Flunk Fuss

From time to time a Negro has managed to get through West Point, become an officer in the Army. But no Negro has ever been graduated by the U. S. Naval Academy. The first two who managed to enter were flunked out for "being deficient in studies." The third, a Mississippian, was expelled in 1875 for "applying a very vile and profane epithet to a cadet midshipman at the mess table." Others have been unable to pass entrance examinations.

Last year Representative Arthur W. Mitchell of Chicago, only Negro in Congress, set out to win the distinction that has long been denied his race. He searched for a young Negro whose scholastic record would permit him to enroll at Annapolis without an entrance examination and who had light skin and Nordic features. These qualities he found in one James Lee Johnson Jr. of the District of Columbia. Because he had made a good record at high school and at Cleveland's Case School of Applied Science, and measured up to physical requirements, light-skinned James Johnson became the fourth Negro midshipman ever to walk under the oaks at Annapolis.

Fortnight ago Democrat Mitchell's man went the way of his three predecessors. Midshipman Johnson was one of 135 ordered to resign after routine mid-year examinations. "It's a clear case of railroading!" stormed Chicago's Mitchell when informed that his protege had poor eyesight and an excessive number of deportment demerits in addition to scholastic shortcomings. Straight to the White House he went.

"I think we will get fair play," he beamed after President Roosevelt assured him he would look into his charges of discrimination. Instead of being sent home immediately as is customary, on account of his dusky patron's fuss Midshipman Johnson and the 134 other flunkers were quartered in the Academy's Bancroft Hall as civilians to await final word from the President.

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