The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1914-01-10

e. y -.
expressed their complete dissent from
the Governments caste undertaking.
he Indignantly denies that poorer
quarters have been given to the segre-
gated, but eye-witnesses have told of
colored women shut off in an unnleas.
ant alcove in one Office: of others
quietly forced out of the lunch-room
tney mad been using for nine years
past and compelled to go into lava
tories at the lunch-hour, of men clerks
segregated behind lockers in one cor
ner OF room in the dead-letter diyi-
sion OF the. Post Office Department.
Poorer accommodate for the segre-
gated are the invariable law Of segre-
CATION. The assignment Of separate
to11et-rooms to the races under threats
OF prompt punishment for failure to
obey the rules has been another of
the deeply humiliating features Of the
washington segregation. To the COL
ored workers all this segregating has
been more brutal than a slap in the
face. It is as if the great Govern
ment OF the United States had gone
out or 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 survivt-
ors OF the triumphal march into Rich
mond Of General Godfrey Weitzel's
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 OF the Federal
Government. The colored people have
borne as patiently as the children of
Israel bore Their burdens, the wrongs
OF disfranchisement, 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 fftieth anniversary
of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclama-
tion-this IS what hurts and rankles
beyond all else. Is it any wonder that 4
one of the leaders of the. race of ma
tional 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
selfrespect; 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?
Indeed, it may come to pass that Mr..
Wilson will go down to history as the
for evil without adequate conception
or provision Of the dangers he was
inviting.
- -. : = And his philosophy,
il he remains silent and segregates
further, will be wrong, his democracy
gravely at fault; he has given us
beautiful and worthy sentiments i,
his book called "The New Freedom, :"
and in his various speeches prior to
and since his election to the Presi-
dency. But nowhere thus far do we
find any Indication that his democracy
| is not limited both by the sex line
and the nn1nr limo 3a fails utterly to