51 8 Presidential Addresses 



in the South at large represent not merely an im- 

 provement upon those whose places they took, but 

 upon the whole a higher standard of Federal service 

 than has hitherto been attained in the communities 

 in question. I may add that the proportion of col- 

 ored men among these new appointees is only about 

 one in a hundred. 



In view of all these facts I have been surprised, 

 and somewhat pained, at what seems to me the in- 

 comprehensible outcry in the South about my ac- 

 tions an outcry apparently started in New York 

 for reasons wholly unconnected with the question 

 nominally at issue. I am concerned at the attitude 

 thus taken by so many of the Southern people; but 

 I am not in the least angry; and still less will this 

 attitude have the effect of making me swerve one 

 hair's breadth,' to one side or the other, from the 

 course I have marked out the course I have con- 

 sistently followed in the past and shall consistently 

 follow in the future. 



With regard, 



Sincerely yours, 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

 HON. CLARK HOWELL, 



Editor, "The Constitution," 

 Atlanta, Ga. 



ON May 18, 1903, William A. Miller was re- 

 moved by the Public Printer from his position of 

 Assistant Foreman at the Government Printing Of- 

 fice. Mr. Miller filed a complaint with the Civil 



