The Green Forest tribune., 1901-11-09
COL. JONES INTERVIEWED.
Talks to The Tribune on the
 Topics of the Day.


 Col. Iverson A. Jones was up from Grass Leaf Farm again on Tuesday last on his usual round- up of business affairs. The colo nel was delighted over the recent rain and was, we believe, in lit tie worse talking humor than usual.
 We find the colonel "off" oc- casionally, according to our way of thinking, but when he referred to our article of two weeks ago on the "Lessons of the Drought" as one of the very finest he ever read in country newspaper, we decided that he was entirely ex- cusable for differing from us on other matters, matters of less inn portance than fruit raising is at the present time to the people of this country.
 Letting the conversation drift into national affairs, in which no man in Arkansas keeps more thoroughly posted than does Col, Jones, he expressed much hope for the country's prosperity un- der the administration of Presi- dent Roosevelt. He thinks that there is good blood in the man who now holds the reins of our Federal government. MT. Jones says he has known of the family of the presidents mother-the Bullocks-in Georgia, for more than 30 years. He says Mrs. Roosevelt was flower of south ern womanhood and that her pure blood now warns and en- obles the veins of our president. Mr. Jones heartily indorses the presidents reciprocity movement concerning which he said: "I am an absolute free trader; as there are no middling good eggs there are no middling good tariffs; but we must consider our en- vironments as a nation. Every nation in the world except Great Britian has protective tariff. Reciprocity is the ohly gate we can open that will let us into their markets.
 Asked as to what he thought of the president having dined with a negro few days ago, to our sur prise, Col. Jones indorsed this action of the president in toto. He said:
 "Mr. Washington is the finest representative of the negro race. There is no personal merit in a man having long hair and light skin. There is no moral obliquity in Washington wearing a skin of "a darker hue-it is d badge of the Almighty. He is engaged in the noblest way possible. He is training the colored youth for the awful responsibility of American citizenship. He was called to- Washington, not by Theodore Roosevelt, but by the chief mag istrate of this mighty and puissant nation in consultation on a grave qu uestion of the highest states manship. In the president re- ceiving the food for thought from the fine and noble mind of Wash ington, he, in my humble judg- ment, in no way degraded his manhood, nor was Washington elevated by receiving some bread and butter for his stomach from the table of Roosevelt. There is, however, just as much and no more social equality in talking with a negro on a great public question than there is in eating with him. I was raised in middle Georgia and have been demo- crat ali the days of my life, and have about as much prejudice as any other man, but my prejudice detracts from my manhood and from the finer feelings of the heart and mind. This prejudice is the gangrene of my youthful environment, and while 1 am in- capable myself of rising above it, Tprofoundly admire those whose golden nature is such that they live above this moral or immoral fog. The noise that is being