The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.5, page 493, May 1900, U. of Illinois Press

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MAY · 1 900 From Edgar Gardner Murphy Montgomery, Ala., May 3, Loo Dear Mr. Washington: Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. King very much enjoyed their day in Tuskegee, and they came back full of enthusiasm about the work of your noble institution. I quite agree with you that it is a misfortune to the cause of the Negro that Mr. Page should have withdrawn. The Committee, however, cannot admit the right of any individual speaker to canvass and pass upon the intellectual ideas or the moral character of every man invited to speak at the Conference. If the gentleman to whom he objected could speak in Faneuil Hall, Boston, under the auspices of the loveliest people in New England, as he did during the past six weeks, the Committee of the Montgomery Conference could hardly be faulted for inviting him to speak here. Even if Mr. Page's charges against this gentleman are all true, I do not think that we could admit the principle for which he stands. In connection with all gatherings of this kind, the Committee must look at the situation in the broad, and must do its best under all the given practical conditions which obtain. At the great Conference on Trusts in Chicago, at the same Conference on Trusts in New York City, at the Monetary Conference in Indianapolis, and in connection with other large meetings of a national or semi-national character, the makers of programs have not attempted to square all their speakers by the Ten Commandments, before inviting them to speak. This would involve us in the moral indorsement of every man we might ask, and as we cannot go into the private life of individuals, we should soon make ourselves ridiculous. We certainly knew nothing of Mr. Page's personal objections when the program was made, and even if we had been so informed, I do not think we could have admitted for a moment the principle for which he stands. His withdrawal has resulted just as I predicted it would result. The only cause which has really lost by it has been the very cause which Mr. Page particularly represents. He is not a Southern man in any real sense of the word, and he is out of sympathy with the normal tendencies of Southern thought. Personally, he is a man full of charm, and he commands my sincere esteem, but it was in a measure a relief to the Committee when he withdrew, because 493