He did
not propose to start off to lift his race by letting them imagine
that they could blossom into black Shakespeares and dusky
Raphaels in a single generation. He himself was a man of tact,
prudence, and sagacity with trained intelligence and a natural
gift of speaking.
To him President Roosevelt turned for some suggestions as to
appointing colored persons to offices in the South. It happened
that on the day appointed for a meeting Washington reached the
White House shortly before luncheon time, and that, as they had
not finished their conference, Roosevelt asked him to stay to
luncheon. Washington hesitated politely. Roosevelt insisted. They
lunched, finished their business, and Washington went away. When
this perfectly insignificant fact was published in the papers the
next morning, the South burst into a storm of indignation and
abuse. Some of the Southern journals saw, in what was a mere
routine incident, a terrible portent, foreboding that Roosevelt
planned to put the negroes back to control the Southern whites.
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