Conciliation

For reasons unexplained but with apparent relation to the White House visit of Mrs. Oscar De Priest (TIME, June 24), the U. S. Department of Labor last week published a list of 15 occasions on which U. S. Presidents have socially entertained Negroes.

Secretary of Labor Davis was away for a holiday. The White House disclaimed knowledge of the list. It was issued by a Commissioner of Conciliation, Karl Phillips, Negro. Commissioners of Conciliation are assigned primarily to calming labor disputes.

The Phillips report was titled "Various Entertainments at the White House" and said that:

President Lincoln dined Frederick Douglass, Negro Abolitionist field worker in 1864, greeted him with "marked warmth" on his second inaugural reception.

President Grant entertained Louisiana's Negro Acting Governor Pinckney B. S. Pinchback and Louisiana's Negro Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce.

President Hayes "called socially" at the home of John M. Langston, Negro dean of Howard University's Law School; entertained Abolitionist Douglass.

President Cleveland entertained Abolitionist Douglass and the Negro Minister from Haiti.

President Roosevelt entertained Negro Recorder of Deeds & Mrs. John C. Dancy, Negro Registrar of the Treasury & Mrs. Judson W. Lyons. President Roosevelt "dined" the late famed head of Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute, Booker T. Washington.* After leaving the White House, Roosevelt had Assistant Attorney-General William H. Lewis, a Negro, as his overnight guest at his Oyster Bay home.

President Coolidge twice entertained Negro President Louis Borno of Haiti.

*The meal was at midday. President Roosevelt's explanation was that Caller Washington arrived at the White House as he (Roosevelt) was finishing luncheon and to save time the President invited him into the dining room.