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Governor Vardaman angrily criticizes President Roosevelt for taking action against the white citizens of Indianola, Mississippi, after they forced black postmaster Minnie M. Geddings Cox to resign from her post.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-10
James Kimble Vardaman criticizes President Roosevelt’s selection of black men as postmasters. He also criticizes the administration’s position in standing behind Minnie M. Geddings Cox as postmaster.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-10
President Roosevelt writes Richard Watson Gilder a lengthy refutation of an article in the Evening Post in which William Garrott Brown misconstrues his actions in the Republican Party. Namely, Brown accuses Roosevelt of neglecting Republicans in the South and of doing a poor job of making nominations to local offices and positions. Roosevelt asserts that where the Republican party is not strong in the South, he has had to appoint Democrats who were quality men, rather than incapable men who are Republicans. Where he believes the party has a chance to compete with Democrats, he does all he can to support it. Roosevelt also writes that he did not use his influence on officers to get William H. Taft the nomination, but rather Taft was nominated because Roosevelt’s policies were popular, and Taft is the man who will continue those policies. Roosevelt believes that Brown is either ignorant or willfully ignorant of a number of facts.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-16
President Roosevelt outlines and refutes the falsehoods in Alfred Holt Stone’s Studies in the American Race Problem. He tells John Graham Brooks that he judges a work’s reliability by seeing what it says about a subject he is familiar with, and then deciding if he can trust it on things that he does not know as much about. He explains that Stone is spreading falsehoods about the so-called “referee” system in the Southern states, especially Mississippi. Roosevelt points out that the practice was common with presidents before him, and that it is necessary in areas where the Republican party does not have a strong enough presence to provide good appointees to positions. He also discusses his handling of the case of African American postmistress Minnie M. Geddings Cox, who was forced by an angry mob to resign her position and leave town.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-13
President Roosevelt sends Owen Wister the text of a letter he received describing the situation of the Cox family at Indianola, Mississippi. Minnie M. Geddings Cox was previously in the center of a disturbance after being forced out of her job as postmistress by residents of the town. In the time since that event, her husband, Wayne W. Cox, has started a bank in town, and has received no objections to his serving as the president of the bank. Roosevelt comments on the hypocrisy of the residents of Indianola, saying that “now the fantastic fools and moral cowards who encouraged or permitted the mob to turn [Minnie M. Geddings Cox] out are depositing their funds in the husband’s bank and have him as a director in a white bank, and she and her husband own one of the best houses in Indianola and one of the best plantations in the neighborhood.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-21
President Roosevelt had recently finished Owen Wister’s book Lady Baltimore, and sends Wister his thoughts and criticisms of the work. While he enjoyed the story, Roosevelt believes the book is unfairly critical of northerners and uncritical of southerners. Similarly, Roosevelt points out that while the book lauds the past at the expense of the present, there are many examples of violence, brutality, greed, and other vices in the past. Roosevelt also remarks on the status of African-Americans, and while he agrees with Wister in certain regards, believes the work has gone too far in the racist stereotypes. He hopes that Wister will be able to visit him soon. In a postscript, Roosevelt mentions a number of other books he has read or is reading that similarly make readers “feel that there is no use of trying to reform anything because everything is so rotten that the whole social structure should either be let alone or destroyed.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-27
President Roosevelt replies with interest to Major Byrne, explaining, in confidence, his position on race relations in the South. Roosevelt cites the Indianola post office affair, when African American postmistress Minnie M. Geddings Cox was driven out of town by a white mob, as an example of the “policy of retrogression” in the South. Roosevelt says, “On the one hand I wish by my action to avoid stirring up any bitterness; on the other hand, I must not act in a cowardly manner and make the apostles of lawlessness and of brutal disregard of the rights of the black man feel encouraged in their indignity. As always in life, I have to face conditions, not as I would like to have them, but as they actually are, and every course I take is beset with difficulties.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-09-14
John B. Ashbaugh examines Theodore Roosevelt’s complicated views on race and charts his history with various ethnic and racial groups, including Native Americans, African-Americans, and Jews. Ashbaugh highlights the influence of Roosevelt’s southern born and raised mother and her brothers, both of whom served the Confederacy during the Civil War. Ashbaugh stresses that Roosevelt’s views evolved over time, and he demonstrates how Roosevelt believed in and promoted the Progressive views of his time such as the assimilation of Native Americans, but that he also respected many aspects of Native culture and had enduring friendships with individual Native Americans. Ashbaugh presents Roosevelt’s views on Jews and immigration, and he details many aspects of Roosevelt’s feelings toward and relationship with African-Americans, including his condemnation of lynching, his White House dinner with Booker T. Washington, and the Brownsville incident.
Five photographs and two illustrations appear in the text.
William N. Tilchin asserts that President Theodore Roosevelt was guided in his policies by a strong sense of morality, one that had been instilled in him by his father. Tilchin examines four areas of Roosevelt’s presidency–the control of corporations, the status of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South, the conservation of natural resources, and diplomacy–and argues that in each Roosevelt’s sense of morality, of right and wrong, guided his approach. Tilchin states that Roosevelt’s greatest moral shortcoming in his policies occurred over race, noting Roosevelt’s failure to adequately curtail lynching and his treatment of African-American soldiers in Brownsville, Texas. On the other hand, Tilchin says that in his conservation policies, Roosevelt “was the very model of an effective moral leader,” and he praises Roosevelt for his foreign policy that had as one of its underpinnings that the United States acted as a “morally upright” and civilized nation.
A political cartoon and three photographs of Roosevelt supplement the essay.
Partial page of The News, with articles titled “A Plea for the President” and “Trophies from the West” highlighted. The former discusses the President’s appointments to political office in the South, which are causing controversy. It includes a portion of a letter from Herman Henry Kohlsaat, editor of the Chicago Record-Herald, asking for fair treatment of the President by Southern newspapers, since the President sincerely intends to build up the government service in the South by appointing qualified officials, regardless of party affiliation. The latter article discusses the public interest in gifts President Roosevelt may have brought back to the White House from his western journey, including live animals.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-06-09
Rollo Ogden encloses an article on the Indianola case and expresses his approval of President Roosevelt’s handling of the issue. Ogden informs the president that he has become the editor of The Evening Post and assures him that the paper will praise him when he does the right thing but will not hesitate to criticize him when it is warranted. He commends Roosevelt on his efforts in civil service reform.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-02-04
Newspaper article supporting President Roosevelt’s position in the Indianola post office case. Complaints were raised against Indianola’s postmaster, Minnie M. Geddings Cox, due to her race. Roosevelt supported Cox and federal authority to appoint postmasters.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-27
The article expresses support for President Roosevelt’s actions in the appointment of Dr. William Crum as collector of the port at Charleston and in the closing of the Indianola, Mississippi post office, because of white opposition to the black postmaster who had served there for several years.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-06
Magazine article supporting Minnie M. Geddings Cox and her continued service as postmaster in Indianola, Mississippi.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-24
Edgar S. Wilson, manager of the Mississippi Bureau of the New Orleans Daily Picayune, writes during a crisis at Indianola, Mississippi, involving African American Postmaster General, Minnie M. Geddings Cox, who is being forced to resign from office by violent citizens due to her race. Wilson recommends that President Roosevelt discontinue the Postmaster General’s office in Indianola, Mississippi, and pursue indictments through the Federal Grand Jury. Wilson believes that the uproar has been incited by Democratic gubernatorial candidate James Kimble Vardaman. The majority of citizens have no problem with her work.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-12-30