The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1901-11-06
Prejudice And Politics.

Prejudice And Politics.
President Roosevelt's dining
Booker Washington is seized up
on ravenously by the opponents
of commercial democracy"-as
it is contemptuously called-or
progressive democracy-as it
really is. By this blunder of the
President they hope to discount
the efforts of every man who
stands for the abandonment OF
dead issues and the adoption OF
broader political ideas.
There is no doubt that the
President has disguised the
whole South by his practical ex-
hibition of "social equality" with
the negro; and he has dealt a
death blow toa movement, which
was well under way, to establish
a decent white mans Republi-
can party in the South; a move
ment that the President had
shown a disposition to encour-
age by appointing white men to
federal offices in the South, and
a movement that many South
ern Democrats wanted to see ac-
complished.
But what has Roosevelt's din
ing a negro to do with politics
anyhow? Nothing whatever.
1t only means that President
Roosevelt, a Northern white
man, does not object to dining:
with Booker Washington, a south
ern negro. That is all it does
show. That the President is a
Republican is only incidental.
Social equality is not a matter
of politics at all; it is matter of
section to a large extent, but is
chiefly a matter of personal like
and dislike. Most North ern
men, as well as Southerners,
whether Republicans or Demo
Gratis, object to meeting negroes
on terms of social equality; but
they have not the race prejudice
that we of the South have. It
is imbedded in our very civiliza-
ton. While they object to ming
ling with the negro as a lower
class, they do not so much object
to him as an inferior race. In
the South, white men refuse to
associate with the negro on any
social footing whatever, just be-
cause he is a negro and without
regard to his character. They
can respect the negro fully
whenever he is entitled to re-
spect, as many of them are; but
they draw the line strictly at
social recognition. Nothern men
do not understand this. If a
white man respects a negro,
they ask, why may he not treat
him as his equal socially and in
all other respects? Without 60
ing into the why, we of the South
know that it cannot be done with
safety to Southern society.
This is so apparent to South
ern men that everybody down
here recognizes tit is not a
matter of controversy at all, but
a settled conviction and a fixed
fact. In the North. where the
negroes are so few, it is a differ
erent thing altogether; but even
there the ordinary negro knows
no such privilege as "social
equality"
But this has nothing to do
with politics at all. And Roose-
velt's dining with Booker Wash
ington had nothing Of politics in
it. In less than a week after
Washington dined with the Pres
Iident at the White House he din
ed with a university professor
| at Princeton, n. j., where North
ern Democrats as well as Repub-
licans sat at the table with him
among them W. S, Rissell, aIlife!
long Democrat, who was attor=
ney-general in President Cleve-
lands cabinet. And, going fur
ther back, Cleveland himself
dined a negro woman at his table
while President-the late un-
savory queen of Hawaii. Lilliuo-
kulani.
The stupidest of all alleged
arguments is that which some
of the newspapers are advancing
that because Roosevelt dined