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I have not hurried to answer your letter of February 2nd in re Newton D. Baker as a possible appointee to the United States Supreme Court bench, first, because I have been confined at home by illness since receiving your letter, and, second, because of the difficulty of expressing myself upon the subject.
Mr. Baker is an excellent lawyer and a very fine gentleman. We have often met, and our relations have always been friendly and cordial. But Mr. Baker is a Southerner, with all that the word even at its best implies. In saying this, I am not unmindful of the fact that the late Justice White was a Southerner, to say nothing of Justice Harlan, both of whom, especially the latter, never to my knowledge let the matter of race becloud their judgment or color their decisions.
I have often discussed the race problem with Mr. Baker, and only recently have I had occasion to criticize his attitude. He is a clever advocate, and while he would not consciously, I think, seek to make the worse appear the better part, he can, as Mr. Villard well said in his recent article in The Nation on "The Perfect Secretary of War", make whatever side he takes on a controverted subject, seem right.
In conversation with him a couple of years ago, he admitted his having signed the agreement of the Shaker Heights Protective Association, and gave as his reason the fact that practically all the estate he would leave to his wife and children would be his residence, and that the immediate proximity of a colored neighbor would decrease the value of his property at least one-half—which is probably true enough, I am sorry to say.
When I cited an Ohio case had held invalid a condition of a deed against sale to a person of color, he distinguished between such a condition and an agreement among owners to the same effect, having in mind, I imagine, the Washington case with which you are no doubt familiar; and when I insisted that the principle was the same, and the owners' agreement was simply an evasion which the Supreme Court could not tolerate, he frankly disagreed with me, and said he thought they would sustain it. That being so, I leave it to you whether or not Mr. Baker would be a sound man to pass on a case involving such a question.
When Thompson was elected mayor of Chicago over Dever, Mr. Baker was quoted in an interview in I think a St. Louis paper as saying that Thompson had capitalized the ignorance of the Chicago electorate to the extent of thirty or forty thousand Negro votes, to defeat the better candidate.
The late George Myers, who was then alive, took the matter up with Mr. Baker, suggesting, which was true, that even without the colored vote, Thompson would have been elected. Several letters passed between them, but Baker stood his ground, and would not admit any substantial error or misjudgment on his part. Poor George is dead—peace to his ashes!—but I imagine that that correspondence might be interesting. I will call up Mrs. Myers and ask her if she by any chance has any correspondence between her late husband and Mr. Baker.
In a conversation not very long ago with Mr. Baker, as to a probable solution of the race question, I suggested the amalgamation of the races. Mr. Baker said that was absurd, unthinkable, and he said it in a tone of voice and with a flash of the eye, which seemed to class it as a akin to incest or sexual perversion. Of course, he probably reflected the opinion of ninety-nine white people out of a hundred, but in the event of a general law forbidding the intermarriage of the races, which is always possible, I again leave to you whether it would be safe to have the question decided by a judge with such a preconceived opinion.
I freely admit that I am prejudiced against Southerners in all matters involving questions of race. Their attitude toward the inviolability of their race, in spite of visible and increasing evidence to the contrary, is like that
It is a matter on which I imagine we think alike, and it is somewhat difficult to write about, especially where it concerns a man to whom I am indebted for many business favors. I wish it distinctly understood that even the little that I have said here is in confidence, and that my name is not to be mentioned in connection with any expressions of opinion you may publish. I am like Mr. Baker to this extent, that I am still in business, and would not like to have my interests jeopardized, even in a good cause, by talking too much.
I am sorry to see that the N.A.A.C.P. got out of the Scottsboro case, so that my failure to make a substantial contribution did not affect the matter any.