“Because the present administration may be powerless in the matter, afraid to touch it, fearing a live wire or something of that kind, should our duty in the premises, toward our own, be influenced thereby?

     “I wonder—­is the time not now—­right now, to commence an attack
     upon this intrenched scandal—­this dirty, humiliating Americanism?

“No other nation on earth, Christian or pagan, treats its defenders, its soldiery, so meanly, so shabbily, as does this, her black defenders; but whether the nation is more to blame, than we, who so long have submitted without a murmur, is a question.  ’The trouble’ shouted Cassius to Brutus, ’is not in our stars, that we are Underlings, but in ourselves.’

“Shall we, responding to the initiative furnished by captain Roots, commence an organized assault upon this national vice against the soldiers of our race?  Is this the time, readers of The Defender?  Is this the time, brothers and editors of the contemporary press?

R.S.  Abbott.”

Following in the footsteps of Captain Roots; apparently obsessed by the same vision and spirit, Mr. Willis O. Tyler, eminent Los Angeles race representative, attorney and Harvard graduate, also makes a plea for justice for Negro troops in the regular army, also for Negro officers, and proposes reforms and legislation for utilizing the present force of Negro officers, and creating enlarged opportunities for others.  Says Mr. Tyler: 

“Officers in the regular army for the most part, are graduates of West Point.  They are commissioned second lieutenants at graduation.  No Negro has graduated from West Point in the past twenty-nine years, and none has entered there in 32 years.  Col.  Charles Young graduated in 1889, twenty-nine years ago,—­he entered in 1884.  Henry W. Holloway entered in 1886, but attended only that year.  In all, only twelve Negroes have ever attended West Point and only three have graduated.  Of the three graduates, the first, Henry O. Flipper (1877) was afterwards discharged.

“The second, John H. Alexander (1887) died in 1894.  The third and last graduate, Charles Young (1889) has but recently been returned to active duty.  We understand he has attained the rank of Colonel.  The Negroes of the United States, to the number of twelve millions, have only one West Point graduate in the regular army.  There are however four regiments of Colored troops, two of infantry, and two of cavalry, and these have been maintained for 52 years, (since 1866), and more than two hundred officers find places in the four Colored regiments.  These two hundred officers, with about three exceptions are white officers.  In all, only twelve Negroes have held commissions in the regular army.  Of this number seven were Chaplains and two were