The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1914-05-23

OAAS WI VI xAA4C44OdA xSGV1cW,
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.
/; ihey 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 emnlov
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.
aglne 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 OF 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-
belion. 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 fiftieth anniversary
of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclama
tion-this is what hurts and rankles
beyond all else. Is it any wonder that
one of 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.
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? + y
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.
And his philosophy
ii 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
i and since his election to the Presi-
i 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 to
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 discrlm-
ination, as exactly as 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
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 ".rhe New Freedom" applies
! only to polite 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, ,>r his publishers, to
expect any ap7reciative reading
among the million of disfranchised
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
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.. McAdoC
does not appreciate is that the slight
est yielding to prejudice on the par1
Of high Federal official will, ind q
dozen imitators in the lower otficia
ranks VINO think by outdoing their
masters TO curry favor with those in
power.
- IS What he does not
see is that if only one coloreo 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 81
absolute fair dealing. The men wht
are lnjuring the President are not tue
defenders of this Governments repu
tation 1or honor and of the rights OF
the colored people, but those subor
dinates VINO by their official actions
have made dubious the President
word. Willingly or unwittingly the
1 Wilson Administration has allied it
self with the forces If reaction, anG
put itself on the sioe of every tor
turer, of every oppresser, of every per
petrator Of racial injustice in the
South or the North.
So But thu folly o.
4 d = ! Z. ~ p TX 81 ~