Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919) to Dr. Lyman Abbott
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC08002 Author/Creator: Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919) Place Written: Washington, D.C. Type: Typed letter signed Date: 26 September 1904 Pagination: 2 p. ; 22.5 x 18.1 cm. Order a Copy
Regarding controversy over black appointments: "Have you noticed that Collier's Weekly attacks me because I have gone too far in my policy of doing justice to the negro while the Evening Post declines to support me because I have not gone far enough!"
Personal
September 26, 1904.
My dear Dr. Abbott:
The enclosed letter and editorial may interest you. I wish it could be published in the Outlook.
Mind you, what I have done in Alabama I have done everywhere else in the South, and with all the venomous attacks upon me, the southerners who make the attacks can not deny that I have elevated the public standard by my appointments in the South; and curiously enough, I have appointed fewer colored men than my predecessor.
Have you noticed that Collier's Weekly attacks me because I have gone too far in my [inserted, struck: negro] policy [struck: to illegible the South,] [inserted: of doing justice to the negro,] while the Evening Post declines to support me because I have not gone far enough?
The enclosed copy of a letter from Judge Jones may interest you also. The Pittsburg Post's statement is, of course, a pure lie. I have in no State constituted a board of white [2] and negro politicians, to whom has been committed the control of the federal patronage. As a matter of fact, the only negro whom I have consulted about appointments in the South has been Booker Washington. It does seem to me that this issue is far more than merely political. If a man like Carl Schurz had one particle of intellectual and political honesty in his make-up, he could not support the Democrats in this campaign in view of their attitude to the South [inserted: as of his own recent utterances on this very question.]
Faithfully Yours,
Theodore Roosevelt
Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott,
The Outlook,
287 Fourth Avenue,
New York.
Enclosures
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