178

[stamp: THE WHITE HOUSE
DEC 30 1914
RECEIVED]

437 West 35th Street,
New York, Dec. 29, 1914.

To Hon. Woodrow Wilson,
President of United States,
White House, Washington, D. C.

152a

Sir:

In the midst of Christmas, that festival in honor of Him who
brought "Glad Tidings of Peace on Earth and Good Will toward Men,"
the National Independent Equal Rights League, in behalf of ten mil-
lions of American citizens, renews its petition to you to farther con-
sider the policy of segregation of employees of the Federal Government,
of African descent, and those only because of the race prejudice of
some other government employees.

We ask that this petition be received without prejudice on ac-
count of the colloquy with our spokesman, who intended no offense, and
in view of your statement to the rest of the delegation that their pro-
cedure was altogether agreeable. We make it in view of the public ex-
pression of American opinion on this segregation since you gave audience
to our delegates.

Careful scrutiny shows that ninety-eight per cent of the news-
paper and magazine editors of African extraction oppose the segrega-
tion, and that opinion among editors of non-African extraction is di-
vided geographically, those of one-third of the country favoring, and
those of two-thirds of the country opposing the segregation, with ap-
proximately three per cent in each section opposing the majority opin-
ion of that section. Support of segregation in labor is, therefore,
sectional, and opposition to it national, save for the section where

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