he has never
seen his people so discouraged and
so embittered as to-day?
They rightly declare as must
every fair-minded man free from
prejudice-that this spells caste. They
believe that it is intended to drive
them out Of the public service by rem
der1ng it intolerable for Negroes with
self-respect; they assert that one of
the Assistant Secretaries of the Treas
ury mas already held up the promo
ton OF two colored clerks because OF
their color. Segregation is, beyond
doubt, an entering wedge, and here
is the chief significance OF it all. Let
precedent be established, and who
shall say what the outcome will be,
to what lengths despotic officials will
take their way by means of discrimin-
alton, intimidation, by aboveboard or
J underhand methods? Who shall
prophesy to what extent this caste
! idea may not be developed in the dec
AIDES to come? If colored people can
thus be set apart contrary to the spirit
OF the civil-service law and Of the
Constitution itself, why not others
Jews, for instance?
Indeed, it may come to pass that Mr.,
Wilson will go down to history as the
man who set in motion terrible forces
for evil without adequate conception
Or provision of the dangers he was
inviting. IN, =
And his philosophy.
it he remains silent and segregates
further, will be wrong, his democracy
gravely at fault; he has given us
beautiful and worthy sentiments il
his book called ssThe New Freedom, Z
and in his various speeches prior to
and since his election to the Presj.
dency. But nowhere thus far do we
lind any indication that his democracy
is not limited both by the sex line
and the color line. He fails utterly t.
see that to discriminate in his democ-
racy against any one is to bring his
whole carefully reared edifce crash.
ing to the ground. The principles
upon which our democracy rests must
apply to everybody without discrim-
inatiOn, as exactly as a law Of science,
or they are open to doubt at once
Thus, we should not believe in the law
of gravitation if it did not apply alike !
to every human being; we should not
think very much of Mr. Marconi's |
wireless invention if he could trans
nit only the first half Of the alpha |
bet and not the last It >avails the
apologists for the President not at all
to say that tThe New Freedom" applies |
only to political and economic prob
lens, for what is the whole race prob |
lem but an economic and political
one? It would ertainly be ridiculous |
for Mr.. Wilson, NJ his publishers, to |
expect any aIDreciative reading |
among the million of disfranchised i
Americans, whetheA they be colored |
men and women or white men and |
women, of his theory of the coming
Of new political freedom at the very i
moment when there is placed upon
the colored by two Of his own Cabinet
an official stigma which no amount
of appointing to Office will remove
What Mr.. McAdoo |
does not appreciate is that the slight |
est yielding to prejudice on the part
Of high Federal official will find a |
dozen imitators in the lower official
ranks VINO think by outdoing their |
masters TO curry favor with those in |
power.
$3.50 What he does not |
see is that if only one colored man !
Dr. woman has been segregated it gives
the deliberate lie to Mr.. Wilson'S
promise to advance the interests OF !
the race and violates his pledge Of |
absolute fair dealing. The men vino
are lnjuring the President are not the |
defenders of this Governments repu-
tation Tor honor and of the rights or
the colored people, but those subor-
dinates who by their official actions |
have made dubious the Presidents |
word Willingly or unwittingly the
Wilson Administration has allied it.
self with the forces IF reaction, and
put itself on the size of every tor
turer, of every oppresser, of every per-
petrator of racial injustice in the
South or the North.
But the folly of