The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-04-24
The Conference Hears Re.
ports on Field Work.
Continued From First Page.

grow into voting with you on questions
which affect their business, their home
interests and their racial instinct in the
South If with us they were adherents
to one party, with you, by force of cir
cumstances, they become adherents to
another. This does not necessarily in
yolve any change of fundamental views
l. only involves a question of relation
ship. blanket could cover both par
ties in nearly every State on any ques
lions which they sincerely advance. But
blanket would not cover and it cannot
be stretched to cover which of the two
parties in all the circumstances is the
better instrumentality for the results
which must be fostered and preserved
in the interests of civilization and the
home. Still with you and with us in in
tellectual contemplation party is becom-
ing a factor not a fetch; a servant, not
a master; means, not an end Any
ether view of it than this tends to make
man not a citizen, but a slave; not
a suffragan, but a serf: not voter
but a victim. y There has been
manifest and an overwhelming revolt
against the lowering conception of pub
lie intelligence by beaten bosses, by mis-
leading leaders, by discounted dema-
eogues and by stranded cranks.
SOME ADMISSIONS.
while at the confessional, let me ad-
NIT that with us the question of how
government shall be conducted on its bus
mess side outclasses the consideration
of how it shall be conducted on the lines
of its theories. The issue of clean and
honest, frugal and simple, responsible,
indctable and punishable administration
with us overlays issues of purely fantastic
import. We would like to substi
tute a bipartisan or non-partisan COM
mission of business men as permanent
corps OF experts on economic subjects
for a system of competition responding
to the greed of contributing and recouping
monopolies or to the intellectual indi-
gestion af anemic Missionaries. Our bust
ness laws should be a hodge-podge Meth
or of Mysteries nor of hypocrisy The
dictionary is too small for the mind of a
child. The ramifed needs, the multitudin-
Gus interests and the diversified resources
and activities of our people are too large
for settlement on party lines.
"Our politics had been better, our lives
had been sweeter, our friendships had
been finer, had we left such quarrel
words as Silver Craze, Gold Bugs. Coin
Clippers, Plutocrats, Bloated Bondholders
and Roaring Regulators out of the con
tention. Take any other of the subjects,
for instance, by which with wind and
tongue demagogues have divided our peo-
pie Recur for q moment to the tariff,
The concern of it must be revenue for
the government. An auxiliary considera-
ton of it must be the wage of the peo-
pie The first must be enough and the
second must not be reduced. 1t logically
follows that duties must conserve and
preserve rates. That rule followed ont
would produce business tariff which
it would be a satire to baptize with any
party name; as much of satire as 1T
would be politically to christen a civil
or a criminal code.
TN the same way, take up Civil Ser
vice Reform. 1t is based on the propo-
sition that public business is business,
and that it is not more or less with the
word public put in front of it than with
that word left out. From this, it follows
that as fOr all business competency, fiCel-
ity and intelligence should be a condi-
tion of appointment and a security OF
tenure, so in all business should merit,
experience, capacity and character de
serve and obtain promotion Should our
State Government and our National Gov
crnments apply to their business the
sanity the justice and the enterprise
which lowered into such Southern results
as the Atlanta, the Nashville, the Charles
ton, and the New Orleans Exposition,
making them splendid successes of art
skill, labor and cooperation, mixed with
brains, we should almost reach the thres
hold of the golden age which is the de-
sire of nation.
NEED OF CANDOR AND LIBERALITy.
Il might run the gamut of all ques-
tions by which, since the war, South and
North have been at times divided, and
by which they have been divided within
parties as we'll as between them. My
object, however, will have been accom-
plshed if / have suggested to the friends
with whom l came and to the friends
that we have made here, the fact that
We all really agree rather than actually
differ on matters of vivid and vital con-
cerp to our commemorative and to our
republic Too little of our argument ar
CUES. Too little of our debate debates.
Too much of our contention is about
names rather than about things Too
much of our controversy is around terms
rather than around truth. Too much of
our talk is for victory rather than for
veracity Reform in these respects must
be inductive rather than direct. 1t must
begin with the chief sinners our states
men and cur journalists. We must im-
jcct into our writings and into our
ST eeches more of candor and less of
PASSION. We must make our words pur-
posely plain rather than deliberately am
biguous The people of both sec
tions are tar better than those
who give to them low NOR
al rating. Their intelligence isl
far greater than is that of those who
serve out to them the food on which fools
are fed. Readers better edit editors than
editors their papers when the latter put
into them anything which they know to
be wholly false or only partially true.