1074

CONFIDENTIAL.

152

4120 Ellis Avenue,
Chicago, Ill., May 15, 1915.

To His Excellency,
The President of the United States,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Wilson:-

Kindly pardon the writer for addressing you on a
subject upon which you undoubtedly are well informed, but this may
be a little bit more knowledge added to that which you already have.

There has been in my employ for several years, off and on,
a colored man (almost white) in capacity of houseman, although his
regular business has been, and is, porter on one of our western
trains. Yesterday he called at the house and in conversation he
set forth the attitude of the colored people in such a manner as to
indicate their disloyalty to the American flag. He is not afraid
to talk with me upon any matter and so I listened to him for some
little time.

Briefly, he says that the colored people feel very bitterly
over the manner in which they are treated, especially in the south,
referring to the numerous lynchings, etc. (all of which is not new)
saying that his own cousin was a victim; that if respectable colored
people wished to travel comfortably they were denied sleeping
accommodations on the trains, and many other grievances; but what I
desired to mention in this letter principally as what he said in
reference to the Japanese---and perhaps you know it all---however, I
feel inpelled to impart it to you. He said that of late it is a
known fact anong the colored race in this city, that the Japanese

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