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Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia

Why Give Them a Civil Answer?

"The mental picture of this incident arises vividly before our eyes; we can see you, the perfect example of an American citizen, with the interests of the land you hold so dear surging forth in every heart-throb as you listened to this negro, the hot blood of his savage fore-bearers coursing madly through his own being as he demanded that which might become a stepping stone. We can hear you utter your masterly rebuke and we know that instantly from the depths of his heart this negro recognized the stern command of his master— as his ancestors had heard before and as his offspring shall continue to hear. It can not be else."

 J. Crampton Watters. 

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CS47.pdf

I want to congratulate you and thank you for the way you handled that impudent negro— Trotter— yesterday. I think that McAdoo, Williams, and Burleson are everlastingly right in separating the races.

K. W. Wearthers

Why give them a civil answer, Mr. President, or condescend to offer an explanation of that quite natural antipathy that every white man feels for the transitional-staged evolutional error termed the negro?

 Jonathan P. Edmundsen, M.D. 

Yours and Messrs. Burleson, McAdoo and Williams’ ideas of enforcing segregation is to be commended by the nation and particularly the South, and Arkansas thanks you for it. I brought to the attention of the Young Men’s Chamber of Commerce of Arkansas the fact that if the races were segregated at Washington, the Civil Service would not have such a hard time getting good clerks and stenographers, and we agreed that it ought to be done. We will offer resolutions endorsing the segregation the next time we meet. 

Claude G. Stotts 

My Most Highly Honored President Woodrow Wilson:

I have just finished reading in The New York Times what that insolent Boston negro dared say to you and it has aroused my warm Southern blood. I cannot refrain from writing to tell you how keenly I suffer with you in all you are called upon to bear as our President— but I am sure our dear Heavenly Father has you at all times in His Safe Keeping and ‘He will carry you through’. As I am old enough to be your great grandmother, you must excuse me if I am taking a liberty and you will always find me your true friend and well-wisher.

Katie St. Clair Vance Greenleaf