President Roosevelt, of course, appointed many negroes also. He believed that, when negroes possessed the proper qualifications for offices, they should have a share in them. Washington did not try to get very many negroes appointed, but he did try to get the very best negro when one was appointed. In other words, he was trying to improve the quality rather than increase the quantity of negro officeholders. After one of Washington’s speeches, in which he laid special emphasis on this idea, President Roosevelt sent him the following letter: My dear Washington: That is excellent; and you have put epigrammatically just what I am doing—that is, though I have rather reduced the quantity, I have done my best to raise the quality of Negro appointments. With high regards, Sincerely yours, Theodore Roosevelt.[33] Throughout the administrations of President Roosevelt and President Taft, Washington was constantly called into conference and rendered a lasting service to his own race and to the people of the country in giving wise counsel, not only about politics but about a great many things pertaining to the welfare of his people. Washington was often criticized very severely by members of his own race for his position with reference to voting. His ideas on this question are well stated in the following quotation: “I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon the political condition and the political future of my race.... My own belief is, although I have never before said so in so many words, that the time will come when the negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to. I think, though, that the opportunity to freely exercise such political rights will not come in any large degree through outside or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the negro by the Southern white people themselves, and that they will protect him in the exercise of these rights. Just as soon as the South gets over the feeling that it is being forced by ‘foreigners’ or ‘aliens’ to do something which it does not want to do, I believe that the change in the direction that I have indicated is going to begin.”[34] Again he says: “I contend that, in relation to his vote, the negro should more and more consider the interests of the community in which he lives, rather than seek alone to please some one who lives a thousand miles from him and his interests.”[35]