923

President Woodrow Wilson,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir:

I am a Congregational minister, resident at
South Haven, Michigan, and long pastor there, tho now on
the road for a few months representing the Sunday School
publications of the University of Chicago Press.

Last fall for the first time in my life, I voted
for a Democratic candidate for the presidency. I have been
watching with gratification and pride the success of your
administration, and the wisdom and skill with which you
have met the perplexing problems which have confronted you.
I have felt abundantly justified in my vote, and for break-
ing over the usual rule for ministers and speaking for you
on the stump.

But our Congregational paper, the "Congregational-
ist", in its issue of two weeks ago, contained an editorial
reciting facts as to a policy of segregation of the races
in some of the executive offices, which brot grief and dis-
may. Humble a citizen as I am, I wish to beg your attention
for a few moments for a consideration of the meaning and
results of that policy.

The question of the status of the Negro race in the
United States is only a part of the great race problem. The
segregation of the Negroes in government offices is only one
result of the idea that the white race is a superior race,
whose position is to be maintained, not by mere force of
character and intellect, but by the imposition upon other
races of artificial handicaps.

Already your administration has had to face diffi-
culties growing out of that attitude in California toward the
Japanese, and the little rift has come which may break the
formerly cordial relations between our nation and Japan. It
will break them if the present race feeling on the Pacific
Coast is allowed to dominate. On the other side,you are