Kitabı oku: «Shadow and Light», sayfa 18

CHAPTER XXX

Taking up the reins of the Administration of the Government, with its complex statesmanship, where a master had laid them down, President Roosevelt, heretofore known for his sterling worth as an administrator, and his imperial honesty as a man, has put forth no uncertain sound as to his intended course. The announcement that the foreign policy of his illustrious predecessor would be chiefly adhered to has struck a responsive chord in every patriotic heart. The appointment of ex-Gov. Jones, of Alabama, to a Federal judgeship was an appointment in unison with the best of popular accord. The nobility of the Governor in his utterances on the subject of lynching should endear him to every lover of justice and the faithful execution of law. For he so grandly evinced what is so sadly wanting in many humane and law-abiding men – the courage of his convictions.

"For when a free thought sought expression,

He spoke it boldly, spoke it all."

It is only to the fruition of such expressions, the molding of an adverse sentiment to such lawlessness that we can look for the abolishment of that crime of crimes which, to the disgrace of our country, is solely ours.

This appointment is considered eminently wise, not only for the superior ability of the appointee as a jurist, but for his broad humanity as a man, fully recognizing the inviolability of human life and its subjection to law. For the Negro, his primal needs are protection and the common liberty vouchsafed to his fellow-countrymen. To enjoy them it is necessary that he be in harmony with his environments. A bulwark he must have, of a friendship not the product of coercion, but a concession from the pulse-beat of justice. Such appointments pass the word down the line that President Roosevelt, in his endeavor to be the exponent of the genius of American citizenship, will recognize the sterling advocates of the basic elements of constitutional Government, those of law and order, irrespective of party affiliation.

This appointment will probably cause dissent in Republican circles, but it may be doubted if the Negro advances his political fortunes by invidious criticism of the efforts of a Republican Administration to harmonize ante-bellum issues. For while he in all honesty may be strenuous for the inviolability of franchises of the Republican household, and widens the gap between friendly surroundings, each of the political litigants meet with their knees under each other's mahogany, and jocularly discuss Negro idiosyncrasies, and tacitly agree to give his political aspirations a "letting alone." For, with character and ability unquestioned for the discharge of duties, the vote polled for him usually falls far short of the average of that polled by his party for other candidates on the ticket.

The summary killing of human beings by mobs without the form of law is not of late origin. Ever since the first note of reconstruction was sounded, each Administration has denounced lynching. All history is the record that it is only through discussion and the ventilation of wrong that right becomes a valued factor. But regard for justice is not diminishing in our country. The judiciary, although weak and amenable to prevailing local prejudices in localities, as a whole is far in advance on the sustenance of righteous rule than in the middle of the last century, when slavery ruled the Nation and its edicts were law, and its baleful influence permeated every branch of the Government.

Of the judiciary at that period Theodore Parker, an eminent Congregational divine and most noted leader of Christian thought, during a sermon in 1854, said:

"Slavery corrupts the judicial class. In America, especially in New England, no class of men has been so much respected as the judges, and for this reason: We have had wise, learned, and excellent men for our judges, men who reverenced the higher law of God, and sought by human statutes to execute justice. You all know their venerable names and how reverentially we have looked up to them. Many of them are dead, and some are still living, and their hoary hairs are a crown of glory on a judicial life without judicial blot. But of late slavery has put a different class of men on the benches of the Federal Courts – mere tools of the Government creatures who get their appointments as pay for past political service, and as pay in advance for iniquity not yet accomplished. You see the consequences. Note the zeal of the Federal judges to execute iniquity by statute and destroy liberty. See how ready they are to support the Fugitive Slave Bill, which tramples on the spirit of the Constitution and its letter, too; which outrages justice and violates the most sacred principles and precepts of Christianity. Not a United States Judge, Circuit or District, has uttered one word against that bill of abominations. Nay, how greedy they are to get victims under it. No wolf loves better to rend a lamb into fragments than these judges to kidnap a fugitive slave and punish any man who desires to speak against it. You know what has happened in Fugitive Slave Bill courts. You remember the 'miraculous' rescue of a Shadrach; the peaceable snatching of a man from the hands of a cowardly kidnapper was 'high treason;' it was 'levying war.' You remember the trial of the rescuers! Judge Sprague's charge to the jury that if they thought the question was which they ought to obey, the laws of man or the laws of God, then they must 'obey both,' serve God and Mammon, Christ and the devil in the same act. You remember the trial, the ruling of the bench, the swearing on the stand, the witness coming back to alter and enlarge his testimony and have another gird at the prisoner. You have not forgotten the trials before Judge Kane at Philadelphia and Judge Greer at Christiana and Wilkesbarre.

"These are natural results from causes well known. You cannot escape a principle. Enslave a negro, will you? You doom to bondage your own sons and daughters by your own act."

At the death of Theodore Parker, among the many eulogies on his life was one by Ralph Waldo Emerson, highly noted for his humanity, his learning and his philosophy. It contains apples of gold, and richly deserves immortality; for in the worldly strife for effervescent wealth and prominence, a benign consciousness that our posthumous fame as unselfish benefactors to our fellow-men is to live on through the ages, would be a solace for much misrepresentation. Emerson said: "It is plain to me that Theodore Parker has achieved a historic immortality here. It will not be in the acts of City Councils nor of obsequious Mayors nor in the State House; the proclamations of Governors, with their failing virtue failing them at critical moments, that generations will study what really befel; but in the plain lessons of Theodore Parker in this hall, in Faneuil Hall and in legislative committee rooms, that the true temper and authentic record of these days will be read. The next generation will care little for the chances of election that govern Governors now; it will care little for fine gentlemen who behaved shabbily; but it will read very intelligently in his rough story, fortified with exact anecdotes, precise with names and dates, what part was taken by each actor who threw himself into the cause of humanity and came to the rescue of civilization at a hard pinch; and those who blocked its course.

"The vice charged against America is the want of sincerity in leading men. It does not lie at his door. He never kept back the truth for fear of making an enemy. But, on the other hand, it was complained that he was bitter and harsh; that his zeal burned with too hot a flame. It is so hard in evil times to escape this charge for the faithful preacher. Most of all, it was his merit, like Luther, Knox, and Latimer and John the Baptist, to speak tart truth when that was peremptory and when there were few to say it. His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted beyond all men in pulpit – I cannot think of one rival – that the essence of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for use, or it is nothing: If you combine it with sharp trading, or with ordinary city ambitions to glaze over municipal corruptions or private intemperance, or successful frauds, or immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or the robbing of frontier natives, it is hypocrisy and the truth is not in you, and no love of religious music, or dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley or of Jeremy Taylor, can save you from the Satan which you are."

CHAPTER XXXI

The accord so generally given to the appointment of ex-Governor Jones, of Alabama – a Gold Democrat, having views on domestic order in harmony with the Administration – to a Federal judgeship was destined to be followed by a bitter arraignment of President Roosevelt for having invited Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House. As a passing event not without interest, in this era of the times, indicative of "shadow and light," I append a few extracts from Southern and Northern Journals:

SHADOW

In all parts of the country comment has been provoked by the fact that President Roosevelt, on Wednesday night last, entertained at dinner in the White House, Booker T. Washington, who is generally regarded as the representative of the colored race in America. Especially in the South has the incident aroused indignation, according to the numerous news dispatches. The following comments from the editorial columns of newspapers and from prominent men are given:

New Orleans, Oct. 19. – The Times-Democrat says:

"It is strange news that comes from Washington. The President of the United States, for the first time in the history of the nation, has entertained a Negro at dinner in the White House. White men of the South, how do you like it? White women of the South, how do you like it?

"Everyone knows that when Mr. Roosevelt sits down to dinner in the White House with a Negro he that moment declares to all the world that in the judgment of the President of the United States the Negro is the social equal of the white man. The Negro is not the social equal of the white man. Mr. Roosevelt might as well attempt to rub the stars out of the firmament as to try to erase that conviction from the heart and brain of the American people."

The Daily States: "In the face of the facts it can but appear that the President's action was little less than a studied insult to the South adopted at the outset of his Administration for the purpose of showing his contempt for the sentiments and prejudices of this section."

Richmond, Va., Oct. 19. – The Dispatch says:

"With many qualities that are good – with some, possibly, that are great – Mr. Roosevelt is a negrophilist. While Governor of New York he invited a Negro (who, on account of race prejudice, could not obtain accommodation at any hotel) to be his guest at the Executive Mansion, and, it is said, gave him the best room in the house.

"Night before last the President had Prof. Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House. That was a deliberate act, taken under no alleged pressure of necessity, as in the Albany case, and may be taken as outlining his policy toward the Negro as a factor in Washington society. We say 'Washington society,' rather than 'American society,' because the former, on account of its political atmosphere, is much more 'advanced' in such matters than that of any other American city of which we know anything. The President, having invited Booker T. Washington to his table, residents of Washington of less conspicuous standing may be expected to do likewise. And if they invite him they may invite lesser lights – colored lights.

"When Mr. Cleveland was President he received Fred Douglass at some of his public entertainments – 'functions,' so-called – but we do not remember that Fred was singled out for the distinguished honor of dining with the President, as Booker Washington has been.

"We do not like Mr. Roosevelt's negrophilism at all, and are sorry to see him seeking opportunities to indulge in it. He is reported to have rejoiced that Negro children were going to school with his children at Oyster Bay. But then, it may be said, too, that he has more reasons than the average white man to be fond of Negroes, since it was a Negro regiment that saved the Rough Riders from decimation at San Juan Hill. And but for San Juan Hill it is quite unlikely that Mr. Roosevelt would be President today.

"Booker Washington is said to have been very influential with the President in having Judge Jones put upon the Federal bench in Alabama, and we are now fully prepared to believe that statement.

"With our long-matured views on the subject of social intercourse between blacks and whites, the least we can say now is that we deplore the President's taste, and we distrust his wisdom."

Birmingham, Ala., Oct. 19. – The Enterprise says:

"It remained for Mr. Roosevelt to establish a precedent humiliating to the South and a disgrace to the nation. Judge Jones owes a duty to the South, to his friends and to common decency to promptly resign and hurl the appointment back into the very teeth of the white man who would invite a nigger to eat with his family."

Augusta, Ga., Oct. 19. – The Augusta Chronicle says, in its leading editorial, today:

"The news from Washington that President Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee Institute, was a guest at the White House at a dinner with President and Mrs. Roosevelt and family, and that after dinner there was the usual social hour over cigars, is a distinct shock to the favorable sentiment that was crystallizing in the South for the new President.

"While encouraging the people in the hope that the Negro is to be largely eliminated from office in the South, President Roosevelt throws the fat in the fire by giving countenance to the Negro's claims for social equality by having one to dine in the White House.

"President Roosevelt has made a mistake, one that will not only efface the good impression he had begun to create in the South, but one that will actively antagonize Southern people and meet the disapproval of good Anglo-Saxon sentiment in all latitudes.

"The South does not relish the Negro in office, but that is a small matter compared with its unalterable opposition to social equality between the races. President Roosevelt has flown in the face of public sentiment and precipitated an issue that has long since been fought out, and which should have been left in the list of settled questions."

Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 19. – The Evening Banner says:

"Whatever justification may be attempted of the President's action in this instance, it goes without saying that it will tend to chill the favor with which he is regarded in the South, and will embarrass him in his reputed purpose to build up his party in this section."

Louisville, Ky., Oct. 19. – The Times of yesterday afternoon says:

"The President has eliminated the color line from his private and official residences and with public office is hiring white Democrats to whitewash it down South."

Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 19. – Governor Candler says:

"No self-respecting white man can ally himself with the President after what has occurred. The step has done the Republican party no earthly good, and it will materially injure its chances in the South. The effect of the Jones appointment is largely neutralized. Still, I guess it's like the old woman when she kissed the cow. As a matter of fact, Northern people do not understand the Negro. They see the best types and judge of the remainder by them."

LIGHT

Philadelphia, Oct. 19. – The Ledger this morning says:

"Because President Roosevelt saw fit, in his good judgment, to invite Booker T. Washington to dinner, strong words of disapproval are heard in the South. Mr. Washington is a colored man who enjoys the universal respect of all people in this country, black and white, on account of attainments, character and deeds. As the President invited him to be his private guest, and did not attempt to enforce the companionship of a colored man upon any one to whom the association could possibly be distasteful, any criticism of the President's act savors of very great impertinence. But, considered in any light, the invitation is not a subject for criticism. Booker T. Washington is one of the most notable citizens of the country, just because he has done noteworthy things. He is the founder and the successful executive of one of the most remarkable institutions in the United States, the Tuskegee (Alabama) Institute, which not only aims, but in fact does, educate and train the youth of the negro race to become useful, industrious and self-supporting citizens.

"Booker T. Washington is the embodiment of common sense and, instead of inciting the members of his race to dwell upon their wrongs, to waste their time upon politics and to try to get something for nothing in this life, in order to live without work, he has constantly preached the gospel of honest work, and has founded a great industrial school, which fits the young Negroes for useful lives as workers and teachers of industry to others. This is the man who was justly called by President McKinley, after he had inspected Tuskegee, the "leader of his race," and in the South no intelligent man denies that he is doing a great service to the whole population of both colors in this land. It is evident that the only objection that could be brought against association with such a man as that is color alone, and President Roosevelt will not recognize that prejudice."

The Evening Bulletin says:

"President Roosevelt night before last had Booker T. Washington, the worthy and much-respected colored man who is at the head of the Tuskegee Institute, as a guest at his private table in the White House. This has caused some indignation among Southerners and in Southern newspapers.

"Yet all the President really seems to have done was an act of courtesy in asking Mr. Washington to sit down with him to dinner and have a talk with him. As Booker T. Washington is an entirely reputable man, as well as an interesting one, the President doubtless enjoyed his company. Many Presidents in the past have had far less reputable and agreeable men at their table. If Mr. Roosevelt shall have no worse ones among his private guests, the country will have no cause for complaint.

"The right of the President to dine with anyone he may please to have with him is entirely his own affair, and Theodore Roosevelt is not a likely man to pick out bad company, black or white, for his personal or social companionship. The rumpus which some indiscreet Southerners are trying to raise because he has been hospitable to a colored man is a foolish display of both manners and temper."

Boston, Oct. 19. – Commenting on President Roosevelt's action in extending hospitality to Booker T. Washington, President Charles Eliot, of Harvard, said:

"Harvard dined Booker Washington at her tables at the last commencement. Harvard conferred an honorary degree on him. This ought to show what Harvard thinks about the matter."

William Lloyd Garrison: "It was a fine object lesson, and most encouraging. It was the act of a gentleman – an act of unconscious natural simplicity."

Charles Eliot Norton: "I uphold the President in the bold stand that he has taken."

NO SYMPATHY WITH PREJUDICE

New York Herald: The President has absolutely no sympathy with the prejudice against color. He has shown this on two occasions. Once he invited to his house at Oyster Bay, Harris, the Negro half-back of Yale, and entertained him over night. The other occasion was when he took in at the Executive Mansion at Albany, Brigham, the Negro baritone of St. George's Church, who was giving a concert in Albany and had been refused food and shelter by all the hotels.

WASTING THEIR BREATH

Philadelphia Press: President Roosevelt's critics are wasting breath and spilling ink. There is an obstinate man in the White House. The cry of "nigger" will neither prevent him from continuing to appoint to any office in the Southern States the best men, under whatever color of politics, who can be found under current conditions, or recognizing in the hospitalities of the White House the best type of American manhood, under whatever color of skin it can be found.

THAT DINNER

New York Tribune: The Southern politician who criticises President Roosevelt's action in inviting Prof. Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House is likely to raise the query whether the manager of the Tuskegee Institute or himself is really the more deserving and genuine friend of the South.

DEMOCRATS HAVE CHANGED ATTITUDE

Glad of Booker T. Washington's Help in Securing Office

NOW JEER ROOSEVELT

Berate President for Dining With a Negro

Some Noted Occasions When the Alabama Educator Has Received the Plaudits of the South

Washington, D. C., Oct. 19. – President Roosevelt has a fine sense of humor, and while he regrets that he has without malice stirred up a tempest in a teapot for the Southern editors by entertaining Professor Booker T. Washington at dinner, he cannot put aside the humorous side of the situation. It is only a few weeks since a number of white Democrats co-operated with Booker Washington in regard to the appointment of ex-Governor Jones to the vacancy on the Federal bench in Alabama, and Washington spoke for these white Democrats when he came to the capital and assured President Roosevelt that Jones would accept the appointment and that it would be satisfactory to all classes.

Washington had seen the President and had acted as his agent in interviewing Governor Jones and others as to the appointment. The Southern Democrats applauded the appointment of Jones, and they praised Washington for using his influence at the White House to secure such an appointment for a Democrat. Then they all spoke of Washington as a gentleman of culture, who had the refined sense to cut loose from the Republican leaders of the Negro party in the South and work in harmony with the best class of whites. Now they are abusing the President for dining with a "nigger."

Washington has entertained more distinguished Northern men and more distinguished Southern men at the Tuskegee Institute than any other man in the State, if not in the South. President McKinley and his Cabinet, accompanied by many other distinguished gentlemen, were the guests of Washington at Tuskegee two years ago, and they lunched at his table. Washington was the guest of honor at a banquet in Paris three years ago, when Ambassador Porter presided and ex-President Harrison and Archbishop Ireland were among the guests. This same "nigger" was received by Queen Victoria and took tea in Buckingham Palace the same year.

INVITATION FROM WHITE HOUSE

When he returned to this country Washington received invitations from all parts of the South to deliver addresses and attend receptions given by white people. He was received by the Governors of Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia and Louisiana. He spoke to many mixed audiences in the South, where whites and blacks united to do him honor. When the people of Atlanta wanted an appropriation from Congress for their Exposition in 1895 they sent a large committee of the most distinguished men in the South to the National Capital to plead their cause. Booker T. Washington was one of these distinguished Southern men. Congressman Joseph E. Cannon, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the House, says that Washington by his force and eloquence secured that appropriation of $250,000 for the Atlanta Exposition.

The Southern people had only praise for him when he was arranging to take Vice-President Roosevelt to Tuskegee and Montgomery and Atlanta this fall, and they were eager to co-operate with him in entertaining such a distinguished visitor. They still hope to have President Roosevelt visit the South, and if he goes he will go as the guest of Booker T. Washington.

The President knows, too, that the real leaders of the South, white Democrats, do not sympathize with this hue and cry of Southern editors because Washington was a guest at the White House. Today the President has received many messages from Southern men, urging him to pay no attention to the yawp of the bourbon editors, who have not been able to get over the old habit of historical discussion of "social equality." Southern men called at the White House today as usual to ask for favors at the hands of the President, and they are not afraid of contamination by meeting the man who "ate with a nigger."

AMUSES THE PRESIDENT

President Roosevelt cannot help seeing the humorous side of the situation he has created by asking his friend to dinner, and he is pursuing the even tenor of his way as President without worrying over the outcome. He has, in the last two weeks, given cause for much excitement in the South. The first was when he appointed a Democrat to office and ignored the professional Republican politicians, who claimed to carry the "nigger" vote in their pocket. He was not disturbed by the threats of the Southern Republican politicians over that incident, and he is not disturbed by the threats of the Southern Democratic editors over this incident.

As to the Southern objection to dining, with a Negro, Opie Read, of Chicago, tells a story about M. W. Gibbs, who has just resigned his position as United States Consul at Tamatave, Madagascar. Gibbs is now in Washington on his way home to Little Rock. He resigned to give a younger man a chance to serve his country as a Consul. Here is the story Opie Read told about Gibbs dining with white men at a banquet in honor of General Grant in Little Rock:

In the reconstruction days a Negro by the name of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs located in Little Rock, Ark. He showed the community that he was keener than a whole lot of its leading citizens, who had kept the offices in their families for generations. Under the new order of things he was appointed Attorney of Pulaski County. His ability and the considerate manner in which he conducted his relationship with the whites gave him a greater popularity than any other colored man had ever before enjoyed in that place. His influence increased, until General Grant, then President, appointed him Register of the United States Land Office at Little Rock.

GIBBS' SPEECH THE BEST

"When General Grant visited our city a banquet was prepared, and it was finally decided that for the first time in the history of the 'Bear State' a Negro would be welcomed at a social function on terms of absolute equality. I was then editor of the Gazette, and my seat was next to that of Gibbs. The speaker who had been selected to respond to the toast, 'The Possibilities of American Citizenship' was absent. I asked Gibbs if he would not talk on that subject. He consented, and I arranged the matter with the toastmaster. The novelty and the picturesqueness of the thing appealed to me. Every guest was spellbound, and General Grant was astonished. Not only was the speech of the Negro the best one delivered on that occasion, but it was one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened.

"The owner of the Gazette was a Democrat of the Democrats, and a strict keeper of the traditions of the South. Moreover, his paper was the official organ of the Democratic party, and we were in the heat of a bitter campaign. In spite of all this, however, I came out with the editorial statement that Gibbs had scored the greatest oratorical triumph of the affair. Perhaps this didn't stir things up a little. But the gratitude of Gibbs was touching. He is now United States Consul at Tamatave, Madagascar. In my opinion he is the greatest living representative of the colored race. We have been close friends ever since that banquet."

BOOKER WASHINGTON THE VICTIM

(From the Washington (D. C.) Post, October 23, 1901.)

Quite the most deplorable feature of the Booker Washington incident is, in our opinion, the effect it is likely to have on Washington himself; yet this is an aspect of the case which does not seem to have occurred thus far to any of the multitudinous and more or less enlightened commentators who have bestowed their views upon the country. Criticisms of the President are matters of taste. For our part, we hold, and have always held, that a President's private and domestic affairs are not proper subjects of public discussion. A man does not surrender all of his personal liberties in becoming the Chief Executive of the Nation. At least, his purely family arrangements are not the legitimate concern of outsiders. The Presidency would hardly be worth the having otherwise. The country, however, has a right to consider the incident in the light of its probable injury to Washington and to the great and useful work in which he is engaged.

In closing this page of "Shadow and Light" I am loath to believe that this extreme display of adverse feeling regarding the President's action in inviting Mr. Washington to dine with him, as shown in some localities, is fully shared by the best element of Southern opinion. Few Southern gentlemen of the class who so cheerfully pay the largest amount of taxation for the tuition of the Negro, give him employment and do much to advance him along educational and industrial lines, fear that the President's action will cause the obtrusion of his bronze pedals beneath their mahogany. Trusting that he will be inspired to foster those elements of character so conspicuous in Mr. Washington and that have endeared him to his broad-minded countrymen both North and South. The best intelligence, the acknowledged leaders of the race, are not only conservative along political lines, but are in accord with those who claim that social equality is not the creature of law, or the product of coercion, for, in a generic sense, there is no such thing as social equality. The gentlemen who are so disturbed hesitate, or refuse such equality with many of their own race; the same can be truthfully said of the Negro. Many ante-bellum theories and usages have already vanished under the advance of a higher civilization, but the "old grudge" is still utilized when truth and justice refuse their service.