Office Phone Main 1387						Home Phone North 9193
			
				Whitefield McKinlay
			Real Estate, Loans and Insurance
				Notary Public
							920 F Street, N.W.
								Washington, D.C.
						
								August 16, 1917.

Colonel Charles Young,
United States Army (Retired)
Wilberforce, Ohio,

My dear Colonel Young:

	I have been very greatly interested in 
the matter of your retirement from active service in the regular 
establishment.  Many leading men of the race in this part of the 
country have also expressed themselves on the subject, and all 
of them practically without exception seem to think that you have 
been mistreated by the War authorities.  

	Some weeks before your retirement a gentleman very well 
informed on military matters told me that you were booked for 
retirement-that the cards were staked against you and that you 
would undoubtedly be eliminated because of the high rank to which 
you were eligible.

	We feel very despondent over this matter.  Your enforced 
retirement at a time when the country needs high military effic-
iency, and is scouring the whole world to find it, to eliminate 
a West Point graduate, who is still a young man looks as if color 
prejudice were responsible for it.

	I and all of my friends think that you should have been 
advanced-we were under the impression that you were in excellent 
physical condition, and I am taking the liberty to write you in 
confidence on this point.	

	We feel that if it be true that you have been "double 
crossed" the matter ought to be investigated and we are prepared 
to have a resolution to that effect introduced I Congress at 
this session-at least we will make a desperate effort to bring 
this about.
	
	This is to say that no matter what you may write me will 
be treated in strict confidence.  I am as you know a former student 
at West Point and have always taken great interest in the mili-
tary activities of our people.

	Hoping that you are well and that I may hear from you at an 
early date, I beg leave to remain,

					Very Sincerely yours,
					W McKinlay

			

Charles Young Collection

Letter from Whitefield McKinlay to Charles Young