Others alleged the milder motive that he was fishing for negro
votes. The common type of fire-eaters saw in it one of
Roosevelt's unpleasant ways of having fun by insulting the South.
And Southern cartoonists took an ignoble, feeble retaliation by
caricaturing even Mrs. Roosevelt.
The President did not reply publicly. As his invitation to Booker
Washington was wholly unpremeditated, he was surprised by the
rage which it caused among Southerners. But he was clear-sighted
enough to understand that, without intending it, he had made a
mistake, and this he never repeated. Nothing is more elusive than
racial antipathy, and we need not wonder that a man like
Roosevelt who, although he was most solicitous not to hurt
persons' feelings and usually acted, unless he had proof to the
contrary, on the assumption that everybody was blessed with a
modicum of good-will and common sense, should not always be able
to foresee the strange inconsistencies into which the antipathy
of the white Southerners for the blacks might lead.
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