The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-22
SOUTH CAN DO 1T,
SAYS VAN WYCK
His Views on the Negro Question Given at South
ern Society's Banquet Carnegie the Peace
king-Braxton of Virginia on the Races.

New York, Feb. 21.-Members of the
New York Southern Society and their
guests, to the number of nearly 700,
gathered tonight at the seventeenth
annual dinner of the society in the
banquet hall of the Waldorf-Astoria.
The boxes were filled with a brilliant
assemblage of the wives and daughters
Of members of the society and their
friends.
President Augustus J. Van Wyck
presided and at his table were !. c.
Mcknight, of the Charleston Society;
J. Edward Graybill of the Georgia So
ciety; David Fl. Bates of the Ohio So
ciety; w. w. Fuller of the Society of
North Carolina; Edward c. Stedman of
the New York Society; Justice Martin
j. Keogh; A. c. BraxtOn, DR.. ]. H.
Van Amringe of Columbia, S. c.; j.
Drummond, Maj. Edward Owen and
the Rev. DR.. P. A. Brown, chaplain of
the Southern Society.
Mr.. Van Wyck. after reviewing the
Souths resources and development at
AtIlSlis lOUCIitu upon lIlC ldCG AuCollOlL
in the following words:
what the South needs and must
have is peace at home, and Jointly
with the rest Of the nation, interna-
tiOnal peace. There is but one unsettled
problem peculiar to that section, com
monty called the negro question. The
South understands it, and left alone it
will be settled rightly and justly in
Christian spirit. The natural friend
ship between whites and blacks of
long standing with no idea of social
equality is we'll known to those at all
familiar with the subject.
THE best friends of the black race
is the white race of the South. The
future welfare and development of the
former rests upon the absence of con-
hict between the two, and he who de-
stroys or lessons the amity so existing
between the two is not a friend of the
black man, but an enemy, Intentionally
or unintentiOnallY, to civilization. Let
no American citizen who loves his
country be a party. to stimulating
war of race. SO much on the subject
of peace at home in the South
Continuing, Mr.. VanWyck said:
"Our nation can and must have in
ternational peace, and the best assur-
ance of that is to hold inviolate the
Monroe doctrine. l favor 1t, not from
pride of it's origin, but because it
makes for peace. History records the
chief cause of wars to be covetousness
of nations for more land. Withdraw
from the international war market
one-half of the real estate of the world
and military conflicts will be lessened
just in that ratio.
shakespeare in 'Shylock' sowed the
seed of agitation against the collec-
ton of debt out of mans flesh and
blood, which, continuing for two CEN
turtles, resulted in the effacement from
American and English law of the right
to imprison your fellowman for debt,
which has been proclaimed one of the
grandest reforms of our latest civili-
zation. Yet greater is the evil and
brutality of nations going to war for
debt.
"Mr. Carnegie has done more to firm
ly establish the Monroe doctrine than
all others since the days of those who
created it, and has sown the seed of
agitation for the elimination from the
international code of the right of ma
tions to go to war for debt, destroying
the natural equilibrium of nations in
peace when he requested the two
strongest nations of the Old World to
send him their paltry bills against
Venezuela for settlement, making them
ipptoll dS plSllllGS III COlllpet WIFI
the smallest of civilized nations, as
we'll as in comparison with an Amerl-
can industrial prince.
1T was the stroke by a master hand
with the weapon of sharp ridicule 10
call these nations to a sense of pro-
priety belonging to our age of progress
which circles around that central fig
ure of the Old Worlds history. the
great Prince of Peace. BY this act Mr..
Carnegie challenges the premiership of
Cervantes in the merciless exposure of
the fo1lies of knight errantry In his
great satire, Don Quixote. The con-
stant fear of the possible infringement
of the Monroe doctrine perhaps saved
the world from universal war over the
South American controversy"
A.Caperton BraXton of Virginia spoke
of Washington as a Southern man,
from the point of view of a Southern