The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.7, page 518, June 1904, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers From Charies William Anderson New York, June 2nd, 1909 My dear Doctor: Yours of the gist ulto. at hand.~ Relative to Fortune, I beg to say that my only desire in writing the letter to you and the one to Mr. Loeb was to prevent the publication of that objectionable editorial, and I quite agree with you that he could be of more service under the Eastern Bureau than elsewhere. This did not occur to me until it was suggested by Moore on yesterday. In fact Moore seemed to feel that I had made a mistake in writing at all, and I assured him, as I now want to assure you, that I do not care a fig about Fortune's personality. My only aim in writing the aforementioned letters was to serve you. The letter to Loeb was the merest suggestion, and was phrased in very discreet language. Mr. Loeb's answer to it, is very interesting. I have shown it to no one, and will not until I show it to you. It proves that the whole thing is in your hands, and it proves some other things that ''the Sage of Red Bank'' might not find exactly to his taste. So I hope you will not mix-appreciate my motive in writing the letters. As I told you in my letter advising you that one was to follow, Fortune would not be convinced that I would write a letter in his favor, however slightly, and therefore requested me to write them and send them to him at Red Bank, from which point he would mail them. This I did, but sent you an anticipatory letter giving my reasons. As for the editorial, he read the offensive allusions to me and told me he was sure it would make you very mad, as it would be more abhorrent to you to have your language compared with that of Hannibal Thomas, than to have it compared with the words of any living man. Thus you see, it was a rather diabolical scheme to be especially offensive to you. This fact made me feel justified in writing the letter. I hope you will believe me when I tell you that I care no more about the man now, than I have cared in the past, and I give you my permission to say this much to him. I don't want you to think that I am cultivating pleasant relations with a man who is not ''playing fair'' with you. I hope you will believe me incapable of such conduct. What I did, was done to serve you, and for no other purpose. Notwithstanding the fact that Fortune pronounced the statement referred to ''a very strong statement,'' he 5~8