Editorial on Woodrow Wilson and Colored Citizens

Why Woodrow Wilson Will Stand By His Colored Fellow Citizens.

In various petitions, collective and individual, the colored citizens of the United States are appealing to their President to do all that the immense power and influence of his office enable him to do for their equal protection under the laws.

They are appealing to the President in respectful terms for a right, not for a favor. They are appealing with unanswerable logic. The circumstance that the President is a Southerner, and just now perhaps peculiarly sensitive to Southern Democratic opinion, does not weaken the confidence with which these colored citizens appeal to him.

This is the reason why we think they will not appeal in vain:

"MY DEAR BISHOP WALTERS: It is a matter of genuine disappointment to me that I shall not be present at the meeting on Saturday night, but inasmuch as I am cancelling every possible engagement, in view of the distressing assault upon Mr. ROOSEVELT, I do not feel that I can properly add others. I am fulfilling only those to which I have been bound for many weeks."It would afford me pleasure to be present, because there are certain things I want to say. I hope that it seems superfluous to those who know me, but to those who do not know me perhaps it is not unnecessary for me to assure my colored fellow citizens of my earnest wish to see justice done them in every matter, and not mere grudging justice, but justice executed with liberality and cordial good feeling. Every guarantee of our law, every principle of our Constitution, commands this, and our sympathies should make it easy.

The colored people of the United States have made extraordinary progress toward self-support and usefulness, and ought to be encouraged in every possible and proper way. My sympathy with them is of long standing, and I want to assure them through you that should I become President of the United States they may count upon me for absolute fair dealing and for everything by which I could assist in advancing the interest of their race in the United States."
Cordially and sincerely yours,"
WOODROW WILSON.
"TRENTON, N. J., October 16, 1912."

It is true that the letter to Bishop ALEXANDER WALTERS was written by Governor Wilson nearly five years ago, and only a few days before the date of the election at which he was for the first time a Presidential candidate. But the sympathies he then declared were by himself described as of long standing; and the earnest offer of his services in everything he could do to advance the interests of the race was based not on a desire for colored votes, but on broad principles of justice and right and law and a personal sense of duty.

Colonel ROOSEVELT, to whose then recent misfortune Governor Wilson so gracefully referred in the letter to Bishop WALTERS, has already spoken manfully and indignantly in behalf of the colored citizen's equal right to work for a living wherever opportunity offers. An expression of the same just sentiments by President WILSON, similarly vigorous and perhaps from his official position even more practically effective, cannot, it would seem, be delayed much longer.