National Committee of Patriotic Societies to HH Sheets
Title
National Committee of Patriotic Societies to HH Sheets
Creator
National Committee of Patriotic Societies
Identifier
PI050218
Date
1918 May 2
Description
German Influence over African Americans, Italian miners, and farm laborers.
Source
National Archives and Records Administration 130/68/3/00 box #3 entry #5 "Negroes" folder
Publisher
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library
Subject
African-Americans--segregation
Language
English
Text
National Association for Universal Military Training
Mr. H.H. Sheets
Southern Building
Washington, D.C.
My dear Mr. Sheets:-
Two matters which have come to my attention recently suggesting the urgent need for certain propaganda not being systematically put out.
I have recently returned from a trip through the South where I found startling inroads of German influence among the colored race. The negroes are having the following statements made to them by German agents:
1. If the negroes will not oppose the German Government or help our Government they will be rewarded with Ford Automobiles when Germany is in control here.
2. Ten negroes are being conscripted to one white man in order that the negro race may be killed off.
3. The reason Germany went into Belgium was to punish the people of that country for their cruel treatment of the negroes in the Congo.
Against this German work no intelligent, simple and effective campaign is being carried out by any American agency.
The head of an investigating organization in Washington advises me that similar conditions exist among the Italian miners and farm laborers throughout the middle-west and northwest. Italian agitators are spreading seditious matter of a most effective kind.
In view of these facts, Mr. Pepper, Mr. Harding and other leaders of the National Committee, to whom I have talked, have deemed it very essential that the National Committee and its represented societies, as well as Government publicity agencies turn their serious attention to reaching this uneducated element of our population, the element which does not read much if any, and which never attends patriotic meetings.
Mr. H.H. Sheets
Southern Building
Washington, D.C.
My dear Mr. Sheets:-
Two matters which have come to my attention recently suggesting the urgent need for certain propaganda not being systematically put out.
I have recently returned from a trip through the South where I found startling inroads of German influence among the colored race. The negroes are having the following statements made to them by German agents:
1. If the negroes will not oppose the German Government or help our Government they will be rewarded with Ford Automobiles when Germany is in control here.
2. Ten negroes are being conscripted to one white man in order that the negro race may be killed off.
3. The reason Germany went into Belgium was to punish the people of that country for their cruel treatment of the negroes in the Congo.
Against this German work no intelligent, simple and effective campaign is being carried out by any American agency.
The head of an investigating organization in Washington advises me that similar conditions exist among the Italian miners and farm laborers throughout the middle-west and northwest. Italian agitators are spreading seditious matter of a most effective kind.
In view of these facts, Mr. Pepper, Mr. Harding and other leaders of the National Committee, to whom I have talked, have deemed it very essential that the National Committee and its represented societies, as well as Government publicity agencies turn their serious attention to reaching this uneducated element of our population, the element which does not read much if any, and which never attends patriotic meetings.
Original Format
Letter
Files
Collection
Citation
National Committee of Patriotic Societies, “National Committee of Patriotic Societies to HH Sheets,” 1918 May 2, PI050218, Race and Segregation Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.