Phoenix tribune., 1921-10-15
NOTABLE ADDRESS OF
JAMES. ". JOHNSON TO
PRESIDENT HARDING

Following is an address by James
Weldon Johnson, secretary of the Ma
tional Association for the Advance
ment Of Colored People, delivered to
President Harding at the White
House, when delegation Eearing a
petition signed by $4,000 American
citizens asking executive clemency
and pardon for the sixtyone members
of the oath Infantry now in the Fed
eral prison at Leavenworth, Kansas,
was presented. Mr. Johnson spoke in
part as follows:
Mr.. President:
As secretary of the National AS
sociation for the Advancement of Col
ored People and spokesman for this
delegation composed of persons and
representatives of bodies, deeply con-
cerned for Americas good name, l
have the honor to present a petition
signed by fifty thousand American
citizens, white and black, praying that
you exercise executive clemency and
pardon the sixty-one members of the
oath U. s. Infantry now in the federal
prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, con.
victed on charges of rioting at Hous-
ton, Texas, in August, 1917.
We are delegation representing
the fifty thousand signers of this pc
tition which we have the honor to lay
before you, and we come not only as
a representative of those who signed
the petition, but We are spokesman of
the sentiments of the ten millions or
more of Negro citizens of the United
States.
The petition, you will note, asks
for your pardon on three grounds;
first, the previous record for discip-
line, service and soldierly conduct of
the oath Infantry; second the provo
cation of local animosity which mani
tested itself in insults, threats and
acts of violence against colored SOL
deirs; third, the heavy punishment
meted out to members of the oath In
fantry of whom nineteen were hang
ed, thirteen of them summarily and
without right of appeal to the secre-
tary of war or to the president, their
commander-in-chief. This wholesale,
unprecedented and almost clandestine
nXnantinn chnalxnl fh0
and appeared to the colored people to
SAVIOR of vengeance rather than JUS
tice. Sixty-one members of the oath
Infantry are still in prison serving life
and long time sentences.
/ wish to say a word about the
provocation which occasioned the riot
of August, 1917, in Houston, Texas,
as the consequence of which this pun
ishment was meted out.
Contrary to all precedent, the pro-
vost guard of this colored regiment
had been disarmed in a state and in
a city where insult was the colored
United States soldiers daily expert
ence. Following a long series of
humiliating and harassing incidents,
one soldier was brutally beaten and
a well beloved non-commissioned Of
ficer Of the regiment fired upon be-
cause they had intervened in the mis-
treatment of colored woman by local
policemen. The report spread among
the regiment that their non-commis-
stoned officer, Corporal Baltimore,
had been killed. Whatever acts may
have been committed by these men
were not the result of any premediated
design. The men were goarded to
sudden and frenzied action. This
borne out by the long record of order
ly and soldierly conduct on the part
of this regiment throughout its whole
history up to that time.
Moreover, although white citizens
of Houston were involved in these
riots and the regiment to which these
men belonged was officered entirely
by white men, none but Negroes so
far as we have been able to learn,
have ever been prosecuted or pun
ished. In consequence, the wholesale
punishment meted out to these col
ored soldiers of their country bore
the aspect of visitation upon their
color rather than upon their crime.
The attention of colored people
throughout the United States will be
focused upon the action which it
may please you to take.
In consideration therefore of the al
most five years already served in
prison by the sixty-one men and Of
the foregoing facts, and because Of the
long record for bravery, discipline and
soldierly conduct Of this particular