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4 TUESDAY MORNING Los Angeles Daily Times NOVEMBER 17, 1914.—[PAR II]

WIISON, WOMEN, NEGROES.
BY ALMA WHITAKER.

When the President received a deputation
of negroes last week he became distinctly
touchy and objected to their spokesman. He
declared he had never before been spoken
to in such a tone and with such a back-
ground of passion.

It sounded reminiscent somehow. And
then we remembered. That is exactly what
he said when the women suffragists waited
upon him a short while ago.

So the negroes can take heart. They at
least were favored with the identical sort of
reception that the first American accords
the American women. On both occasions he
brought the interview to an abrupt close,
complaining of their spokesman; on both oc-
casions he considered himself insulted and
his dignity jeopardized. Indeed, if one would
draw invidious distinctions, the negro came
off best. For the President did condescend
to explanations in a somewhat conciliatory
form to them, whereas the ladies, God
bless 'em, had the interesting sensation of
seeing the President turn his scholastic
back upon them as he brought the interview
to an end by abruptly leaving the room.

And both the negroes and the women
were complaining of political discrimination
against them. True, the negro already has
the vote in theory, although not exactly in
practice, in the President's own Southern
States. That may have accounted for the
conciliatory explanations.

The negroes were complaining about the
new rule of segregation that has been in-
troduced into government offices in this
regime. Gradually but effectively the negro
employees of the government have been
segregated so that they do not work side
by side with the white man. That is doubt-
less because so many southerners have been
put into office under this Democratic ad-
ministration, and it takes a real pure blood-
ed Democrat to find official fault with his
darker brother. The President explained
that there had been so much friction that
the segregation became necessary. There
was never any friction when the Republicans
held office. The white men of the Repub-
lican party never felt that horrified sense
of caste defiled when a negro worked in the
same office, performing the same kind of
work. Indeed, he rather gave the impres-
sion of being glad that the dark man was
getting on so well.

Heaven knows I hold no brief for either
women or negroes. Both can be peculiarly
stupid on occasion. All their traditions are
against them. But it is interesting to con-
sider the southern point of view. They
regard the negro in much the same way as
so many men regard women. They are
brought up with them—how many little lord-
ly Democrats have known their sweetest
childhood in the company of their fond,
foolish, black mammy and her offspring.
We all know how intimate the little Demo-
crat of the South becomes with his colored
servitors, how much love and devotion is
expended between them. He practically
learns his whole ideas of life from the ne-
gro in his youth; and all the traditions and
superstitions of Africa are carefully in-
grained into his life. His moral ideals are
largely the negro moral ideals — necessarily,
for we all know how the teaching and un-
derstanding of the first ten years of a childs
life stay with him to the end. The Roman
Catholics have always declared that if they
can have complete infiuence of the child
for those first ten years he is theirs forever.

The southerner lives almost entirely un-
der the domination of his negro servitors in
his youth and he does not consider it infra
dig, to not only have them in the same
household, but to love them sincerely for
their obvious virtues. Yet such a little
while later he is busy repudiating this same
negro just as so many men grow up to
repudiate the worth of women.

But I could not help being impressed with
President Wilson's assertion that the Pres-
dency was not worth having, that the man
who thought it was was a fool! He said