Williams, John Sharp, 1854-1932

President Roosevelt expresses his opinions and position on the voting rights of African American men. He condemns fraudulent voting practices that seek to disfranchise African American voters and explains why he regards the solutions of some in Congress as merely expedient. Roosevelt also writes that he hopes The Outlook will write stronger editorials regarding the political nature of this issue.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1904-12-16

President Roosevelt clarifies William H. Taft’s opinion on the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and on the appointment of African Americans, for Lawrence F. Abbott. Namely, that Taft shares Roosevelt’s sentiments, as well as those of The Outlook, on Mississippi Governor James Kimble Vardaman and Representative John Sharp Williams. Roosevelt offers a list of the principle African American appointments he has made while in office, and encourages Abbott to contact Booker T. Washington for further statement on the character of the appointees.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-10-06

President Roosevelt explains to Henry Beach Needham, in confidence, that while he has refused to expressly endorse the last Congress, he believes that election of a Democratic Congress would severely hinder William H. Taft’s future work. He has heard that Needham will write an attack on conditions at the Panama Canal, and insists they discuss it beforehand.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-09-11

President Roosevelt holds a large document labeled “Roosevelt policies” as an elephant sits against a tree in the background. House Minority Leader John Sharp Williams holds a donkey and says, “If you mount isn’t on the job, try mine.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The day after a major message was transmitted to Congress by President Roosevelt, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives endorsed “most” of Roosevelt’s legislative proposals. Representative John Sharp Williams of Mississippi accurately is pictured in Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s cartoon (the suggestion that the president would switch parties is cartoonists’ license); and a major story on this same day addressed Williams’ admiration of the president’s program.

President Roosevelt, Mississippi Representative John Sharp Williams, and William Jennings Bryan all use axes to destroy the “sacredness of the trusts” plank of the “party fence.” A man labeled “the trusts” runs toward them.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-02-06

Newspaper article quoting Senator Money on his objection to quarantines. Money also takes issue with President Roosevelt for calling Confederate soldiers anarchists, and for the president’s support of African Americans, concluding that Roosevelt, “hates the South and Southern people.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-09

Alton B. Parker, David B. Hill, John Sharp Williams, Arthur P. Groman, Richard Olney, and Grover Cleveland ride on a camel labeled “Reorganization” crossing the “Desert of Bryanism.” William Jennings Bryan tries to hold back the camel by the tail, and William Randolph Hearst tries to prevent Bryan from being pulled along toward an “Oasis” labeled “Sane Democracy.”

Comments and Context

Starting around 1902, Puck assayed the Democratic field of possible presidential candidates to run against the incumbent, President Roosevelt. The pack of conservative, “Bourbon,” and “Gold” Democrats — opponents of William Jennings Bryan and a third nomination by him or a follower (such as publisher William Randolph Hearst) — usually included the same faces, reflecting the national political machinations.

Shown here are those players, with the addition of John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, Democrat leader of the United States House of Representatives. Judge Alton Brooks Parker, a dark horse significantly placed by cartoonist Pughe at the front of the camel riders, was subtly boosted by party insiders. David B. Hill was a former New York governor and senator; Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland had returned to the United States Senate and was the party’s chairman. Richard Olney, former Secretary of State, once harbored presidential ambitions himself, but at this time was futilely urging his onetime mentor, Grover Cleveland, to run for president a fourth time, for a third term.

President Roosevelt tells Sir George Otto Trevelyan of his happiness regarding the recent 1904 presidential election, and remarks that he is glad people decided to support the positive message of the Republican Party, rather than the negativity of the Democratic Party. The president attributes his victory to the clear-cut message in his speeches and addresses as well as those canvassing for him. Roosevelt discusses the differences between the American president and other political leaders and believes the American president is more like the British prime minister than the French president. he additionally reflects on his intention not to run for a third term. Even without the convention of only two terms, the president believes it would be better for Secretary of War William H. Taft or Elihu Root to succeed him; they are similar in policy, but would have fresh thoughts and ways. Roosevelt concludes by discussing his recent reading. He praises a section from one of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches after his reelection and equates certain American political leaders to characters in Charles Dickens’s works.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-24

President Roosevelt thanks Thomas William Lawson for his support, but complains of inaccurate reporting about his political support, or lack thereof, for John Edward Charles O’Sullivan Addicks. Roosevelt complains that a correspondent associated with Lawson lied that Roosevelt actively campaigned for and supported Addicks, and explains that he has only ever seen Addicks three times, as he has met many politicians.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-21

President Roosevelt updates President of Harvard Eliot on Secretary of War William H. Taft’s investigation into American agitators’ influence in the Cuban conflict. He discusses the “curious” opinion of having General Leonard Wood take control in Cuba given the previous backlash against him, even though Roosevelt considers him one of the “best officers we now have.” While Cuba is his immediate concern in foreign affairs, Roosevelt discusses the issues concerning the Hague and the Panama Canal.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-09-22

President Roosevelt was glad to hear Ambassador Reid’s news that the British Government is likely to take the same stance as the United States at the Hague Conference. Referencing a letter he received from Andrew Carnegie, Roosevelt remarks that he does not want the Liberal Government “to go to any maudlin extremes at the Hague Conference,” and that while it is good to minimize the chance of war, nations should not put themselves at a disadvantage compared to militaristic nations. Roosevelt comments on several United States politicians, particularly John Sharp Williams, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-07

If objections are still raised to appropriating $25,000 for presidential travel, President Roosevelt tells Congressman Tawney that he would consent to a provision being inserted that none of the money would be for the president’s personal travel. Roosevelt states that regardless of this, the bulk of the money would go to providing for the travel of clerks, stenographers, and other government employees who travel with him, and not his own personal fare. He notes that Thomas Jefferson, when he was president, would travel on horseback, but was not required to supply fifty additional horses for the “government employees, newspaper men, Governors, Senators, Congressmen and outsiders who went along with him,” nor personally pay for all of their lodgings.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-17

President Roosevelt says that there is no need for Secretary of War Taft to go to Santo Domingo, but he would like to meet with him to discuss “the whole canal business.” He also would like Taft and his wife to come to dinner to meet the historian James Ford Rhodes. Roosevelt encloses a letter from Representative John Sharp Williams and asks him to look into “the soldier matter.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-11

President Roosevelt agrees with what Senator Townsend told Representative John Sharp Williams regarding a pending railroad bill. Williams intends to vote against the bill because of the segregation of the railroads, and Roosevelt says that any one who makes this argument against the bill is arguing in bad faith, and would oppose the bill anyway.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-06

President Roosevelt responds to an editorial in the Outlook criticizing a measure related to voting representation. He says it is a great injustice to let white people suppress the votes of black citizens and then fraudulently cast their votes as their own. This results in some states receiving more representatives without representing the entire population. There can be no moral argument for allowing this to go on. Yet moving too quickly risks making a bad situation worse. Roosevelt hopes that the Outlook might emphasize, along with its condemnation of the proposed remedy, that the injustice being practiced by leaders in the South is responsible for inciting those in the North to make legislative proposals such as this.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-16

President Roosevelt fundamentally agrees with Henry S. Pritchett and James Ford Rhodes about the Southern question. Although Roosevelt believes it is unwise and impractical to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment now, he does agree it should not have been passed in the first place. The president can also agree with Pritchett and Rhodes that Congress should not press for active enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment; however, it cannot go too far with Mississippi Senator John Sharp Williams having more power than Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. Roosevelt believes Southern states cannot enforce the laws themselves because they are trying to readopt slavery through peonage. Additionally, Southerners demand the exclusion of African Americans from offices, although Southerners have approved of Roosevelt’s choices for offices in the South on the whole even though the president has appointed some African Americans. Roosevelt insists he has tried Pritchett’s course of action, but it has not worked because the South has not met him even halfway. The president believes cooperation depends on Southerners, and the difficulty will vanish when they “quit lying.” Finally, Roosevelt says he has not observed outside criticism of the South and asks Pritchett how Congress needs to respond since it has not controlled the South. Roosevelt concludes by asking for one specific thing he is doing wrong, as he wants to learn.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-14

After inviting Finley Peter Dunne and Margaret Ives Dunne to the White House, President Roosevelt spends the rest of his letter discussing Finley Peter Dunne’s recent article entitled the “Anglo-Saxon Triumph.” Roosevelt takes umbrage with Dunne’s belief that individuals should look down on particular Americans due to their ancestry and specifically references those of Irish and German ancestry. In a postscript, Roosevelt states the current temptation is toward Anglophobia, not Anglomania, and the easiest thing for a politician to do is find fault with England. The president prides himself in getting a greater portion of Irish and Catholic Americans to vote for him than any previous Republican candidate without any significant attack on England.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-23

President Roosevelt substantially agrees with Judge Allison’s views but cannot stop discussions Allison dislikes in Congress. Roosevelt believes Mississippi Governor James Kimble Vardaman, Mississippi Senator John Sharp Williams, Tennessee Senator Edward Ward Carmack, and newspapers are stirring up a dangerous sentiment in the North, which are due to their utterances, not Roosevelt’s policy.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-17

President Roosevelt finds amusement in the clipping from The World about the Evening Post, and he thinks it base and hypocritical for the Post to continue to support the candidacy of Alton B. Parker in light of such speeches as that of Henry Gassaway Davis. Roosevelt provides two quotations addressing the “colored issue” for inclusion in his speech and letter of acceptance. Roosevelt aims to make his points clear while at the same time making them in such a way as to cause minimal irritation in the south.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-12

President Roosevelt directed Alvey A. Adee to instruct the Navy that they must not interfere in any fighting between the Russians and Japanese in the neutral Chinese port. Roosevelt agrees that the best solution would be for China to say they cannot keep the peace and let the Russians and Japanese fight.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-08-24