Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1918-03-09
CALL ON THE PRESIDENT
indianapolis Freeman)

appointment The delegation placed before
the president a petition signed by twelve
thousand citizens of New York in which the
president was asked to extend executive
clemency to five Negro soldiers of the
Twenty fourth Infantry now under sentence
of death by verdict of the court martial
which tried the Houston riot cases, and
requesting the president to cause to be laid
before him a review of the cases Of the
forty-one soldiers of the same regiment
who were sentenced to life Imprisonment
by the first court martial. The delegation
consisted of James Weldon johnson, Field
Secretary Of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People, Rev.
George Frazier Miller, Rector of St. Angus
tine s Church, Brooklyn, Rev. F. A. Cullen,
president Of the New York branch.
Mr.. johnson, who acted as spokesman of
the delegation, said:
eve come as delegation from the New
York branch Of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People,
representing the twelve thousand singers
to this petition which we have the honor to
lay before you. And we come not only as
the representatives of those who signed this
petition, but we come representing the SEN
timents and aspirations and sorrows, too,
of the great mass of the Negro population
of the United States.
eve respectfully and earnestly request
and urge that you extend executive elem
ency to the five Negro soldiers of the TWEEN
ty-fourth infantry now under sentence of
death by court martial. And, understand
ing that the cases of the men of the same
regiment who were sentenced to life i'm
prisonment by the first court martial are
to be reviewed, we also request and urge
that you cause this review to be laid before
you and that executive cemency be shown
also to them.
eve feel that the history of this partic-
ular regiment and the splendid record for
bravery and loyalty of our Negro soldiery
in every crisis of the nation gives us the
right to make this request. And we make
it not only in the name of their loyalty,
but also in the name of the unquestioned
loyalty to the nation of twelve million Ne
groes-a loyalty which today places them
side by side with the original American
stocks that landed at Plymouth and James
town.
''The hanging Of thirteen men without
the opportunity Of appeal to the Secretary
of War or to their Commander in Chief, the
president of the United States, was pun
ishment so drastic and so unusual in the
history of the nation that the execution of
additional members of the twenty fourth
infantry would to the colored people of the
country SAVIOR of vengeance rather than
justice
1t is neither our purpose nor is this the
occasion to argue whether this attitude of
mind on the part of the colored people is
justified or not. AS representatives of the
race we desire only to testify that it does
not exist. This state of mind has been in
tensifed by the significant fact that al
though white persons were involved in the
Houston affair and the regiment to which
the colored men belonged was differed en-
tirely by white men, none but colored men,
so far as we have been able to learn, have
been prosecuted or condemned.
1--WE desire to also respectfully call to
your attention the fact that there were NIT
lgatmg circumstances for the action of these
men OF the twenty-fourth infantry. Not
by any premeditated design and without
cause did these men do what they did at
h,,f g 1,o4