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"WILL APPOINT COLORED MAN"

WE CONFESS OUR SUSPICIONS OF THE STATEMENT
COMING DIRECT FROM PRESIDENT WILSON THAT HE
WILL APPOINT A COLORED MAN TO TAKE THE WASH-
INGTON RECORDER OF DEEDS, FROM WHICH HOKE
SMITH OF GEORGIA, HAD HENRY LINCOLN JOHNSON
PEREMPTORILY DISMISSED. The Greeks, seeking to destroy
Troy, bore gifts to the Trojans. The Chinese police, in stentorian
tones, announce throughout the night on their beats their approach.
They rarely catch a burglar or a murderer. Mexican matadors make
their bulls mad by tormenting them with red rags. Woodrow Wil-
son waves in the face of his Southern Negro-bating Congress the an-
nouncement that he will appoint a colored man as Recorder. To what
purpose we confess we do not know. We urge the race and colored
Democrats to wait in the midst of their glee. The Recordership it-
self is one of the posts of minor importance in the gift of the Presi-
dent. Colored men have long held it. Henry Lincoln Johnson, the
eloquent and able Georgian just now dismissed, has filled the post
with the highest credit to himself and race. It would therefore seem
nothing extraordinary for the President to appoint, without previous
notice and ado, another colored man to the place. Mr. Wilson is
neither so ignorant of the race feeling of the party in power in the
nation nor innocent of political methods as to take this bold stand
without some deep-seated reasons. Or is it that the President, like
the African ostrich, sticks his head in the sand and because he can
see no black man thinks no black man sees him. Will the tirades of
Vardaman, Tillman and Hoke Smith make the stridently announced
appointment of a black man "unpropitious," as Mr. Wilson declared
when Senator Gore brought forth and then withdrew the name of
the cringing black Oklahoman Adam Patterson? Will President Wil-
son "be forced" again to declare in retreat, as in the Panama Canal
Tolls’ Repeal message, that he will not otherwise "know how to
treat with matters of greater moment and nearer consequence?" Six
months ago the President sounded the sentiment of the citizens of
the District of Columbia on the appointment of a colored man as
Recorder. Delegation after delegation of white Washingtonians in-
vaded the White House with the argument that white Washington-
ians paid ninety per cent of the Districts taxes; that, furthermore,
it was undemocratic to set aside any one place for any race. Will
President Woodrow Wilson fly in the face of Washington and
Southern sentiment, though both shall have been invited, and ap-
point a black man as Washington's Recorder. We earnestly pray that
Woodrow Wilson will make some capable colored man Recorder.
But Hoke Smith made him dismiss Henry Lincoln Johnson. Will
the Hoke Smiths in Washington permit Wilson to replace Johnson
with one of his race: THE SOUTH IS IN THE SADDLE.
WOODROW WILSON HAS AIDED AND ABETTED AND
ACTED IN ACCORD WITH THAT FACT. COLORED DEMO-
CRATS, BEWARE!

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