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1251 South 18th Street
PHILADELPHIA. PA, March 17,1913.

President Woodrow Wilson,
The White House.

Dear Mr. President:-

I have hesitated long before writing you this
letter: Because I do not wish to so frequently intrude upon your
time; because I have written you in much the same strain before; be-
cause I fear that my discussion of the subject here mentioned may
border on presumption; and, most of all, because I fear that the mo-
tives which prompt me may be largely misconstrued. Were my inter-
ests, and your interests and those of the third party, alone at
stake, I could easily yield to my natural impulse to be silent.
But, alas!the situation is one which must inevitably effect, for bet-
ter or worse, the attitude of the public toward the Negro race for
years and years to come.

I allude to the situation disclosed by the enclosed edi-
torial from the Richmond, Va., Planet, in which is published certain
correspondence purporting to have passed between yourself and Bish-
op Alexander Walters. I have marked the most salient points in
this editorial to relieve you of the necessity of reading it through
The writer of this editorial is Mr. John Mitchell, Jr., the noted Ne-
gro banker; and while his mode of expression may be crude and gro-
tesque, he is widely recognized as one of the most conservative and
level-headed Negroes in this country. You will observe that he
here takes almost the identical position that I have taken in sev-
eral letters to you; namely, that nothing but consternation and con-
fusion can come from your every act and utterance favorable to the
Negro being flaunted before the public, especially in matters in-
volving their appointments to office or your defending their civ-
i1 and political interests.

It is significant that these ebulitions of Bishop Walt-
ers are being noted chiefly, if not solely, by the Southern press.
We know that it is from this section that the most open and unyield-
ing hostility to Negro recognition must be expected. At your first
failure to please a certain element of that section (with no thought
of detracting from the many noble men and women of the South) these
thoughtless utterances of Bishop Walters may be resurected and dist-
orted and made to plague and embarrass you and discredit the Negro
to an extent which will make it not only impossible for you to ex-
ecute your good intentions relative to that race, but also curtail
your ability to carry out the other great measures which you have
in view.

I reiterate again and again that the good intentions of
Bishop Walters are not to be impugned. But he has given abundant
evidence, as I wrote you relative to his demand upon Democratic lead-

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