Wilson capitulated. In a conversation with Wilson, journalist John Palmer Gavit came to the realization that opposition to those views "would certainly precipitate a conflict which would put a complete stop to any legislative program." Since the end of Reconstruction, both parties recognized certain appointments as unofficially reserved for qualified African-Americans. Wilson appointed a total of nine African-Americans to prominent positions in the federal bureaucracy, eight of whom were Republican carry-overs. For comparison, William Howard Taft was met with disdain and outrage from Republicans of both races for appointing thirty-one black officeholders, a record low for a Republican president. Upon taking office, Wilson fired all but two of the seventeen black supervisors in the federal bureaucracy appointed by Taft. Since 1863, the U.S. mission to Haiti and Santo Domingo was almost always led by an African-American diplomat regardless of what party the sitting president belonged to; Wilson ended this half-century-old tradition but continued to appoint black diplomats like George Washington Buckner, as well as Joseph L. Johnson, to head the mission to Liberia. Since the end of Reconstruction, the federal bureaucracy had been possibly the only career path where African-Americans could experience some measure of equality, and was the life blood and foundation of the black middle-class. Wilson's administration escalated the discriminatory hiring policies and segregation of government offices that had begun under Theodore Roosevelt and continued under Taft. In Wilson's first month in office, Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson urged the president to establish segregated government offices. Wilson did not adopt Burleson's proposal but allowed Cabinet Secretaries discretion to segregate their respective departments. By the end of 1913, many departments, including the Navy, Treasury, and Post Office, had segregated work spaces, restrooms, and cafeterias. Many agencies used segregation as a pretext to adopt a whites-only employment policy, claiming they lacked facilities for black workers. In these instances, African-Americans employed prior to the Wilson administration were either offered early retirement, transferred, or simply fired. Racial discrimination in federal hiring increased further when after 1914, the United States Civil Service Commission instituted a new policy requiring job applicants to submit a personal photo with their application. As a federal enclave, Washington, D.C., had long offered African-Americans greater opportunities for employment and less glaring discrimination. In 1919, black veterans returning home to D.C. were shocked to discover Jim Crow laws had set in, many could not go back to the jobs they