The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1902-09-13
THE P/CA IUVE and Al
OPPOSING PARTY.

LII d IeCehG lllt' I'VE"
Orleans Picayune says:
THE efforts of President
Roosevelt to build up a white
Repub lican party in the South
ern States should meet with
favor by all who have the good
Of this part Of the country at
heart
Though we are by no means
willing to admit that President
Roosevelt is trying to organize
a white Republican party in the
South. we do not think that
even so powerful a man as the
strenuous Theodore can hope
for success in so difficult an un-
dertaking. But what reason
have we to believe that Mr..
Roosevelt wants to build up a
white Republican party in the
South? It is true that MIR.
Roosevelt has appointed some
eminently respectable white
men to Federal Offices in the
South, but it is equally true that
he appointed negroes to posi-
tons of trust and honor in this
section. His predecessor, Mr..
Mckinley, did the same thing
and, as far as we know, no one
ever accused that great pOliti-
clan of entertaining a desire to
Caucasianize Republicanism in
the Southern States. Mr.. Nc
Kinley was as much friend OF
the South as Republican presi-
dent could be. Barring Mr..
Cleveland, he did more than any
other president since the war to
wipe out sectional lines. The
instincts of a broad charity in
his nature rebelled against the
narrow prejudices that were
born of the Civil War. He had
been a soldier himself. He had
fought to give civil and political
rights to the negro. He had
been a Republican when Stevens
and Sumner expounded the Re
publican doctrine of equal polit-
ical rights, irrespective OF race,
color or previous condition. He
understood the genius of Repub-
licanism. And at the outbreak
of the Spanish war, when he
greeted the South as a loyal por-
ton of the Republic, issued COM
missions to ex-COnfederate gen
erals and welcomed the sons OF
Southern soldiers who vOlun-
teered to fight for the flag, the
chimera of white Repu blican
party in the Southern States did
not enter his mind. President
Mckinley was as good friend
of the South as he could be I'M
der the circum stances, but he
was no rainbow chaser. In the
higher and better sense he was
thoroughly schooled in practical
politics. He did not try to do
the impossible, but he did not
find it necessary to give gra-
tuitous insult to the Southern
people by entertaining a negro
in the White House as a guest of
his family.
Conceding that President
Roosevelt is magnanimOusly en-
gagged in organizing a white Re
publican party in the South to
oppose the Democracy, we fear
that the esteemed Picayune is
doomed to disappointment. 1t
is admitted that here in Louis
lana there are men who are sin
cerely in favor Of organizing a
white Republican party, but
how can they succeed? Such
a thing is an anomaly. Is is vi
sionary, impractical. No Re
publican party can live and
thrive with white supremacy as
it's shibboleth. The Picayune
is old enough to know that. A
Christian sect might as well
deny the divinity of Christ and
expect to make converts and re
tain it's standing in the Chris
tian world.
We are inclined to think that
the Picayune and all others who
hone, to see the Southern Demo-