Evening star., 1901-10-18
Booker WashinGton's Dinner.

The bltter remuneration OF PreSldent
Roosevelt by southern newspapers and
southern public men for his dinner to
Booker T Washington suggests the fu-
tility of the effort to build up in the south
a party which. avoiding or ignoring the
race question. shall give expression to the
natural sentiments of that section on great
national issues. The prejudices of the
south are clearly too strong to permit par
tisan divisions there on economic issues
simply on their merits in consideration of
their bearing upon southern prosperity and
welfare. President Roosevelt has ignored
political distinctions in the appointment Of
a federal judge. he has turned DOWN the
regular republican machine and the negro
in politics in other southern appointments
and he has honored that negro whose
teaching is in effect the political self-efface-
ment of his race and it's development as
an industrial factor. But the method
which he has selected to honor this negro
has rendered his action not an indorse-
ment of the southern view of the proper
aspiration of the negro, but 'the most
damnable outrage which has ever been per-
petrated." The south is willing to praise
and in its way honor Booker Washington
for teaching the negro to develop himself
morally, mentally and financially, and not
10 view the possession OIL the DdiiOt OF OF
political office as the chief end of man, but
it pronounces unclean and avoids as lep-
rous a President who would invite this
nigger to dine with him at the White
House." And it appears that in order to
lay the foundations of party through
which the south may sustain those poll
cies of sound money and of territorial and
trade expansion, which are traditional in the
section and which are now absolutely es-
sential to its material welfare, a President
Of the United States must not only condone
open and fragrant violations of constitu-
tional amendments and the retention in the
national councils of an undue and uncon-
stitutional preponderance of southern rep
resentation; must not only refrain from
any Indignant utterances which might Of
fend the sensitiveness of those whom 1t
pleases to indulge in the practice of burn
ing negroes at the stake; must not only
shut out the negro from office and in effect
command him to refrain from the exercise
of rights of citizenship in the south, but
must even choose the guests at his official
dinners solely with reference to the social
prejudices of American citizens residing in
the south.
The continuance of the era of good feel
ing and the effort to bring about a condi-
A4p4i VI lAllilSS pOiltlCdi III WHICH tHe south
can work for the national policies which
are vital 10 it's prosperity is of far more
concern to the people of that section than
to any other Americans, or to any Pres-
dent or party whatsoever. No republican
electoral votes from the south can be hoped
for during this generation. Politically the
game is not worth the candle. The move
ment is, however, for the permanent uIti-
mate benefit both of the south and of the
whole republic. 1t is unfortunate, from
the point of view of well-wishers of the
south, that this episode occurred. The
blame attaches not to the President who
''ate with a niger" but to the men who
with that occurrence as a text, have dem
onstrated in the name of whole section
how abject a surrender of all personal
principles and convictions is demanded by
them from a President, with whom they
will permit themselves to associate polit-
ically and from whom they can with self
respect accept offices and policies which
benefit their own section more than any
other. There is already impatience in the
north and west over the extent of the ad-
vances made by Presidents Mckinley and
Roosevelt to maintain the era of good feel
ing in the south, and this outburst over an
episode personal to the President and in
it's political bearing not unfriendly to the
southern view is distinctly a tactical blum
dar