efore the colored people at the State
Fair, and the meeting was attended by the best class of
whites and the best class of colored people, who seemed to
be pleased over what I said.

Mr. Blank, a Southern Congressman, just now is making a good
deal of noise, but you will recall that Mr. Blank spoke just
as bitterly against me before Mr. Roosevelt became President
as he has since. I do not want to permit myself to be
misled, but I repeat that I cannot see or feel that any
great alienation has taken place between the two classes of
people that you refer to.

For the sake of argument I want to grant for the moment a
thing which I have never done before, even in a private
letter, and which is very distasteful to me, and that is,
that I am the leader of the colored people. Do you think it
will ever be possible for one man to be set up as the leader
of ten millions of people, meaning a population nearly twice
as large as that of the Dominion of Canada and nearly equal
to that of the Republic of Mexico, without the actions of
that individual being carefully watched and commented upon,
and what he does being exaggerated either in one direction
or the other? Again, if I am the leader and therefore the
mouthpiece for ten millions of colored people, is it
possible for such a leader to avoid coming into contact with
the representatives of the ruling classes of white people
upon many occasions; and is it not to be expected that when
questions that are racial and national and international in
their character are to be discussed, that such a
representative of the Negro race would be sought out both by
individuals and by conventions? If, as you kindly suggest, I
am the leader, I hardly see how such notoriety and
prominence as will naturally come can be wholly or in any
large degree avoided.

Judging by some of the criticisms that have appeared
recently, mainly from the class of people to whom I have
referred, it seems to me that some of the white people at
the South are making an attempt to control my actions when I
am in the North and in Europe. Heretofore, no man has been
more careful to regard the feelings of the Southern people
in actions and words than I have been, and this policy I
shall continue to pursue, but I have never att