The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1914-01-31
Oswald Garrison Willard Grandson Of William Loyd Garrison
Writes Strong Article for the American

6O0u enough 10 Ole alongside of white
men In saving the day at San Juan
Hill are now learning to know the
gratitude Of Republics.
s These colored people who are thus
branded are not roustabouts, or cor
ner l0afers, or worthless laborers.
Ihey are educated men and women,
college graduates many of them, from
al 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
aglne themselves set apart as I'M
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 ther 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-
bell1on. 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 Llncoln's Emancipation Proclama-
tlon-thls 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,
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-
dency. But nowhere thus far do we
find 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 discrim-
nation, 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
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. 1t 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
Americans, whether they be colored
men and women or white men and
women, Of his theory of the coming
If a new political freedom at the very
when there is placed upon
he colored by two of his own Cabinet
IN official stigma which no amount (
IF appointing to Office will remove. J
What Mr.. McAdoo
1oes not appreciate is that the slight !
9st yielding to prejudice on the part |
If a high Federal official will find a
1oZen imitators in the lower official
ranks who think by outdoing their
masters to curry favor with those in
power.
= 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 |
Ire injuring the President are not the
defenders of this Governments repu-
tation for honor and of the rights of
The colored people, but those subor-
linates who by their official actions
nave made dubious the Presidents
word. Willingly or unwittingly the
Wilson Administration has allied it.
self with the forces Of reaction, and
put itself on the side Of every tor
urer, of every oppresser, Of every per-
petrator Of racial injustice in the
South or the North.
But the folly of /
'aising this race issue does not stop
here. It differs but very little from
he one that rent the Union. The |
-.
United States was, in its simplest
o1en %1,or of% nj /