“The Republic’s
Shame” from the May 9, 1914 issue of The Appeal, Minneapolis, St. Paul
For the first time
in the history of the United States, the machinery of the government of
90,000,000 people is being used to humiliate and degrade 10,000,000 of its
loyal and law-abiding citizens.
In some of the
departments of the Federal Government at Washington Afro-American employees
have been segregated from their former associates and fellow workers and
ordered to use separate retiring rooms. In some instances cages have been built
to separate Afro-American and white government clerks. No other class is
obliged to bear this badge of degradation.
There is no warrant
in law for these orders of subordinate officials. The facts have been brought
to the attention of the Department heads and thousands of petitions, memorials
and letters have been sent to President Wilson, but up to this writing he has
not seen fit to rescind this infamous un-American policy.
The clerks who have
been humiliated by the segregation orders are in no sense wards of the
government. They have won their places by examination and the government which
they have so faithfully and efficiently served has no right to place upon them
this badge of dishonor.
It is not a
question of social equality that chimera which so many Caucasians claim to
fear, but of civil equality which is the right of every citizen.
Heretofore the
attempts to degrade the citizenry have been the work of individual states in
the Southern tier; the Federal Government must be held responsible for this new
attempt to establish that impossible thing, caste in a Republic.
We believe
President Wilson will carefully consider the many protests which have been made
and give the word which a Christian Statesman should give, that during his
administration there shall be no segregation or discrimination on account of
race, creed or color among the servants of the government.
Honest fair minded
Americans feel that the fair fame of our country is being trailed in the dust.
They hang their heads in shame. It is the Nation’s shame.
We hold President
Wilson responsible because in the final analysis the acts of his subordinate
officials are his and he has the power to end this injustice by a word.
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