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PRESIDEN1 WOODR
BY
KELL Y M
HOWARD UN
WASHINGTON. D. C.
Over 100,000 Copies Distributed
PRICE lO CENTS
COMMENT
The Disgrace of Democracy
I have an open letter here by Professor Kelly Miller of
Howard University, pronounced by theN. Y. Evening Post to
be the ablest colored man in the United States. This letter
is a very temperate presentation of the colored man's view
of the riots, and so on, that we have involving the races. I
ask that it may be printed in the RECORD.—Senator Wesley
L. Jones, The United States Senate, September 12,1917.
Professor Kelly Miller is our greatest analytical thinker.
—Geo W. Ellis, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Chicago.
With this document the Negro problem is no longer a
vague futurity. The Negro question has arrived. — N. Y.
Globe.
Professor Miller advocates the immediate extension of
the federal power so that lynchings and race riots in what¬
ever locality may be dealt with by the federal government.-
Springfield Republican.
Professor Miller is an able Negro leader—a man who has
a keen and well-trained mind, a wide experience and an ac¬
curate knowledge of white people.—N. Y. Tribune.
THE DISGRACE OP DEMOCRACY
By Kelly Miller
August 4,1917.
Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States,
The White House, Washington, D. C.
Mr. President:
I am taking the liberty of intruding this letter upon
you because I feel that the issues involved are as important
as any questions now pressing upon your busy attention.
The whole civilized world has been shocked at the recent
occurrences in Memphis and East St. Louis. These out¬
breaks call attention anew to the irritating race problem
of which they are but eruptive symptoms which break forth
ever and anon with Vesuvian violence. For fully a genera¬
tion American statesmanship has striven to avoid, ignore or
forget the perplexing race problem. But this persistent
issue will not down at our bidding, and cannot be shunted
from public attention by other questions however momen¬
tous or vital they may seem to be.
I know that I am taking unwarranted liberties with the
ceremonial proprieties in writing such a letter to the Presi¬
dent of the United States at the present time. It may seem
to partake of the spirit of heckling after the manner of the
suffragists. Nothing is further from my purpose. No
right-minded American would wish to add one feather¬
weight to the burden that now so heavily taxes the mind and
body of the President of the United States who labors
under as heavy a load as human nature is capable of sus¬
taining. Every citizen should strive to lighten rather than
to aggravate that burden. It is, nevertheless, true that any
suppressed and aggrieved class must run athwart the es¬
tablished code of procedure in order that their case may
receive a just hearing. Ceremonial codes were enacted by
those who are the beneficiaries of existing order which they
$i-A J
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
wish to perpetuate and make unchangeable. They would
estop all social and moral reform. The ardent suffragists
find it necessary to ruthlessly violate the traditional and
decorous modes of procedure in order to promote the reform
which they have at heart. On one occasion you felt forced to
terminate an interview with a committee of suffragists be¬
cause they persisted in cross-examining the President of the
United States.
There are 10,000,000 loyal citizens of African descent
in the United States. They are rigorously excluded from
a voice in the government by which they are controlled.
They have no regularly constituted organ through which
to present their case to the powers that be. They have no
seat nor voice in the council of the nation. The late Doctor
Booker T. Washington was the accepted spokesman and
mediator of the race, but he has no successor. Under
formier administrations there was a small appointive offi¬
cial class of Negroes. Though derisively designated as the
"Black Cabinet," they were on the inside of the circle of
governmental control to which they had ready access in pre¬
senting the claims of the race. But under the exaction of
partisan exigencies even these have been excluded from
official position under your administration. Several weeks
ago a delegation of colored men from the State of Maryland
sought an interview with you concerning the horrible crime
of East St. Louis. You were good enough to write Senator
France that you were too busy with other pressing issues
to grant the request of an interview. The failure" of all
>ther methods is my only excuse for resorting to an open
etter as a means of reaching you and, through you, the
aation at large, concerning the just grievances of 10,000,000
loyal American citizens.
The Negro feels that he is not regarded as a con¬
stituent part of American democracy. This is our fun¬
damental grievance and lies at the basis of all the outrages
inflicted upon this helpless race. It is the fundamental
creed of democracy that no people are good enough to
govern any other people without their consent and partici¬
pation. The English are not good enough to govern the
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
Irish. The Russians are not good enough to govern the
Finns. The Germans are not good enough to govern the
Belgians. The Belgians are not good enough to govern the
people of the Congo.' Men are not considered good enough
to govern women. The white people of this country are not
good enough to govern the Negro. As long as the black
man is excluded from participation in the government of
the nation, just so long will he be the victim of cruelty and
outrage on the part of his white fellow citizens who assume
lordship over him.
These periodic outbreaks of lawlessness are but the out¬
growth of the disfavor and despite in which the race is held
by public opinion. The evil is so widespread that the rem¬
edy lies in the hands of the national government.
Resolutions pending before both houses of Congress
look toward investigation of the outrage at East St. Louis.
I understand that you are sympathetically disposed toward
this investigation by Federal authority. Such investigation
is important only to the extent that it implies a tardy rec¬
ognition of national responsibility for local lawlessness.
There is no expectation that any additional comprehensive
information will result. You may rest assured that there
will be a half dozen similar outbreaks before this investi¬
gation is well under way. Indeed, since the East St. Louis
atrocity there have already been lynchings in G-eorgia,
Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Montana. Every intelligent
American knows as much about the essential cause of this
conflict as he will know after long and tedious investigation.
The vital issues involved are apt to be obscured by technical
wranglings over majority and minority reports. What the
nation needs is not investigation of obvious fact, but deteiv
mination and avowed declaration on the part of the Presi¬
dent speaking for the people of the United States to put
an end to lawlessness wherever it raises its hideous head.
I know that it has been steadily maintained that the
Federal Government has no authority over lynchings and
local race conflicts. This is not a political contention. This
view was maintained under the administrations of Harri¬
son, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft. Indeed,
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
President Cleveland, that great American democrat, came
nearer recognizing Federal responsibility in such matters
than any President before or since his time. During the ad¬
ministration of President McKinley, an atrocious riot
occurred in Wilmington, N. C., the city in which you spent
your boyhood as the son of a minister of the Gospel. Scores
of innocent Negroes were killed and hundreds were driven
from their homes. But it was maintained that the Presi¬
dent had no authority to interfere. A horrible lynching
took place at Alexandria, Virginia, a few miles from the
White House, which the President might possibly have ob¬
served through his field glasses. And yet it was looked
upon as a purely local affair for which the Federal Govern¬
ment had no responsibility nor concern. You recall the
atrocities of the riot in Atlanta, a city in which you spent
your young manhood as a practitioner of law. But here
again even President Roosevelt could find no ground for
interference.
These outbreaks are not limited to the Southern States,
although they occur there more frequently than elsewhere
because of the relatively larger number of Negroes in the
total population. There have been lynchings and burnings
in Illinois, Kansas, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado and
other Northern States. The evil is indeed national in its
range and scope, and the nation must provide the remedy.
Striking indeed is the analogy between the spread of law¬
lessness today and the extension of the institution of slavery
two generations ago. Like slavery, lawlessness cannot be
localized. As the nation could not exist half slave and half
free under Abraham Lincoln, so it cannot continue half law-
abiding and half lawless under Woodrow Wilson. The evil
tendency overcomes the good, just as the darker overlaps
the brighter phase in the waning moon. If the Negro is
allowed to be lynched in the South with impunity, he will
soon be lynched in the North, so easy is the communicability
of evil suggestion. The lynchings of Negroes has become
fashionable in some parts of the country. When a black
man is accused of wrongdoing, "Lynch the Negro!" is the
cry that springs spontaneously to the lips of man, woman
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
and child. The fashion is rapidly spreading throughout
the whole nation. If slavery could have been isolated and
segregated in the South that institution might have existed
even down to the present time. And so, if lynching could
be localized and limited to the Southern States the nation
as a whole would have less pretext for interfering. But this
cannot be done. Senator Tombs of Georgia boasted that he
would call the roll of his slaves under the shadow of the
Bunker Hill monument, an ambition which, doubtless, might
have been gratified had not the nation arisen in its moral might
and blotted out the iniquitous institution altogether. Unless
the aroused conscience of the American people, efficiently
asserting itself through Federal authority, shall stamp out
the spirit of lawlessness, it is easy to prophesy that the
Negro will yet be lynched not only in the shadow of the
Bunker Hill monument, but on the campus of your beloved
Princeton. Already there have been burnings of human
beings in the bleeding State of Old John Brown, and in the
city where lie the remains of Abraham Lincoln. During
the past thirty years nearly 3,000 Negroes have been lynched
in various parts of the country. Scores of these have been
burned at the stake. Even the bodies of women have been
fed to the flames. Thousands of localities in the majority
of the States of the Union have experienced these outrages.
Our fair land of liberty is blotted over with these foul spots
. which cannot be washed out by all of the waters of the ocean.
It is not easy to calculate the number of persons who have
been involved in these lynchings, either as participants or
as acquiescent lookers-on, all of whom were potential mur¬
derers. So general and widespread has become the practice
that lynching may well be characterized as a national insti¬
tution, to the eternal disgrace of American democracy.
Lynching cannot be confined to the Negro race. Hun¬
dreds of white men have been the victims of lawlessness and
violence. While these words are flowing from my pen, news
comes over the wire that a labor agitator has been lynched
in the State of Montana. Although the Negro is at present
the chief victim of lawlessness, like any other evil disease,
it cannot be limited by racial lines.
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
It is but hollow mockery of the Negro, when he is beaten
and bruised and burned in all parts of the nation and flees
to the national government for asylum, to be denied relief on
the ground of doubtful jurisdiction. The black man asks
for justice and is given a theory of government. He asks
for protection and is confronted with a scheme of govern¬
mental checks and balances.
Mr. President, you are commander-in-chief of the Army
and Navy. You express the voice of the American people
in the great world conflict which involves practically the
entire human race. You are the accepted spokesman of the
world democracy. You have sounded forth the trumpet of
democratization of the nations, which shall never call re¬
treat. But, Mr. President, a chain is no stronger than its
weakest link. A doctrine that breaks down at home is not
fit to be propagated abroad. One is reminded of the pious
slaveholder who became so deeply impressed with the plea
for foreign missions that he sold one of his slaves to con¬
tribute liberally to the cause. Why democratize the nations
of the earth if it leads them to delight in the burning of
human beings after the manner of Springfield, Waco, Mem¬
phis, and East St. Louis while the nation looks helplessly on ?
You add nothing to the civilization of the world nor to the
culture of the human spirit by the technical changes in
forms of government. The old adage still remains true:
"For forms of government let fools contest—
What's best administered—is best."
If democracy cannot control lawlessness, then democ¬
racy must be pronounced a failure. The nations of the
world have a right to demand of us the workings of the in¬
stitutions at home before they are promulgated abroad. The
German press will, doubtless, gloat with ghoulish glee over
American atrocities against the Negro. The outrages com¬
plained of against the Belgians become merciful perform¬
ances by gruesome comparison. Our frantic wail against
the barbarity of Turk against Armenian, German upon Bel¬
gian, Russian upon Jew, are made of no effect. It cannot
be said that these outbreaks are but the spontaneous ebulli-
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
tions of popular feeling, without governmental sanction or
approval. These outrages occur all over the nation. The
nation must be responsible for what it permits. Sins of
permisssion are as reprehensible as sins of commission.
A few years ago a Turkish ambassador was handed his
passports by you for calling attention to the inconsistency
between our national practice and performance. The nation
was compelled, with a spirit of humiliation, to accept the
reproach which he hurled into our teeth: "Thou hypocrite,
first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt
thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's
eye." Every high-minded American must be touched with
a tinge of shame when he contemplates that his rallying
cry for the liberation of humanity is made a delusion and
a snare by these racial barbarities.
It is needless to attempt to place the blame on the help¬
less Negro. In the early stages of these outbreaks there
was an attempt to fix an evil and lecherous reputation on
the Negro race as lying at the basis of lynching and lawless¬
ness. Statistics most clearly refute this contention. The
great majority of the outbreaks cannot even allege rapeful
assault in extenuation. It is undoubtedly true that there are
imbruited and lawless members of the Negro race, as there
are of the white race, capable of committing any outrageous
and hideous offense. The Negro possesses the imperfections
of his status. His virtues as well as his failures are simply
human. It is a fatuous philosophy, however, that would
resort to cruel and unusual punishment as a deterrent to
crime. Lynching has never made one Negro virtuous nor
planted'the seed of right doing in the mind of a single
American citizen. The Negro should be encouraged in all
right directions to develop his best manly and human quali¬
ties. Where he deviates from the accepted standard he
should be punished by due process of law. But as long
as the Negro is held in general despite and suppressed be¬
low the level of human privilege, just so long will he pro¬
duce a disproportionate number of imperfect individuals
of evil propensity. To relegate the Negro to a status that
encourages the baser instincts of humanity, and then de-
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
nounce him because lie does not stand forth as a model
of human perfection, is of the same order of ironical cruelty
as shown by the barbarous Teutons in Shakespeare, who
cut off the hands and hacked out the tongue of the lovely
Lavinia, and then upbraided her for not calling for per¬
fumed water to wash her delicate hands. The Negro is
neither angelic nor diabolical, but merely human, and should
be treated as such.
The vainglorious boast of Anglo-Saxon superiority will
no longer avail to justify these outrages. The contact,
adjustment and attrition of various races of mankind con¬
stitute a problem which is coterminous with the ends of the
earth. The lighter and stronger races are coming into con¬
tact with the weaker and darker ones. The stronger breeds
of men are relating themselves to the weaker members of
the human family in all the ends of the earth. How does
it happen that in the United States alone, of all civilized
lands, these atrocious outrages are heaped upon the helpless
Negro? The English nation has the largest colonial ex¬
perience and success since the days of the Roman empire,
and has come into relationship with the various weaker
breeds of men in all parts of the world. But everywhere
under English jurisdiction law and order prevail. In the
West Indies, where Negroes outnumber the whites 20 to 1,
rape and lynching have scarcely yet found a place in the
local vocabulary. In Brazil, under a Latin dispensation,
where a more complex racial situation exists than in the
United States, racial peace and good-will prevail. Belgium
furnishes the only parallel of civilized nations, in the atro¬
cious treatment of a helpless people placed in their charge.
But even the Belgians were forced to modify the rigors of
their outrageous regime in the Congo, under the bombard¬
ment of moral sentiment of the more enlightened nations of
the world. America enjoys the evil distinction among all
civilized nations of the earth of taking delight in murder and
burning of human beings. Nowhere else do men, women and
children dance with ghoulish glee and fight for ghastly sou¬
venirs of human flesh and mock the dying groans of the help¬
less victim which sicken the air, while the flickering flames
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
of the funereal pyre lighten the midnight sky with their
lurid glare.
Mr. President, the American conscience has been touched
and quickened by the East St. Louis outbreak as it has never
been before. Press and pulpit have tried to forget these
outrages. At each fresh outbreak they would lash them¬
selves into a spasm of virtue and exhaust the entire vocab¬
ulary of denunciation, but, forthwith, would lapse into
sudden silence and acquiescent guilt. By some fatuous
delusion they seem to hope that the atrocities of Springfield,
Wilmington, Waco, Atlanta, Memphis and a thousand other
places of evil report would never be repeated, nor the mem¬
ory rise up to condemn the nation. But silence and neglect
merely result in compounding atrocities. The East St.
Louis outbreak convinces the nation, as it has never been
before, that the time for action has come. The press is not
content with a single editorial ebullition, but by repeated
utterances insists that the nation shall deal with its most
malignant domestic evil. Reproach is cast upon your con¬
tention for the democratization of the world, in face of its
lamentable failure at home. Ex-President Roosevelt, who
is the greatest living voice now crying aloud for individual
and national righteousness, has openly proclaimed, in dra¬
matic declaration, that these outbreaks make our moral
propaganda for the liberation of mankind but a delusion
and a snare. Mr. President, can this nation hope to live
and to grow in favor with God and man on the basis of a
lie % A nation with a stultified conscience is a nation with
stunted power.
Democracies have frequently shut their eyes to moral
inconsistencies. The democracy of Greece conferred privi¬
lege upon a mere handful of freeman in the midst of ten
times their own number of slaves. The Greek philosophers
and statesmen were supremely unconscious of this moral
obliquity. The Declaration of Independence which de¬
clared for the equality of all men was written by a slave¬
holder. The statesmen of the period, however, hoped that
slavery would be of shortlived duration, and would effect
its own solution in the process of time. But Thomas Jef-
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
carrying the flag to the farthest point in the heart of Mexico,
in quest of the bandit who dared place impious foot on
American soil. In complete harmony with this marvelous
patriotic record, it so happened that it was an American
Negro who proved to be the first victim of ruthless sub¬
marine warfare, after you had distinctly announced to
Germany that such outrages would be considered tanta¬
mount to war. In all of these ways has the Negro shown,
purposely or unconsciously, his undeviating devotion to the
glory and honor of the nation. Greater love hath no man
than this, that he lay down his life for his country.
In the midst of the world war for the democratization
of mankind the Negro will do his full share. I have per¬
sonally always striven to urge the Negro to be patriotic and
loyal in every emergency. At the Reserve Officers' Train¬
ing Camp in Fort Des Moines there are over one hundred
young colored men who have come under my instruction.
The deviltry of his fellow men cannot devise iniquities horri¬
ble enough to drive him from his patriotic devotion. The
Negro, Mr. President, in this emergency, will stand by you
and the nation. Will you and the nation stand by the
Negro?
I believe, Mr. President, that to the victor belong the
spoils, especially if these spoils be human liberty. After
this war for the liberation of mankind has been won through
the Negro's patriotic participation, he will repeat the lines
of the old familiar hymn somewhat louder than ever:
"Behold a stranger at the door,
He gently knocks, has knocked before,
Has waited long, is waiting still,
You treat no other friend so ill."
As a student of public questions I have carefully-
watched your attitude on the race problem. You have
preserved a lukewarm aloofness from the tangled issues of
this problem. In searching your writings one finds little or
no reference to this troubled phase of American life. It
seems that you regard it as a regrettable social malady to
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
be treated with cautious and calculated neglect. There is
observable, however, a passive solicitude. You have kept
the race problem in the back part of your mind. Your
letter to Bishop Walters during your first campaign for
the Presidency, expressing a generous concern for the wel¬
fare of the race, though of a general and passive character,
caused many Negroes to give you their political support.
Under the stress and strain of other pressing issues and the
partisan demands of your political supporters you have not
yet translated this passive purpose into positive perform¬
ance. There is, however, something of consolation in the
fact that while during your entire career you have never
done anything constructive for the Negro, you have never
done anything destructive against him. Your constructive
opportunity is now at hand. The time has come to make
lawlessness a national issue, as a war measure if not from
any higher consideration. As a patriotic and military ne¬
cessity, I suggest that you ask the Congress of the United
States to invest you with the power to prevent lynching and
to quell lawlessness and violence in all parts of the country
during the continuance of the war. Or at least you might
quicken the conscience of the nation by a stirring message
to Congress calling attention to this growing evil which is
gnawing at the vitals of the nation. It is entirely probable
that before the war is over you will have to resort to some
such measure to control internal disturbances on other ac¬
counts. It is inconceivable that this nation should spend
billions of dollars and sacrifice the lives of millions of its
citizens without domestic uprising and revulsion. In such a
time it becomes necessary for the President to exercise all
but dictatorial power. The country is willing to grant you
anything you ask which, in your judgment, would promote
the welfare of the nation in this crisis. You asked Congress
"to grant undiscriminated use of the Panama Canal as a
means of securing international good-will and friendship,
and it was granted. In face of the impending conflict, you
demanded that Congress should grant the eight-hour de¬
mand of the laboring men, and it was done. The suffragists
wno guard your going in and coming out of the White House
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
were duly convicted under process of law, but were im¬
mediately pardoned by you to avoid embarrassment in this
war emergency. You asked for billions of dollars and mil¬
lions of lives to be placed at your disposal for the purpose
of carrying on the great conflict, and it was willingly
granted. The people have willingly placed in your hands
more power than has ever been exercised by any member of
the human race and are willing to trust you in the use of
that power. I am sure that they will grant this additional
authority during the continuance of the present war in
order to secure the unqualified patriotic devotion of all of
the citizens and to safeguard the honor of democracy and
the good name of the republic.
Mr. President, Negroes all over the nation are aroused
as they have never been before. It is not the wild hysteria of
the hour, but a determined purpose that this country shall
be made a safe place for American citizens to live and work
and enjoy the pursuits of happiness. Ten thousand speech¬
less men and women marched in silent array down Fifth
Avenue in New York City as a spectral demonstration
against the wrongs and cruelties heaped upon the race.
Negro women all over the nation have appointed a day of
prayer in order that righteousness might be done to this
people. The weaker sex of the weaker race are praying that
God may use you as the instrument of His will to promote the
cause of human freedom at home. I attended one of these
6 o'clock prayer meetings in the city of Washington. Two
thousand humble women snatched the early hours of the
morning before going to their daily tasks to resort to the
house of prayer. They literally performed unto the Lord the
burden of their prayer and song, "Steal Away to Jesus."
There was not a note of bitterness nor denunciation through¬
out the season of prayer. They prayed as their mothers
prayed in the darker days gone by, that God would deliver
the race. Mr. President, you can help God answer their
prayer. May it not be that these despised and rejected
daughters of a despised and rejected race shall yet lead the
world to its knees in acknowledgment of some controlling
power outside of the machinations of man? As I sat then*
THE DISGRACE OF DEMOCRACY
and listened in reverent silence to these two thousand rok&s
as they sang,—
"On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand—"
I could not but think of the godless war which is now con¬
vulsing the world—a war in which Christian hands are
dyed in Christian blood. It must cause the Prince of Peace
to groan as in His dying agony when He gave up the ghost
on the cross. The professed followers of the Meek and
Lowly One, with heathen heart, are putting their trust in
reeking tube and iron shard. God uses the humbler things
of life to confound the mighty. It may be that these help¬
less victims of cruelty and outrage will bring an apostate
world back to God.
Mr. President, ten million of your fellow citizens are
looking to you and to the God whom you serve to grant
them relief in this hour of their deepest distress. All rdoral
reforms grow out of the people who suffer and stand in need
of them. The Negro's helpless position may yet bring
America to a realizing sense that righteousness exalteth a
nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
Yours truly,
KELLY MILLER.
Out of the House of Bondage
By PROF. KELLY MILLER
Price $1.50 (242pages)
PRESS COMMENTS
Boston Transcript—"Written in a clear decisive style, with a comprehen¬
sive and convincing command of the subject. He neither denounces nor
condemns; he analyzes and constructs possibilities upon the fundamental
basis of human nature. No man of his race has so sure a power of pruning
the fallacies with passionless intellectual severity from the pernicious argu¬
ments of the prejudiced demagogues."
Boston Post—"Dean Kelly Miller of Howard University is one of the most
thoughtful writers and best stylist of the Negro race."
New Orleans Times-Picayune—"Those who are interested in the study of
the Negro cannot ignore this volume. With many of its conclusions we caa
by no means agree, but it points in favor of a revised judgment on certain
questions connected with the position or achievements of his race.
Charlotte. N. C., Observer—"This is a philosophic treatise."
Public Opinion, of London, England, quotes the closing chapter: — *1 See
and Am Satisfied" in full, which it describes as a "Remarkable Rhapsody."
Crisis:—"Ought to fix his place in American literature."
"An Appeal to Conscience"
By Prof. Kelly Miller
Price 60c
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ADDRESS
KELLY MILLER
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
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