One Peculiar Problem of the Democracy
Title
One Peculiar Problem of the Democracy
Creator
The Boston Herald
Identifier
CS31
Date
1914 November 15
Source
Library of Congress
Wilson Papers, Series 4, 152A Reel 231, Manuscript Division
Wilson Papers, Series 4, 152A Reel 231, Manuscript Division
Publisher
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum
Subject
Trotter, William Monroe, 1872-1934
African-Americans--segregation
Contributor
Althea Cupo
Maria Matlock
Relation
CS31A, CS31B
Language
English
Provenance
Digital copy acquired from federal archives by previous WWPL Archivist, Heidi Hackford.
Text
Saturday
One Peculiar Problem Of The Democracy
We have had only two Democratic Presidents since emancipation- Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson - one wholly northern in his point of view, and the other by birth and association essentially southern. But they are alike in finding the race problem very much troublesome than it can be to Republican Presidents, and it is never simple of solution.
Southern men in the cabinet and elsewhere naturally expect their point of view toward the negro to prevail under a Democratic administration. And yet its head can hardly afford- purely as politics- to yield so much as that. Not only do the negroes cast a large vote in states like Indiana and Illinois and Ohio, which is actually counted, but a considerable element of northern free-traders, of whom the New York Evening Post is the best exemplar, are keenly sensitive to the wrongs of the negro.
Mr. Cleveland experienced no end of trouble on this score. Frederick Douglass was by him technically invited to a White House reception, at which he appeared with his Caucasian wife, to the great dismay of the southern people. The White House explanation of the episode was that a list of office-holders in the Blue Book had been furnished to the clerks for the issuance of invitations, and that, in carrying out the order, Frederick Douglass had been necessarily included. But the protests from the South were almost ceaseless. They provoked most of the discussion of Mr. Cleveland’s availability for renomination in 1892, besides threatening to affect the electoral votes of some of the border states. No less a man than Fitzhugh Lee took up the issue for serious conference.
The northern negroes, on the other hand, are quite invariably disappointed with a Republican administration because doing so little for them. This gives the Democracy a good many votes on the rebound, which that party does not care to lose at the next election. It is no small misfortune to the country to have a considerable block of citizens in debatable states of the North quite regularly committed to voting against the party in power. Mr. Trotter was quite right in thinking they had deserted the Democracy on Nov. 3, but he would also be right in predicting that they would as surely desert the Republicans in 1918, were the party to be successful at the next election, because of slights sure to accrue in the mean-time. And Mr. Trotter would be leading the movement. The colored people turned against Mr. Taft primarily on account of Brownsville, but also by reason of his yielding to the so called “lily white” element of the party in the South. Plans now under way for reducing southern representation in Republican conventions are [end]
One Peculiar Problem Of The Democracy
We have had only two Democratic Presidents since emancipation- Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson - one wholly northern in his point of view, and the other by birth and association essentially southern. But they are alike in finding the race problem very much troublesome than it can be to Republican Presidents, and it is never simple of solution.
Southern men in the cabinet and elsewhere naturally expect their point of view toward the negro to prevail under a Democratic administration. And yet its head can hardly afford- purely as politics- to yield so much as that. Not only do the negroes cast a large vote in states like Indiana and Illinois and Ohio, which is actually counted, but a considerable element of northern free-traders, of whom the New York Evening Post is the best exemplar, are keenly sensitive to the wrongs of the negro.
Mr. Cleveland experienced no end of trouble on this score. Frederick Douglass was by him technically invited to a White House reception, at which he appeared with his Caucasian wife, to the great dismay of the southern people. The White House explanation of the episode was that a list of office-holders in the Blue Book had been furnished to the clerks for the issuance of invitations, and that, in carrying out the order, Frederick Douglass had been necessarily included. But the protests from the South were almost ceaseless. They provoked most of the discussion of Mr. Cleveland’s availability for renomination in 1892, besides threatening to affect the electoral votes of some of the border states. No less a man than Fitzhugh Lee took up the issue for serious conference.
The northern negroes, on the other hand, are quite invariably disappointed with a Republican administration because doing so little for them. This gives the Democracy a good many votes on the rebound, which that party does not care to lose at the next election. It is no small misfortune to the country to have a considerable block of citizens in debatable states of the North quite regularly committed to voting against the party in power. Mr. Trotter was quite right in thinking they had deserted the Democracy on Nov. 3, but he would also be right in predicting that they would as surely desert the Republicans in 1918, were the party to be successful at the next election, because of slights sure to accrue in the mean-time. And Mr. Trotter would be leading the movement. The colored people turned against Mr. Taft primarily on account of Brownsville, but also by reason of his yielding to the so called “lily white” element of the party in the South. Plans now under way for reducing southern representation in Republican conventions are [end]
Original Format
Newspaper Article
Files
Collection
Citation
The Boston Herald, “One Peculiar Problem of the Democracy,” 1914 November 15, CS31, Race and Segregation Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.