In your letter you make certain specific charges against Dr. Crum, tending to show his unfitness in several respects for the office sought. These charges are entitled to the utmost consideration from me, and I shall go over them carefully before taking any action. After making these charges you add, as a further reason for opposition to him, that he is a colored man, and after reciting the misdeeds that followed carpet-bag rule and negro domination in South Carolina, you say that "we have sworn never again to submit to the rule of the African, and such an appointment as that of Dr. Crum to any such office forces us to protest unanimously against this insult to the white blood"; and you add that you understood me to say that I would never force a negro on such a community as yours. Mr. puts the objection of color first, saying: "First, he is a colored man, and that of itself ought to bar him from the office." In view of these last statements, I think I ought to make clear to you why I am concerned and pained by your making them and what my attitude is as regards all such appointments. How any one could have gained the idea that I had said I would not appoint reputable and upright colored men to office, when objection was made to them solely on account of their color, I confess I am wholly unable to understand. At the time of my visit to Charleston last spring I had made, and since that time I have made, a number of such appointments from several States in which there is a considerable colored population. For example, I made one such appointment in Mississippi, and another in Alabama, shortly before my visit to Charleston. I had at that time appointed two colored men as judicial magistrates in the District of Columbia. I have recently announced another such appointment for New Orleans, and have just made one from Pennsylvania. The great majority of my appointments in every State have been of white men. North and South alike it has

been my sedulous endeavor to appoint only men of high character and good capacity, whether white or black. But it has been my consistent policy in every State where their numbers warranted it to recognize colored men of good repute and standing in making appointments to office. These appointments of colored men have in no State made more than a small proportion of the total number of appointments. I am unable to see how I can legitimately be asked to make an exception for South Carolina. In South Carolina, to the four most important positions in the State I have appointed three men and continued in office a fourth, all of them white men— three of them originally gold Democrats-two of them, as I am informed, the sons of Confederate soldiers. I have been informed by the citizens of Charleston whom I have met that these four men represent a high grade of public service.

I do not intend to appoint any unfit men to office. So far as I legitimately can I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope-the door of opportunity—is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my convictions, be fundamentally wrong. If, as you hold, the great bulk of the colored people are not. yet fit in point of character and influence to hold such positions, it seems to me that it is worth while putting a premium upon the effort among them to achieve the character and standing which will fit them.

The question of "negro domination" does not enter into the matter at all. It might as well be asserted that when I was Governor of New York I sought to bring about negro domination in that State because I appointed two colored men of good character and standing to responsible positions—one of them to a position paying a

salary twice as large as that paid in the office now under consideration-one of them as a director of the Buffalo Exposition. The question raised by you and Mr.

in the statements to which I refer, is simply whether it is to be declared that under no circumstances shall any man of color, no matter how upright and honest, no matter how good a citizen, no matter how fair in his dealings with his fellows, be permitted to hold any office under our government. I certainly cannot assume such an attitude, and you must permit me to say that in my view it is an attitude no man should assume, whether he looks at it from the standpoint of the true interest of the white men of the South or of the colored men of the South, not to speak of any other section of the Union. It seems to me that it is a good thing from every standpoint to let the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree the qualities of good citizenship-the qualities which in a white man we feel are entitled to reward-then he will not be cut off from all hope of similar reward.

Without any regard to what my decision may be on the merits of this particular applicant for this particular place, I feel that I ought to let you know clearly my attitude on the far broader question raised by you and Mr. -; an attitude from which I have not varied during my term of office.

Faithfully yours,

Hon.

Charleston, S. C.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, February 24, 1903.

MY DEAR MR. HOWELL:

I have a high opinion of the gentleman you mention, and if the opportunity occurs I shall be glad to do any thing I can for him.

Now as to what you say concerning Federal appointments in the South. Frankly, it seems to me that my appointments speak for themselves and that my policy is self-explanatory. So far from feeling that they need the slightest apology or justification, my position is that on the strength of what I have done I have the right to claim the support of all good citizens who wish not only a high standard of Federal service, but fair and equitable dealing to the South as well as to the North, and a policy of consistent justice and good-will toward all men. In making appointments I have sought to consider the feelings of the people of each locality so far as I could consistently do so without sacrificing principle. The prime tests I have applied have been those of character, fitness, and ability, and when I have been dissatisfied with what has been offered within my own party lines I have without hesitation gone to the opposite party-and you are of course aware that I have repeatedly done this in your own State of Georgia. I certainly cannot treat mere color as a permanent bar to holding office, any more than I could so treat creed or birthplace-always provided that in other respects the applicant or incumbent is a worthy and well-behaved American citizen. Just as little will I treat it as conferring a right to hold office. I have scant sympathy with the mere doctrinaire, with the man of mere theory who refuses to face facts; but do you not think that in the long run it is safer for everybody if we act on the motto "all men up," rather than that of "some men down "?

I ask you to judge not by what I say, but by what during the last seventeen months I have actually done. In your own State of Georgia you are competent to judge from your own experience. In the great bulk of the cases I have reappointed President McKinley's appointees. The changes I have made, such as that in the postmastership at Athens and in the surveyorship at Atlanta, were,

as I think you will agree, changes for the better and not for the worse. It happens that in each of these offices I have appointed a white man to succeed a colored man. In South Carolina I have similarly appointed a white postmaster to succeed a colored postmaster. Again, in South Carolina I have nominated a colored man to fill a vacancy in the position of collector of the port of Charleston, just as in Georgia I have reappointed the colored man who is now serving as collector of the port of Savannah. Both are fit men. Why the appointment of one should cause any more excitement than the appointment of the other, I am wholly at a loss to imagine. As I am writing to a man of keen and trained intelligence I need hardly say that to connect either of these appointments, or any or all my other appointments, or my actions in upholding the law at Indianola with such questions as "social equality" and "negro domination" is as absurd as to connect them with the nebular hypothesis or the theory of atoms.

I have consulted freely with your own senators and congressmen as to the character and capacity of any appointee in Georgia concerning whom there was question. My party advisers in the State have been Major Hanson of Macon, Mr. Walter Johnson of Atlanta-both of them ex-Confederate soldiers-and Mr. Harry Stillwell Edwards, also of Macon. I believe you will agree with me that in no State would it be possible to find gentlemen abler and more upright or better qualified to fill the positions they have filled with reference to me. In every instance where these gentlemen have united in making a recommendation I have been able to follow their advice. Am I not right in saying that the Federal office-holders whom I have appointed throughout your State are, as a body, men and women of a high order of efficiency and integrity? If you know of any Federal office-holder in Georgia of whom this is not true pray let me know at