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President Wilson 2.

ers that they publicly promise to obliterate all laws and customs
in the South not favorable to the Negro, as a bid for Negro votes,
that he is utterly lacking in a sense of proportion, and in the abil-
ity to weigh the logical effects upon the public of his public de-
mands and utterances. Its seems most obvious to me that whatever
you may do for the Negro in the way of repelling the onslaughts
against his civil and political interests or in granting him polit-
ical recognition, should be done with the least possible fanfare, es-
pecially by Negroes themselves, unless every anti-Negro force in the
country is to be turned against both them and yourself.

I can speak all the more freely on this matter, because I
have no political favors to ask either for myself or for my friends.
Indeed, under present strained conditions, 1 care little about Feder-
al appointments for Negroes generally, except to the extent that
your attitude toward them in this connection might be taken by the
public to reflect just friendliness or unjust hostility. I might
easily make all of these suggestions to Bishop Walters, and thus
save you annoyance over these more or less petty affairs, but for
the fact that I know he would regard it as an impertinence on my
part, and assume that his exalted position, if nothing more, makes
him the best possible judge, especially among Negroes, as to their
highest interests in this connection.

I therefore implore you, President Wilson, for your own
good and for the good of my poor race, already crushed and bleeding
beneath the scourge of avowed enimies and blundering friends, to
find some way of curbing these outbursts of Bishop Walters, before
he forces open flood-gates of vituperation and vilification from
which it will take the Negro and the nation countless years to recover.

Your humble servant,

J. S. Stemons

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