The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 479, Oct. 1898, U. of Illinois Press

The page presentation framework of the Booker T. Washington papers is designed to provide researchers worldwide with searchable access to the thousands of pages comprising the fourteen volumes, most of which are out of print. Adapted from the National Academy Press's Open Book framework, this framework allows searching down to the page level, provides sorting of search results chronologically, enables easy navigation across multiple volumes, and allows page-by-page local printing (via PDF) of every page.

[ Top of Page ]

[ Home ]

[ Contact Us ]

[ Help ]

OCRed data provided for searching only.
O C T O B ~ R · I 8 9 8 and the fear that I am not just well enough to go away. I am glad to say however that I am feeling in better trim than when I last wrote you and hope to keep on improving. I had a long chat with Col. Roosevelt this morning on general topics, in the course of which he spoke of you arid your work in terms of unstinted admiration. He seems to be a very open and honest man and I rather like him. Young Benson stopped a moment yesterday with his face turned towards Boston. With kind regards for you and the family. Yours truly T. Thomas Fortune ALS Con. ~39 BTW Papers DLC. ~ Theodore Roosevelt (~858-~9~9), twenty-sixth President of the United States (~go~-g), played a significant role in BTW's career. Perhaps the two men had a personal acquaintance earlier than this letter, though there is no evidence of it in the private papers of either. In 1899 BTW and Roosevelt spoke from the same platform at Elmira, N.Y., during the latter's governorship of New York, and BTW sent a congratulatory telegram when Roosevelt was elected Vice-President in Too. Soon afterward, Roosevelt invited BTW to visit him, confided his desire to be President, and secured BTW's help among black Republicans in return for a promise to help the Negro and the entire South as President. Roosevelt was planning a visit to Tuskegee with Jacob Riis in egos that had to be postponed for five years when he suddenly found himself President on account of the assassination of McKinley. He immediately called in BTW as a consultant on black and southern political matters. During the course of these discussions, on Oct. ~6, egos, Roosevelt invited BTW to dinner with him, his family, and another guest at the White House. This occasioned a storm of editorial attack on Roosevelt, particularly in the southern press. Both men ignored the criticisms, and the excitement soon subsided, to flare up again from time to time. Roosevelt never invited BTW to dinner again, but he consulted him freely on all black appointments and those of many southern whites, and also on his public speeches, messages, and party platform planks on racial and southern matters. Through his influence on Roosevelt and other highly placed Republicans, BTW was able to place many of his followers in office and thus build a political machine. He used his patronage power in the South to fight the ''lily-white'' Republican organizations and to replace some old-line politicians with those who shared his business ideals and others who were loyal simply because they were beholden to him. His influence on Roosevelt's utterances and actions in racial matters, however, was negligible, as is shown by the President's order in 1906 dismissing two companies of black soldiers after an alleged riot in Brownsville, Tex. BTW tried to prevent the presidential order, but even though he was unsuccessful he continued to be loyal to Roosevelt. After his term of once expired, Roosevelt became a trustee of Tuskegee, and, despite the shadow of Brownsville, BTW and Roosevelt remained close friends. In ~ 9 ~ 2, torn between this friendship and a lifelong Republican loyalty, BTW 479