Charles W. Chesnutt to Walter D. Sayle, 12 June 1922
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June 12, 1922.
Mr. Walter D. Sayle,
Edgehill Road Corner Overlook,
Cleveland Heights.
My dear Mr. Sayle:
I have read with great interest and pleasure the little book which you were good enough to send me, "A Trip to the Land of Romance."1 It is very well written, beautifully illustrated, and has served to strengthen my desire to visit that part of the world.
I was especially interested to observe that you confirm what I said in my News interview with regard to racial conditions in Brazil.2 It is an exceedingly interesting experiment and seems to be working out all right. There may be a suggestion in it of a method, at some time or other, for the solution of our own race problem. Thanking you again,
Cordially yours, CWC/FLCorrespondent: Walter Daniel Sayle (1860–1941) was a prominent White Cleveland business owner whose wealth came from tool manufacturing and banking. He was an avid traveler and wrote two books in the 1920s about his travels in the US and Latin America.
1. In 1921, Sayle self-published A Trip to the Land of Romance, a 100-page account with many photographs of the three-month trip he and his wife, Joanne Chichester Sayle (1862–1941), took to Latin America that year. [back]
2. Sayle noted in his book that "Brazil is now quite without racial prejudice" and its society, which is "slowly being amalgamated," has "no color line" A Trip to the Land of Romance [n.loc: Walter D. Sayle, 1921], 94). In his interview, Chesnutt had pointed to Brazil's mixed-race former president Nilo Peçanha (1868–1951, president of Brazil 1909–10) as proof of Brazil's lack of race prejudice, describing him as "the new president," seen as "a Brazilian, per se, and not a Negro." In Brazil's March 1922 presidential election, Peçanha actually narrowly lost to Artur Bernardes (1875–1955, president of Brazil 1922–1926), but Bernardes' victory was not recognized by the Brazilian congress until on May 7, 1922, after Chesnutt was interviewed. See "Mental Photos, No.97—Charles Waddell Chesnutt," Cleveland News, June 5, 1922, 13. [back]
