Senator Foraker Endorsed

The League Hall hosts a meeting to protest President Roosevelt's “discharge without honor” of African American soldiers and urges the black community to “stand loyal and firm for their rights and privileges” by voting for Senator Foraker.

Not since the days when James Hayes’ Suffrage League held weekly meetings in League Hall to protest against the elimination of the Negro vote of the state by the Constitutional Convention of 1901-02, has there been as large a gathering in that hall of many Negro meetings as there was last night, to protest against President Roosevelt's discharge “without honor” of three Negro companies who were accused of shooting up the town of Brownsville, Texas and to laud Senator Foraker for the stand which he has taken in defense of the discharged and disgraced Negro infantrymen. While the meeting was ostensibly called to discuss the Brownsville affair” yet beneath the surface and breaking forth in virulence in every speech made, denunciatory of “Lily Whites” in Virginia,,could be seen that the real import of the meeting was to make it impossible for Richmond to send a “Lily White” delegation to the district convention which meets in Manchester next week. Dr Sinclair, the Philadelphia physician who played an important part in bringing about the senatorial investigation relative to Brownsville, was the principal speaker. He explained in great detail the investigation and said the evidence adduced should have exonerated the soldiers and would have had not “President Booker T. Roosevelt and Professor Theodore Washington and ‘Lily White’ Taft” used their influence to prevent it. He urged the Negroes to resent this disgrace cast upon the men of their race, who not only helped to save American honor at San Juan Hill, but saved the life on the colonel of the Rough Riders and his men. His denunciation of Taft for the presidential nomination was the keynote to this resentment. At the conclusion of the speech the following resolutions, offered by Dr. P.B. Ramsey were unanimously adopted: “The colored citizens of Richmond in mass meeting assembled do respectfully utter profound and warmest thanks and offer our most hearty congratulations to Senator Joseph Benson Foraker for his manly and patriotic efforts to secure a fair and impartial bearing for Companies B, C, and D of the Twenty-fifth Infantry of the United States Army dismissed by President Roosevelt without honor and without either a civil or military trial, on the charge of shooting up Brownsville, Tex. on August 13, 1906. “We declare that the condemnation and punishment of any man or set of men without a fair and open hearing is absolutely reprehensible and entirely un-American and is the essence of lynch-law. “We further declare that the President of the United States by the discharge of these brave defenders of the nation’s flag- some of them being veterans of three wars and have served in the army for more than a quarter of a century- without a competent and fair trial makes himself liable to the charge of practicing lynch-law by executive decree. “We further declare that inasmuch as an exhaustive examination conducted by the Committee on Military Affairs of the United States Senate has utterly failed to prove a case against the battalion or any member of it, that, therefore, the soldiers are morally and legally entitled to the benefit of the doubt and that the stigma placed upon them by the discharge without honor should be removed, and that they should be restored to the army without loss of prestige and with full pay for the period of their discharge. “We, therefore, respectfully appeal to the United States Senators and representatives in Congress from the State of Virginia to use their influence and exercise their good offices to secure this need of justice for the brave defenders of our country’s flag. “Furthermore, we do here give expression to our solemn and most emphatic protest against the seizure of the Republican organization of the city of Richmond and of the State of Virginia by the so-called “Lily White’ Republicans and the denial to colored Republicans of an equal voice in the councils, meetings, and conventions of the Republican party. We appeal to the colored Republicans of Richmond and State of Virginia to stand loyal and firm for their rights and privileges in the councils and conventions of the Republican party, and if they are not given proper representation and treated with fairness and justice to organize separate conventions and elect delegates and carry their contest to the floor of the National Republican Convention at Chicago. “We appeal to the liberal white Republicans for the revenue only and simply seekers after the loaves and fishes as unworthy of the confidence of the public press and of the honest manhood of the State, whether white or colored.”

“Senator Foraker Endorsed,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/527.