(*this is a transcription of the actual article from 1916, including all original language, typos, grammar, etc.)

As President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson must go. The catch slogans of “peace and prosperity” must not befog the main issue. Especially is this true as the situation concerns the Negro citizens of the country.

As a college president, Woodrow Wilson may have been a success; as the chief executive of a great nation of cosmopolitan makeup Mr. Wilson has demonstrated a spirit of narrowness that riles the blood of those who love high-minded and even-handed justice. (Even so far as college life is concerned, Princeton is one of the great school in the east that says to the Negro student, “Thou shalt not.”)

Mr. Wilson is the chief representative and spokesman of a party that from the beginning has fastened the yoke of oppression around the neck of the Negro. Four years ago there was some hope that Mr. Wilson, because of the environment of northern life, might measure up to a higher standard than the average Democrat in dealing justly with our people. Some trusted him. History records no greater demonstration of misplaced confidence, and it is certainly a pitiful memory, the chagrin of his enthusiasts!

What has Mr. Wilson said or what has he done to place inspiration and hope in the breast of the Negro? Nothing, absolutely nothing. In discrimination, segregation, deprivation, oppression, humiliation and acquiescence, the administration of Presdent Wilson has been a gigantic object lesson for the Negroes of the United States.

Were it not for the restraining influence of Republican members in Congress, today, in the year of our Lord 1916, not only would we be deprived of citizenship rights, but uncloaked of all the attributes of manhood rights and reduced once more to the degrading standard of mere serfdom. Let him who doubts the truth of this assertion refer to the Congressional Record and behold the startling nature of some of the bills introduced into Congress by southern Democrats!

To the end that the Negroes of the United States—or that portion not yet disfranchised by the southern mossbacks—may let the world know their feelings about the present Democratic administration, above all things else, this year our votes will be VOTES OF PROTEST AGAINST WOODROW WILSON AND BOURBON DEMOCRACY.

WOODROW WILSON MUST GO as President of the United States.

And after the 4th of next March, once again under the Stars and Stripes we can breathe the air of freedom, when Charles Evans Hughes is President.

Cleveland Advocate

Woodrow Wilson Must Go

Volume:  03
Issue Number:  24
Page Number:  08
Date:  10/21/1916

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