The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1914-01-24

out OF Its way to stamp them publicly
as lepers, as physically and morally
contagious and unfit for ASSOCIATION
with white people. Among them are
perhaps veterans of Fort Wagner, OF
the Crater Of Petersburg, and surviv-
ors OF the triumphal march into Rich
mond Of General Godfrey Weitzers
black brigade; certainly brothers and
sisters Of the black troopers who were
good enough to die alongside Of white
men IN saving the day at San Juan
Hill are now learning to know the
gratitude Of Republics.
These cOlOred people who are thus
branded are not roustabouts, or cor
ner loafers, or worthless laborers.
They are educated men and women,
college graduates many of them, from
all over the country who have passed
their. civil service examinations and
entered the Governments employ
with full faith in its 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 of
the segregation orders If they can i'm
ag1ne themselves set apart as un-
worthy by brute authority, but they
can hardly appreciate the added sense
OF injury which comes from the fact
that this is an act or the Federal
Government. The colored people have
borne as patiently as the children of
Israel bore Their burdens, the wrongs
OF Acknowledgement, the lynchings
and burnings Of innocent and guilty,
the humiliation of the "Jim Crow
car, the constant personal insults of
low whites; these were the acts of
individuals or of States lately in re-
bellion. But that the Federal Gov
eminent, under whose flag they have
fought in every war, under whose
,aegis they are working, which struck.
their letters from their limbs, should
now take the side of the oppressors
in the year Of the fiftieth anniversary
of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclama-
tlOn-this is what hurts and rankles
beyond all else. Is it any wonder that
one of the leaders of the race of ma
tional renOwn writes that he has never
seen his people so discouraged and
so emblttered 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
dering it intolerable for Negroes with
self-respect; they assert that one of
the Assistant Secretaries of the Treas
ury has 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
a 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
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? 80 y =
Wilson will go down to history as the
for evil without adequate conception
or provision of the dangers he was
inviting.
And his philosophy,
if he remains silent and segregates |
further, will be wrong, his democracy
gravely at fault; he has given us
beautiful and worthy sentiments in
his book called "The New Freedom"
and in his various speeches prior to
and since his election to the Presi-
1ency. But nowhere thus far do we
ind any indication that his democracy
IS not limited both by the sex line
and the color line. He fails utterly to
see that to discriminate in his democ-
'acy against any one is to bring his
whole carefully reared edifice crash
ing to the ground. The principles
Upon which our democracy rests must
apply to everybody without discrim-
nation, as exactly as law of science,
Dr. they are open to doubt at once.
Thus, we should not believe in the law
If gravitation if it did not apply alike
10 every human beingS 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 "The 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 certainly be ridiculous
for Mr.. Wilson, or his publishers, to
expect any appreciative reading
among the millions of DISTINGUISHED |
whether they be colored
men and women or white men and |
women, Of his theory Of the coming !
Of new political freedom at the very |
when there is placed upon !
the co1ored by two of his own Cabinet
an official stigma which no amount
Of appointing to Office will remove.
So What Mr.. McAdoo
does not appreciate is that the slight
est yielding to prejudice on the part
Of a high Federal official will find a
dozen imitators in the lower official
ranks who think by outdoing their
masters to curry favor with those in
power.
So What he does not
see is that if only one colored man
or 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 who
are injuring the President are not the
defenders nf this $G0vnrnmnnf,S RAM