Frankly, it seems to me that my appointments speak for themselves and
that my policy is self-explanatory. So far from feeling that they need
the slightest apology or justification, my position is that on the
strength of what I have done I have the right to claim the support of
all good citizens who wish not only a high standard of Federal service
but fair and equitable dealing to the South as well as to the North,
and a policy of consistent justice and good-will toward all men. In
making appointments I have sought to consider the feelings of the
people of each locality so far as I could consistently do so without
sacrificing principle. The prime tests I have applied have been those
of character, fitness and ability, and when I have been dissatisfied
with what has been offered within my own party lines I have without
hesitation gone to the opposite party—and you are of course aware that
I have repeatedly done this in your own State of Georgia. I certainly
can not treat mere color as a permanent bar to holding office, any
more than I could so treat creed or birthplace—always provided that in
other respects the applicant or incumbent is a worthy and well-behaved
American citizen. Just as little will I treat it as conferring a right
to hold office. I have scant sympathy with the mere doctrinaire, with
the man of mere theory who refuses to face facts; but do you not think
that in the long run it is safer for everybody if we act on the motto
“All men up,” rather than that of “Some men down”?
I ask you to judge not by what I say but by what during the last
seventeen months I have actually done. In your own State of Georgia
you are competent to judge from your own experience. In the great
bulk of the cases I have reappointed President McKinley’s appointees.
The changes I have made, such as that in the postmastership at Athens
and in the surveyorship at Atlanta, were, as I think you will agree,
changes for the better and not for the worse. It happens that in each
of these offices I have appointed a white man to succeed a colored
man. In South Carolina I have similarly appointed a white postmaster
to succeed a colored postmaster. Again, in South Carolina I have
nominated a colored man to fill a vacancy in the position of collector
of the port of Charleston, just as in Georgia I have reappointed the
colored man who is now serving as collector of the port of Savannah.
Both are fit men. Why the appointment of one should cause any more
excitement than the appointment of the other, I am wholly at a loss
to imagine. As I am writing to a man of keen and trained intelligence
I need hardly say that to connect either of these appointments, or
any or all of my other appointments, or my actions in upholding
the law at Indianola, with such questions as “social equality” and
“negro domination” is as absurd as to connect them with the nebular
hypothesis or the theory of atoms.
I have consulted freely with your own Senators and Congressmen as to
the character and capacity of any appointee in Georgia concerning
whom there was question. My party advisers in the State have been
Major Hanson of Macon, Mr. Walter Johnson of Atlanta—both of them
ex-Confederate soldiers—and Mr. Harry Stillwell Edwards, also of
Macon. I believe you will agree with me that in no State would it be
possible to find gentlemen abler and more upright or better qualified
to fill the positions they have filled with reference to me. In every
instance where these gentlemen have united in making a recommendation
I have been able to follow their advice. Am I not right in saying
that the Federal office-holders whom I have appointed throughout your
State are, as a body, men and women of a high order of efficiency and
integrity? If you know of any Federal office-holder in Georgia of whom
this is not true pray let me know at once. I will welcome testimony
from you or from any other reputable citizen which will tend to show
that a given public officer is unworthy; and, most emphatically,
short will be the shrift of any one whose lack of worth is proven.
Incidentally I may mention that a large percentage of the incumbents
of Federal offices in Georgia under me are, as I understand it, of
your own political faith. But they are supported by me in every way
as long as they continue to render good and faithful service to the
public.
This is true of your own State; and by applying to Mr. Thomas Nelson
Page of Virginia, to General Basil Duke of Kentucky, to Mr. George
Crawford of Tennessee, to Mr. John McIlhenny of Louisiana, to Judge
Jones of Alabama, and Mr. Edgar L. Wilson of Mississippi, all of
them Democrats and all of them men of the highest standing in their
respective communities, you will find that what I have done in Georgia
stands not as the exception but as the rule for what I have done
throughout the South. I have good reason to believe that my appointees
in the different States mentioned—and as the sum of the parts is the
whole, necessarily in the South at large—represent not merely an
improvement upon those whose places they took, but upon the whole a
higher standard of Federal service than has hitherto been attained in
the communities in question. I may add that the proportion of colored
men among these new appointees is only about one in a hundred.
In view of all these facts I have been surprised, and somewhat pained,
at what seems to me the incomprehensible outcry in the South about my
actions—an outcry apparently started in New York for reasons wholly
unconnected with the question nominally at issue. I am concerned at
the attitude thus taken by so many of the Southern people; but I
am not in the least angry; and still less will this attitude have
the effect of making me swerve one hair’s breadth, to one side or
the other, from the course I have marked out—the course I have
consistently followed in the past and shall consistently follow in the
future.
With regard,
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Hon. Clark Howell
Editor, “The Constitution,”
Atlanta, Ga.
On May 18, 1903, William A. Miller was removed by the Public Printer
from his position of Assistant Foreman at the Government Printing
Office. Mr. Miller filed a complaint with the Civil Service
Commission alleging that his removal had been made in violation of the
civil service law and rules. After an investigation of the complaint,
and upon July 6th, the Civil Service Commission advised the Public
Printer of its decision as follows:
“Section 2 of Civil Service Rule XII, governing removals, provides
that no person shall be removed from a competitive position except
for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the public service.
The Commission does not consider expulsion from a labor union, being
the action of a body is no way connected with the public service nor
having authority over public employees, to be such a cause as will
promote the efficiency of the public service.
“As the only reason given by you for your removal of Mr. Miller
is that he was expelled from Local Union No. 4, International
Brotherhood of Bookbinders, you are advised that the Commission can
not recognize his removal and must request that he be reassigned to
duty in his position.”
Mr. Miller’s complaint had also been filed with the President,
under whose direction it was being investigated by the Secretary of
Commerce and Labor simultaneously with the investigation by the Civil
Service Commission. As a result of such investigations, the following
letters, under dates of July 13th and 14th, 1903, were written by the
President:
OYSTER BAY, N. Y.
_July 13, 1903_
MY DEAR SECRETARY CORTELYOU:
In accordance with the letter of the Civil Service Commission of
July 6th, the Public Printer will reinstate Mr. W. A. Miller in his
position. Meanwhile I will withhold my final decision of the whole
case until I have received the report of the investigation on Miller’s
second communication, which you notify me has been begun to-day, July
13th.
On the face of the papers presented, Miller would appear to have been
removed in violation of law. There is no objection to the employees of
the Government Printing Office constituting themselves into a union
if they so desire; but no rules or resolutions of that union can be
permitted to over-ride the laws of the United States, which it is my
sworn duty to enforce.
Please communicate a copy of this letter to the Public Printer for his
information and that of his subordinates.
Very truly yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
HON. GEORGE B. CORTELYOU,
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
OYSTER BAY, N. Y.
_July 14, 1903_
MY DEAR MR. CORTELYOU:
In connection with my letter of yesterday I call attention to this
judgment and award by the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission in its
report to me of March 18th last:
It is adjudged and awarded that no person shall be refused
employment or in any way discriminated against on account of
membership or non-membership in any labor organization, and that
there shall be no discrimination against or interference with any
employee who is not a member of any labor organization by members of
such organization.
I heartily approve of this award and judgment by the commission
appointed by me, which itself included a member of a labor union. This
commission was dealing with labor organizations working for private
employers. It is of course mere elementary decency to require that all
the Government departments shall be handled in accordance with the
principle thus clearly and fearlessly enunciated.
Please furnish a copy of this letter both to Mr. Palmer and to the
Civil Service Commission for their guidance.
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
HON. GEO. B. CORTELYOU,
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
_September 29, 1903_
Pursuant to the request of Samuel Gompers, President of the American
Federation of Labor, the President granted an interview this evening
to the following members of the executive council of that body:
Mr. Samuel Gompers, Mr. James Duncan, Mr. John Mitchell, Mr. James
O’Connell and Mr. Frank Morrison, at which various subjects of
legislation in the interest of labor, as well as executive action,
were discussed. Concerning the case of William A. Miller the President
made the following statement:
I thank you and your committee for your courtesy, and I appreciate the
opportunity to meet with you. It will always be a pleasure to see you
or any representatives of your organizations or of your Federation as
a whole.
As regards the Miller case, I have little to add to what I have
already said. In dealing with it I ask you to remember that I am
dealing purely with the relation of the Government to its employees.
I must govern my action by the laws of the land, which I am sworn to
administer, and which differentiate any case in which the Government
of the United States is a party from all other cases whatsoever. These
laws are enacted for the benefit of the whole people, and can not and
must not be construed as permitting discrimination against some of
the people. I am President of all the people of the United States,
without regard to creed, color, birthplace, occupation, or social
condition. My aim is to do equal and exact justice as among them all.
In the employment and dismissal of men in the Government service I can
no more recognize the fact that a man does or does not belong to a
union as being for or against him than I can recognize the fact that
he is a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or
against him.
In the communications sent me by various labor organizations
protesting against the retention of Miller in the Government Printing
Office, the grounds alleged are twofold: 1, that he is a non-union
man; 2, that he is not personally fit. The question of his personal
fitness is one to be settled in the routine of administrative detail,
and can not be allowed to conflict with or to complicate the larger
question of governmental discrimination for or against him or any
other man because he is or is not a member of a union. This is the
only question now before me for decision; and as to this my decision
is final.
OYSTER BAY, N. Y.
_August 6, 1903_
MY DEAR GOVERNOR DURBIN:
Permit me to thank you as an American citizen for the admirable way in
which you have vindicated the majesty of the law by your recent action
in reference to lynching. I feel, my dear sir, that you have made all
men your debtors who believe, as all far-seeing men must, that the
well-being, indeed the very existence, of the Republic depends upon
that spirit of orderly liberty under the law which is as incompatible
with mob violence as with any form of despotism. Of course mob
violence is simply one form of anarchy; and anarchy is now, as it
always has been, the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny.
I feel that you have not only reflected honor upon the State which
for its good fortune has you as its Chief Executive, but upon the
whole nation. It is incumbent upon every man throughout this country
not only to hold up your hands in the course you have been following,
but to show his realization that the matter is one which is of vital
concern to us all.
All thoughtful men must feel the gravest alarm over the growth of
lynching in this country, and especially over the peculiarly hideous
forms so often taken by mob violence when colored men are the
victims—on which occasions the mob seems to lay most weight, not on
the crime, but on the color of the criminal. In a certain proportion
of these cases the man lynched has been guilty of a crime horrible
beyond description; a crime so horrible that as far as he himself
is concerned he has forfeited the right to any kind of sympathy
whatsoever. The feeling of all good citizens that such a hideous
crime shall not be hideously punished by mob violence is due not in
the least to sympathy for the criminal, but to a very lively sense of
the train of dreadful consequences which follows the course taken by
the mob in exacting inhuman vengeance for an inhuman wrong. In such
cases, moreover, it is well to remember that the criminal not merely
sins against humanity in inexpiable and unpardonable fashion, but sins
particularly against his own race, and does them a wrong far greater
than any white man can possibly do them. Therefore, in such cases
the colored people throughout the land should in every possible way
show their belief that they, more than all others in the community,
are horrified at the commission of such a crime and are peculiarly
concerned in taking every possible measure to prevent its recurrence
and to bring the criminal to immediate justice. The slightest lack of
vigor either in denunciation of the crime or in bringing the criminal
to justice is itself unpardonable.
Moreover, every effort should be made under the law to expedite the
proceedings of justice in the case of such an awful crime. But it can
not be necessary in order to accomplish this to deprive any citizen of
those fundamental rights to be heard in his own defence which are so
dear to us all and which lie at the root of our liberty. It certainly
ought to be possible by the proper administration of the laws to
secure swift vengeance upon the criminal; and the best and immediate
efforts of all legislators, judges, and citizens should be addressed
to securing such reforms in our legal procedure as to leave no vestige
of excuse for those misguided men who undertake to reap vengeance
through violent methods.
Men who have been guilty of a crime like rape or murder should be
visited with swift and certain punishment, and the just effort
made by the courts to protect them in their rights should under no
circumstances be perverted into permitting any mere technicality
to avert or delay their punishment. The substantial rights of the
prisoner to a fair trial must of course be guaranteed, as you have so
justly insisted that they should be; but, subject to this guarantee,
the law must work swiftly and surely, and all the agents of the law
should realize the wrong they do when they permit justice to be
delayed or thwarted for technical or insufficient reasons. We must
show that the law is adequate to deal with crime by freeing it from
every vestige of technicality and delay.
But the fullest recognition of the horror of the crime and the most
complete lack of sympathy with the criminal can not in the least
diminish our horror at the way in which it has become customary
to avenge these crimes and at the consequences that are already
proceeding therefrom. It is of course inevitable that where vengeance
is taken by a mob it should frequently light on innocent people; and
the wrong done in such a case to the individual is one for which
there is no remedy. But even where the real criminal is reached,
the wrong done by the mob to the community itself is wellnigh as
great. Especially is this true where the lynching is accompanied with
torture. There are certain hideous sights which when once seen can
never be wholly erased from the mental retina. The mere fact of having
seen them implies degradation. This is a thousandfold stronger when
instead of merely seeing the deed the man has participated in it.
Whoever in any part of our country has ever taken part in lawlessly
putting to death a criminal by the dreadful torture of fire must
forever after have the awful spectacle of his own handiwork seared
into his brain and soul. He can never again be the same man.
This matter of lynching would be a terrible thing even if it stopped
with the lynching of men guilty of the inhuman and hideous crime
of rape; but as a matter of fact, lawlessness of this type never
does stop and never can stop in such fashion. Every violent man in
the community is encouraged by every case of lynching in which the
lynchers go unpunished to himself take the law into his own hands
whenever it suits his own convenience. In the same way the use of
torture by the mob in certain cases is sure to spread until it is
applied more or less indiscriminately in other cases. The spirit of
lawlessness grows with what it feeds on, and when mobs with impunity
lynch criminals for one cause, they are certain to begin to lynch
real or alleged criminals for other causes. In the recent cases
of lynching, over three-fourths were not for rape at all, but for
murder, attempted murder, and even less heinous offences. Moreover,
the history of these recent cases shows the awful fact that when the
minds of men are habituated to the use of torture by lawless bodies
to avenge crimes of a peculiarly revolting description, other lawless
bodies will use torture in order to punish crimes of an ordinary
type. Surely no patriot can fail to see the fearful brutalization and
debasement which the indulgence of such a spirit and such practices
inevitably portends. Surely all public men, all writers for the daily
press, all clergymen, all teachers, all who in any way have a right
to address the public, should with every energy unite to denounce such
crimes and to support those engaged in putting them down. As a people
we claim the right to speak with peculiar emphasis for freedom and
for fair treatment of all men without regard to differences of race,
fortune, creed, or color. We forfeit the right so to speak when we
commit or condone such crimes as these of which I speak.
The nation, like the individual, can not commit a crime with impunity.
If we are guilty of lawlessness and brutal violence, whether our
guilt consists in active participation therein or in mere connivance
and encouragement, we shall assuredly suffer later on because of
what we have done. The cornerstone of this Republic, as of all free
government, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit
the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by
black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our
civilization and increasing the chances of its overthrow, and of the
substitution therefor of a system in which there shall be violent
alternations of anarchy and tyranny.
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
HON. WINFIELD T. DURBIN,
Governor of Indiana,
Indianapolis, Ind.
MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, COMMUNICATED TO THE
TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST SESSION OF THE
FIFTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
MESSAGE
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity.
On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist
while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in
that city on the fourteenth of that month.
Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has
been murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to
justify grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover,
the circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American
President, have a peculiarity sinister significance. Both President
Lincoln and President Garfield were killed by assassins of types
unfortunately not uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a
victim to the terrible passions aroused by four years of civil war,
and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed
office-seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved
criminal belonging to that body of criminals who object to all
governments, good and bad alike, who are against any form of popular
liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws,
and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people’s
sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot.
It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley’s
death he was the most widely loved man in all the United States;
while we have never had any public man of his position who has been
so wholly free from the bitter animosities incident to public life.
His political opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most
generous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and
gentleness of character which so endeared him to his close associates.
To a standard of lofty integrity in public life he united the tender
affections and home virtues which are all-important in the make-up
of national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for the
Union, he also shone as an example to all our people because of his
conduct in the most sacred and intimate of home relations. There
could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but
consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect
him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those
murderous criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting
that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and
irresponsible power. But for this assassination even this base apology
can not be urged.