Today -100: October 20, 1910: The nose of a conqueror

A letter to the NYT by Eugene V. Brewster (presumably the lawyer/painter/film director) suggests that the NY Democratic Party is wrong not to send John Dix campaigning around the state in his gubernatorial quest, which they evidently decided because he is a crap speaker and “is not a man of prepossessing appearance”. Not so, says Brewster, obviously crushing on Dix big time: “Mr. Dix is tall, broad-shouldered, dignified, stately, yet democratic in bearing and manner, with the brow of the philosopher, the nose of a conqueror, and the chin of a determined, strong-willed man, born to lead and to command.”

A NYT editorial about a “convention of negroes” in Oklahoma which declared that negroes, while being 15-20% of the state’s population and having loyally supported the Republican Party, have gotten nothing back, so all black people should vote socialist instead (which seems to ignore that the state just disenfranchised most of them two months ago by adopting literacy tests). The NYT warns them that they will not get social equality “by any political methods. A great many of their best leaders declare they do not desire it, preferring a social code for their own race alone, and disdaining to seek intercourse with others.” And they would gain political equality “more surely and sooner if they vote independently as men and not in a body as a race.”