We have not too many monuments of the past; let us keep every little bit of association with that which is highest and best of the past as a reminder to us, equally of what we owe to those who have gone before and of how we should show our…

Each body of immigrants, each element that has thus been added to our national strain, has contributed something of value to the national character; and to no element do we owe more than we owe to that element represented by those whom I…

I must write you a line to say how much I have appreciated your article, “The Woman who Toils.” But to me there is a most melancholy side to it, when you touch upon what is fundamentally infinitely more important than any other question in…

I do not know whether I most pity or despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that the only things really worth having in life are those the acquirement of which normally means cost and effort.

But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race and should be an object of…

The trouble with the situation you set forth is one of character, and therefore we can conquer it if we only will.

But it has been my consistent policy in every State where their numbers warranted it to recognize colored men of good repute and standing in making appointments to office.

So far as I legitimately can I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I can not consent to take the position that the door of hope—the door of opportunity—is to be shut upon any…

Such an attitude would, according to my convictions, be fundamentally wrong.

If, as you hold, the great bulk of the colored people are not yet fit in point of character and influence to hold such positions, it seems to me that it is worth while putting a premium upon the effort among them to achieve the character…

It seems to me that it is a good thing from every standpoint to let the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree the qualities of good citizenship—the qualities which in a white man we feel are entitled to reward—then he will not…

Frankly, it seems to me that my appointments speak for themselves and that my policy is self-explanatory.

I certainly can not treat mere color as a permanent bar to holding office, any more than I could so treat creed or birthplace—always provided that in other respects the applicant or incumbent is a worthy and well-behaved American citizen.

I ask you to judge not by what I say but by what during the last seventeen months I have actually done.

I believe you will agree with me that in no State would it be possible to find gentlemen abler and more upright or better qualified to fill the positions they have filled with reference to me.

Am I not right in saying that the Federal office-holders whom I have appointed throughout your State are, as a body, men and women of a high order of efficiency and integrity?

I will welcome testimony from you or from any other reputable citizen which will tend to show that a given public officer is unworthy; and, most emphatically, short will be the shrift of any one whose lack of worth is proven.

In view of all these facts I have been surprised, and somewhat pained, at what seems to me the incomprehensible outcry in the South about my actions—an outcry apparently started in New York for reasons wholly unconnected with the question…

Permit me to thank you as an American citizen for the admirable way in which you have vindicated the majesty of the law by your recent action in reference to lynching.

I feel, my dear sir, that you have made all men your debtors who believe, as all far-seeing men must, that the well-being, indeed the very existence, of the Republic depends upon that spirit of orderly liberty under the law which is as…

It is incumbent upon every man throughout this country not only to hold up your hands in the course you have been following, but to show his realization that the matter is one which is of vital concern to us all.

All thoughtful men must feel the gravest alarm over the growth of lynching in this country, and especially over the peculiarly hideous forms so often taken by mob violence when colored men are the victims—on which occasions the mob seems…

The feeling of all good citizens that such a hideous crime shall not be hideously punished by mob violence is due not in the least to sympathy for the criminal, but to a very lively sense of the train of dreadful consequences which follows…

The slightest lack of vigor either in denunciation of the crime or in bringing the criminal to justice is itself unpardonable.

But it can not be necessary in order to accomplish this to deprive any citizen of those fundamental rights to be heard in his own defence which are so dear to us all and which lie at the root of our liberty.