Timeline
1900 to 1910
By AMY LUM and HANSI ZHU
Staff Writers
Content Warning: Articles in this series depict specific instances of racial violence and aggression against Black and other non-white people. Racial epithets, though censored, are included.
This article is part of the multi-part series Since 1878, a project undertaken by the 142nd Board of The Exonian. The principal objective of this series is to examine the paper’s coverage of racism at the Academy and, by extension, in the country as a whole. This series will not provide a complete overview of racist events over the years in question. Additionally, research draws heavily from The Exonian’s archives, which present a biased depiction of racial dynamics at the Academy. Instead, the articles will offer a portrait of The Exonian, the Academy and the nation, decade by decade, by highlighting pieces published in the paper.
In Since 1878, The Exonian will follow the National Association for Black Journalists’ recommendations, referring to the n-word as [n-word], censoring n-gro in most contexts and capitalizing Black, in line with our updated style guide.
Regarding privacy, there are individuals named in these articles who are still alive today. Their statements represent their views as minors in the middle of their education. Most high schoolers do not write for publications like The Exonian, which archives every issue. The editors of the paper understand this unique situation and that views often change over time, particularly those held during high school. Additionally, every article represents more than its writer. Pieces in The Exonian go through editors and advisers, reflecting an institutional history.
However, Since 1878 uses their names to ground itself in the tangible and proximate. In Since 1878, the editors choose full transparency over perpetuating ambiguity and obscuring our history of racism.
“This is not a manufacturing or a trade town,” J.C. McNeil, an editor from North Carolina, wrote in Sep. 1905. “It is the seat of the famous Phillips Exeter Academy for boys, the Eton of America—if there is an Eton. Its 400 or 500 students come from all parts of the nation and the world and represent the white, [B]lack, yellow and red races.” Of those students, then-Principal Harlan P. Amen noted that only about a half-dozen were Black.
The turn of the century saw a marked decline in reporting on Black lives, both at Exeter and beyond, in The Exonian. Despite a lack of coverage in The Exonian, minstrelsy remained a staple on Exeter’s campus for good portions of the decade, and racist rhetoric pervaded campus dialogue, particularly in the Golden Branch, the G. L. Soule Literary Society and the Christian Fraternity.
This decade also included the rise of neo-colonialism by the United States. In the early 1900s, America’s territorial empire expanded with the seizure of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spain in 1898, as well as the extension of U.S. control over Cuba. The rapid acquisition of distant, largely non-white territories and the general growth of Western economic influence around the world brought to the national stage both new and old questions about colonial rule, immigration and self-determination. Many of these questions were debated at the Academy.
Coverage
Guest Lecturers
During the early 1900s, Academy invited numerous speakers who encouraged the “civilization” of Asian and other non-Western countries through missionary efforts. Most of the speakers came through the Christian Fraternity, which later merged with Student Council. One such speaker, Dr. John Hopkins Denison, spoke before the club on Oct. 18, 1908, recounting how, as he “often wondered to [himself] what the real value of Christianity was… [he] determined to set out for some land inhabited by savages, and see for [himself] the effect of Christianity upon them,” The Exonian wrote.
He told students about his travels to New Britain, now part of modern day Papua New Guinea, where he “found almost every inhabitant to be a savage” and described them as “cannibals, scantily clothed, and with big war clubs in their hands.”
On April 28, 1907, Reverend E. P. Smith, another speaker for the Christian Fraternity, emphasized that “[In the West,] the commercial man has taken steps to secure his power,” while in the rest of the world, “[w]e need intelligent men to go out and help spread the gospel,” The Exonian reported.
Smith focused particularly on the need to spread and adhere to Christian values while furthering American economic influence and the interests of the American government. “The Philippines are opening up vast resources for the enterprising man,” The Exonian reported him saying. “He goes there for experience and a fortune. The conduct of these men in those islands means a great deal to this government… China is awakening and looking to Japan for assistance. We cannot avoid that country.”
Other Fraternity speakers perpetuated degrading language towards Native Americans. One such speaker, Rev. H. B. Smith, came to address the Fraternity on the state of Christianity in Oklahoma in Oct. 1908. He spoke of the supposed “great influence” that whites had over Native Americans, “on account of their bringing so many new things into the country.”
“A story to illustrate this might not be out of place,” The Exonian recorded him saying. “A man from Canton, Ohio, was the first to bring a bicycle into the state, and when he was seen riding up and down the streets, an old Indian remarked ‘White man right smart, walk sitting down.’ This goes to show how the Indians look upon the white man.”
Other campus speakers continued to perpetuate racist and Orientalist stereotypes. On Dec. 14, 1900, journalist John Foster Bass ’86, a member of the Golden Branch, an editor for The Exonian and one of the first white people to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing, told students in Chapel (now Assembly) about his journeys to the Philippines. According to him, “It is… difficult for us to understand [the character of Filipinos], for they are Orientals… Truth is not one of their virtues. They are excessively courteous and would not hurt the feelings of anybody… Their leading men are often too apt to dream rather than act. They have lofty ideas, but do not put them into execution.”
Published Oct. 16, 1909.
Debates
The Exonian frequently reported at the time on club gatherings, including and especially those of the Golden Branch, the predecessor to the Daniel Webster Debate Society, and the Literary Society, another Debate Society precursor. Their debates frequently discounted the worth and rights of Black lives. For instance, in Oct. 1909, The Exonian reported on a weekly meeting of the Golden Branch whose topic—just as in 1893—was “Resolved, That n-gro suffrage should be abolished.”
According to the club’s vote, the affirmative side won the debate—on both the “merits of the question” and the “merits of the debate.” Black students had attended Exeter for over fifty years.
Other times, the Golden Branch and Literary Society would partner for debates against freshmen at Harvard. One such debate, held in 1903, centered on whether “the disenfranchisement clauses of the New Alabama Constitution are inexpedient.”
Exeter took the negative and proceeded to argue for the disenfranchisement of Black people in the Jim Crow South. Senior C. F. Moore, for instance, claimed that, “in order to benefit the feeling between the n-gro and the white man, first the ballot should temporarily be withdrawn from the n-gro.”
Racism towards Asians was also a staple of the Golden Branch and the Literary Society. For instance, on Nov. 16, 1901, the Golden Branch debated the question, “Resolved, That the restriction of the immigration of the Chinese into the United States should be continued.” A similar question had been debated in 1888. This debate was described as “undoubtedly the best… held this year.”
The club voted in favor of furthering restrictions on Chinese immigration, both based on the merits of the questions and the merits of the debate.
On March 9, 1907, the annual debate between the Golden Branch and the G. L. Soule Literary Society centered on a 1906 decision by the San Francisco School Board to segregate students of several Asian ethnicities into select “Oriental schools.” “Resolved,” the debate topic read, “That the people of San Francisco were justified in segregating the Japanese children from the schools of San Francisco.”
The Golden Branch argued for the positive and the Literary Society for the negative. At one point, an argument against segregation rested on the claim that “the Japanese are not Mongolians and hence the school board had no law upon which to base its act of segregation,” implicitly supporting the segregation of “Mongolians.”
An argument for the affirmative by the Golden Branch, on the other hand, called for the segregation of Japanese school children because “the Japanese in San Francisco were of the cooly class, morally low in character and generally dishonest… The parents of the white school children could not allow their children to associate with the Japanese of such low morality.” The rest of the arguments centered on the legality of segregation.
On Dec. 8, 1900, the Academy engaged in a debate with Harvard’s freshman debate team on the question, “Resolved, That the permanent retention of the Philippine Islands by the United States is desirable.” The Exeter team argued for the negative, though in a way that prioritized U.S. interests and with the same imperialist attitudes used to justify the further occupation of the Philippines.
Harvard began by arguing that the Constitution authorized the United States to acquire as much territory as it desired. Exeter responded that the United States could not hope to retain the islands practically because “[t]he Filipinos are diametrically opposed, in antecedents, in characteristics, in almost every way, to the German race.”
Harvard argued that the Philippines were a necessary economic asset for the United States, with its bountiful natural resources and location close to China and Japan; Exeter responded that the United States would be able to exploit the nation even if it were independent. Harvard’s third representative, an Exeter graduate at Harvard, argued that the people of the Philippines were incapable of governing themselves and that it was the duty of the United States to control the islands. Exeter responded that Filipinos would be able to form a stable government themselves, but only because in contrast with other groups they were “civilized and Christianized” and “equals of the same class of Europeans and Americans.”
Minstrel Shows
Student-run minstrel shows continued to play a significant role in Academy social life, though their popularity took a steady decline across the 1900s, in line with national trends. The Exonian reported that the Academy staged minstrel performances in 1902, 1903 and 1906, notably fewer than the number of shows in the previous decade.
After a hiatus from 1903 to 1905, during which a “midwinter exhibition” ran in its place, a group of students revived the annual minstrel show in 1906. The Exonian was unable to obtain details about this “exhibition,” but many Exonians called for the return of minstrel shows.
The Oct. 27, 1906 issue, for instance, noted that “the loss of the annual minstrel show was greatly felt.” “So,” The Exonian continued, “a performance [was] to be held near the end of the fall … [and] every man with talent for minstrels should support this undertaking with spirit and should do his best to help in its production.”
Published Dec. 8, 1906.
In its Dec. 12, 1906 issue, The Exonian praised this show for the “energetic manner in which the whole idea was conceived and executed.” The paper went on, “It is to be regretted, however, that the project received such poor support by both students and townspeople, though the conditions of the weather were no doubt largely responsible.”
Another article in the Dec 15. issue berated the school administration for “not cooperat[ing] with [the minstrel show] so as to make it a financial success, which it rightly demanded on account of its excellence.” That article referred to the Dec. minstrel as “a good cause.”
In part due to its lower-than-expected turnout and revenue numbers, the 1906 performance would be the last one noted in The Exonian for a decade, until minstrel shows returned in 1916. The Exonian, however, continued to report off-campus minstrel shows, including one at Bowdoin College in 1909.
Booker T. Washington Jr.
Along with events on college campuses, The Exonian often reported famous visitors to Exeter. In May 1907, the paper noted that one such visitor was Black thinker and intellectual Booker T. Washington. Washington’s son, Booker T. Washington Jr., was a student at the Academy until Oct. 7, 1907, when he withdrew to attend Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
At the same time, his roommate Juan E. Gomez, the son of a Cuban general who had attended the Tuskegee Institute with Washington, also withdrew from the Academy. Gomez received an honorable letter of dismissal, while Washington did not.
The Exonian, for its part, did not report on Booker T. Washington Jr. or his departure. The national press took up the story. Several daily newspapers across the country, particularly in the South and Midwest, published reports of Washington Jr.’s departure. These accounts sensationalized the incident in a racist manner.
“N-gro is Angry,” the pages of the Cleveland Plain Dealer read, while the same city’s Gazette titled their piece “Booker Washington Quit in a Huff.” Southern newspapers also took up the story as evidence of Washington Jr.’s misbehavior. For instance, the Macon Telegraph, from Macon, Georgia, wrote that “Academy Discipline Was Too Much for Booker T., Jr.,” while a Times-Picayune headline in New Orleans claimed that “Booker Washington’s Son Leaves Academy Rather than Face Discipline.”
Washington Jr. claimed that he and Cruz were racially discriminated against at the Academy. The principal at the time, Harlan P. Amen, issued a statement to the Associated Press in which he denied the allegations and “declare[d] that there was no discrimination and that both young men were treated in the same manner as the 400 white boys and half-dozen other n-groes still at the Academy,” as the Plain Dealer read. “Washington left the school rather than accept school discipline,” Amen said. Amen alleged that Washington Jr.’s school discipline was a result of not attending class.
No national newspaper published any statement from Washington Jr. or his father.
Southern Club
The Southern Club was founded in 1900 “to bring the members into closer contact with one another and to promote the interest of the school in the South.” While Since 1878 did not find records of the specific conversation topics from their weekend meetings, Southern Club hosted popular annual dinners and dances. In at least one of these meetings, decades later, a Confederate flag was prominently displayed.
Exeter culture continued to perpetuate racist structures that justified and upheld segregation at home and imperialism abroad. Between its guest speakers, club discussions, entertainment, social life and even disciplinary systems, the Academy made little attempt to escape its ongoing racism and actively perpetuated racist attitudes. Little is known, at least from The Exonian’s archives, about the experiences of the Academy’s few Black students, but the pressures they faced—both from discrimination at the Academy and racism from their peers—are indicative of the weight they had to carry.