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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
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 was impressed by what Booker T. Washington tells him about the Cox family of Indianola, Mississippi, and comments that it is “one of the most astounding things in our recent history,” and is “infamously and shamefully discreditable to the mob of Indianola.” In a handwritten postscript, Roosevelt mentions that the consulship in the Congo Free State has already been filled by promotion.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-21
President Roosevelt invites Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler to have dinner with him and stay the night at the White House. Roosevelt remarks that there is little hope for unintelligent Southerners if intelligent ones like Thomas Nelson Page have such views about the removal of the Indianola, Mississippi, post office and other actions. Roosevelt feels that he “would have been unfit to sit in the chair of Abraham Lincoln had [he] acted otherwise,” and informs Butler he will be anything but apologetic in his Lincoln Day address.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-20
President Roosevelt thinks Booker T. Washington’s editorial for the Outlook is admirable, but that he should have used the Democrat Edgar S. Wilson’s name in writing about the Indianola, Mississippi, affair.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-15
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
President Roosevelt would like Inspector Fitzgerald to speak with Senator Spooner and the others about the Indianola, Mississippi, post office.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-29
President Roosevelt encourages Postmaster General Payne to leave for vacation and is interested in the information regarding the Indianola, Mississippi, post office.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-07-15
President Roosevelt complains about the press coverage of his actions relating to African Americans, including the Indianola affair, appointing African Americans, and Roosevelt’s relationship with Booker T. Washington.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-02-07
President Roosevelt believes his appointments in Mississippi have been fair; he has appointed many Democrats and “but one or two colored men.” Roosevelt is trying his best to do what is “square and right” regarding the Indianola post office matter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-07
Booker T. Washington writes President Roosevelt about the Cox family, specifically Wayne Wellington Cox of Indianola, Mississippi. Washington notes that the white residents of Indianola are accepting of Cox as a banker while a disturbance was made over his family’s involvement in the post office. Washington is most likely referring to Minnie M. Cox, and the petition by some of the white residents of Indianola to have Cox resign her position as postmaster of the town.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-19
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.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
2020
The article accuses the people of Indianola, Mississippi, of hypocrisy. The citizens there forced the closure of the local post office because the postmaster was African American. Yet their mail is now delivered from Heathman, Mississippi, by an African American postman hired by the citizens.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-07-03
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
Albert Shaw supports President Roosevelt’s policies in the South and regards his treatment of the South as “considerate beyond that of any other President.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-02-05
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
Magazine article supporting Minnie M. Geddings Cox and her continued service as postmaster in Indianola, Mississippi.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-24
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