1. It should be well known to all colored officers and men that no useful purpose is served by such acts as will cause the “Color Question” to be raised. It is not a question of legal rights, but a question of policy, and any policy that tends to bring about a conflict of races, with its resulting animosities, is prejudicial to the military interests of the 92nd Division, and therefore prejudicial to an important interest of the colored race.
2. To avoid conflicts the Division Commander has repeatedly urged that all colored members of his command, and especially the officers and non-commissioned officers should refrain from going where their presence will be resented. In spite of this injunction, one of the sergeants of the Medical Department has recently precipitated the precise trouble that should be avoided, and then called on the Division Commander to take sides in a row that should never have occurred, and would not have occurred had the sergeant placed the general good above his personal pleasure and convenience. This sergeant entered a theatre, as he undoubtedly had a legal right to do, and precipitated trouble by making it possible to allege race discrimination in the seat he was given. He is entirely within his legal rights in the matter, and the theatre manager is legally wrong. Nevertheless the sergeant is guilty of the greater wrong in doing anything, no matter how legally correct, that will provoke race animosity.
3. The Division Commander repeats that the success of the Division with all that that success implies, is dependent upon the good will of the public. That public is nine-tenths white. White men made the Division, and can break it just as easily as it becomes a trouble maker.
4. All concerned are again enjoined to place the general interest of the Division above personal pride and gratification. Avoid every situation that can give rise to racial ill-will. Attend quietly and faithfully to your duties, and don’t go where your presence is not desired.
5. This will be read to all organizations of the 92nd Division.
By Command of Major General Ballou.
Allen J. Greer,
Lieutenant Colonel General Staff,
Chief of Staff.
Official:
Edw. J. Turgeon,
Captain, Assistant Adjutant, Acting Adjutant.
Nothing that General Ballou could do in the way of prosecuting the theatre manager, which he is said to have done, could alleviate the moral effect of this order upon men who were being sent to another country to fight for the preservation of the very privileges of which they at that very moment were being denied.