Will Support Mr. Bryan

J. Milton Waldron, the president of the National Negro League, congratulates William J. Bryan on his presidential nomination, and predicts his election with the support of the black population by “a handsome majority.”

In an interview this morning, Rev. J. Milton Waldron, D.D., President, The National Negro American Political League, with headquarters in this city, gave a representative of the Associated Press the following telegram which his League had sent to the Hon. William J. Bryan congratulating him upon his nomination by the Democratic Party: “Hon. William J. Bryan, Fairview, Lincoln Neb., We congratulate you upon your nomination to the Presidency by the representatives of the American people - not by the hirelings of a boss - and we predict your election next November by a handsome majority. Judging from assurances given us by our people throughout the North and the West you will receive seventy five percent of the colored vote.” And in response to a question by the reporter, President Waldron said “No, The National Negro American Political League had no idea of quitting the field, nor has it relinquished one whit of its opposition to the ‘Roosevelt policies” said to Mr. Taft. President Roosevelt’s nominee for the Presidency on the Republican ticket. The officers and members of our League are Republicans not for office and graft, but by choice and training, and we went to Chicago with the avowed purpose of supporting the Republican Party should it return to the principles upon which is was founded. “But, when, on reaching Chicago we found that more than two-thirds of the delegates to the Convention were officer-holders appointed by President Roosevelt and pledged to carry out his policy of destroying all those who oppose him, whether they were good men or bad, in the right or in the wrong - and when we learned from statements repeatedly made by Mr. Roosevelt’s representatives at the Convention, that he had decided to recognize the ‘lily white faction’ in the Party with the avowed purpose of eventually eliminating the Negro from politics in the South in the hope of building up their strong Republican Party, and wen efforts on our part, nor on the part of the old line white Republicans, could induce Mr. Roosevelt’s delegation to pledge the party to reinstate the discharged Negro soldiers who are innocent of participation in the shooting up of Brownsville, we decided, after repeated and lengthy conference with the more than two hundred representatives of the race assembled in Chicago from all parts of America, to oppose with all our might and main the election of Mr. William H. Taft to the Presidency of the United States...

“Will Support Mr. Bryan,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 23, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/651.