The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1903-02-26
Senator Carmack on the Great Southern
Problem.

dianola postoffice affair broadened as it
progressed into a discussion of the race
question. That was inevitable, because,
as he said, the case is one that concerns
not only Mississippi, but the whole
south and the nation, and it is also the
first case in which President Roosevelt
has attempted in his peculiar way to
put into effect his expressed views on
radical equality.
Judging from the brief telegraphic
reports, the junior Tennessee senator
was heard at his best in this effort, and
Mr.. Carmack's best is q very good best
indeed. The subject was one in which
he could not fail to take deep interest.
1t is also one which, owing to the place
of its nativity, his earlier environment
and his later knowledge obtained by
personal experience and observation, he
has mastered, so far as it is possible for
any of us to master a subject so inter
woven with complex interests and so
fraught with unmeasured possibilities
of evil. He has been used to negroes
all his life and knows them and their
mental and moral capacity as only a
southerner of the former slave-holding
class to know them. 1t is also safe to
say that, like other southerners of this
class, he holds no ill-will against the
brother in black, but rather the contra
ry.
1t is not surprising, therefore, that in
the discussion of the subject of his re-
marks yesterday, Mr.. Carmack should
have found himself in his element, and
that being so, it necessarily followed
that he spoke in a manner worthy of
his talents and of the responsible posi-
ton he holds.
He convicted the president of foolish
violence and inconsistency, both on the
facts of the case and on the claims made
in behalf of the administration by SEN
ator Spooner and others. He showed
that in closing the Indianola postoffice
the president violated the law, and also
that he failed to take the lawful consti-
tutional means to remedy any wrong
that might have been done to the negro
postmaster. He had no right to close
the Office, and it was his duty to have
brought to justice through the federal
courts any and all persons who had
violated the law. Mr.. Carmack de-
clared, and with perfect truth, that
there was not shred of evidence tC
show that the postmaster had been
compelled to relinquish her office by
threats of violence from any quarter
whatever, so that in closing the Office
the president was indulging in his
, usual gait of running away" as the
senator had previously described the
presidential hot-foot methods in his
story about the Maury county mans
horse. Upon this point the senator
used with telling effect his rare powers
} Of ridicule in conjunction with the rea
son in the case.
But it was in his references to the
race question that Mr.. Carmack sale
that which will most interest the soutl
. in general. He referred to the admis
5 sion wrung from Secretary Root ant
other prominent republicans by the
logic of experience, to the effect tina
negro suffrage was a failure. He de
clared that the negro in politics coult
be nothing but menace to the coun
A try, whether his vote was cast solidlN
z on the republican side or was divided
between the two parties, and he stated
: in forcible terms the incontestable trutl
that men of the races from which thu
, white people of the south are derived
twill not divide sovereignty or domain
with lower or inferior race" "An
tagonize this prejudice, if you will cal
+ it so, he said, land the end is strif,
g and bitterness and hate and conflict. "
Senator Carmack went on to PHI
down the republican supporters of tn,
: presidents negro policy, by asserting
that social equality meant the inter
I marriage of the races and the produc