The Tupelo journal., 1904-08-26

To-Day, JOnn sharp WiiiidhIS, "a
Mississippi. acting for the Democratic
party, notified Hon. Henry Gassaway
Davis of his nomination as the candl-
date of the Democratic party for vice
president. Nearly the entire commit
tee and more than five thousand visi-
tors were present upon the occasion.
Mr.. Williams speech was as follows
Mr.. Dauis:
Sir-We have been appointed by a most
notable convention as a committee to notl-
fly you of your nomination by the Democ.
fncy as their choice for vice-president OF
the pleasure we feel in having been select
ed to perform this duty. and our confidence
in you, your f~aithfulness, honesty ana WIS
dom. The people see in you one OF tne
can institutions, a period whose salient char
acterIstics were local self governmeni. In
dividuality, equal opportunity and freedom
freedom to work, freedom to buy ana sell
freedom to compete in Industrial life SELF,
dependence, free development under equal
opportunity as ones own master-dnd not
merely as the well-trained and welf-man-
aged Industrial servant of another. Ihey
see in you what oliver Wendell Holmes
saws is a rare thing: "A self made man
who is yet not too proud of his maker
Just before leaving home l said was
going TO West Virginia with some others,
10 nOtlIY you VI NotI -.
of my brothers. little boys. standing by,
said. 'Uncle John, he must be a mighty
big goose If he hasn't heard OF 1t already
In a certain way the notification WITH
which we are charged is perfunctory ana
unnecessary, and yet it is well to main
tain by some degree of formality that re-
spectful observance which Is due TO great
events. The nomination by a great party
to the great office to which we call YOU
the vice presidency, CARRYING with 1t the
duty of presiding over the senate OF the
United States, and the possibility OF sue
cession to the presidency, Is a great event.
As soon as l learned that was, by reso-
luton of the convention, to be the mouth
piece of the committee for the perform
ance of this pleasant task. l began to LOOK
about me in order to see how the duty had
bean fulfilled by others. We found from
recent examples of a similar character in
the Republican camp that for a notiflca-
ton speech. a historical essay Is altogetneF
the proper thing, absolutely necessary for
the emergency. We shall therefore entitle
orr notification address, "a Brief Historical
Disouisition Upon Some of the Blunders OF
Our Ancestors as Viewed from the Stand
point of the Wisdom Of Republican States
men Who Have Embraced the strenuous
Life" A
The first Of these consisted In discrim,
mating against the red mantle image OF
God In cherry-on account of his race ana
color and previous condition. Our an
cestors said it was on account or the In
herent. or inherited. race traits, tendencies
and supposed incapacities, of which his
color was but the outward sign. BE ina
claim pretense or insincerity, we found TO
our establishment that "the door OF hope
and opportunity in the way of office hold
ing and voting had been closed to Lo! the
poor Indian. He was not invited III by
the select men in Connecticut, nor by the
electors of the self-governing W In Mas
sachusetts, to help govern our ancestors
and the country, which they had I'M
to their charge, nor did our ancestors prom
ise to assimilate him. This first violation IN
America of the divine right of manhood suf-
rage and of the cherished fundamental dogma
that all men of all races are equally ca
FACILITATED to govern themselves, and espe-
cially to govern others, had doubtless been
the 'Iliad of all our woes" Plainly 1t
was what the Boston Transcript so elo-
ouently calls "colorphobia." We could not
account for it, except perhaps upon a line
of thought suggested by a sentence IN the
notification address of the permanent chair
the president of his nomination by the Re
publican party to succeed himself. Mr.. can
non said, by blood, by inheritance, by
education, and by practice, we are a sell
governing people" Are we to believe that
Mr.. Cannon meant to intimate G conrerso,
that nobody was of self-governing capacity
unless by blood. inheritance. education or
successful practice? If so, it Is feared that
he Is getting back to our ancestors blunder,
and NAV incur the danger Of receiving the
approbation of some of those brightest
creatures, known as Southern Democrats.
We wondered IL our ancestors In New Eng
land. New York and Virginia had been stu
MD enough to nave some notion-the con-
verse of Mr.. Cannon's-in their heads,
and if they had based their action on the
fact that the mobile red man" had none
of 1.-The blood" of self-governing races IN
their viens, none OF that subtle force OF
4'heredity," which accounts for so much and
which is so hard to be accounted for Itself,
If they thought that he had not for any
sufficient length of time been educated.
for the task of governing white men, or had
had no practice in it, except such as
seemed to lead to the conclusion that be
was not capable of it.
The next great blunder in the early his
tory of our people consisted in their tax
ing I'D arms against King George and his
forces, when the latter was actuated, as
thew themselves confessed, only by the kind
est designs of ~"benevolently assimilating
to themselves our resources and our oppof-
tunities. You. sir, who have a Repubiican
law, and, therefore, possess culture
by affinity at least, will hardly believe that
our ancestors were stupid enough to fight
against the principle, which we so frankly
recognize In the Philippines, viz that 1t Is
perfectly right, self-evidently proper. for a
dag 10 cover and emblemize two entirely
difeLent sorts of government-one for our
selves "at home" protecting individual,
civil and political liberty and pretending
to flemish full and equal opportunities for
indusirial development, and another for
others sin the colonies'-absolute and dis
c%retionary In its character and vowed
limiting industrial development there by
the necessities of commercial exploitation
for tie benefit of the home merchant and
the ''home' manufacturer. We know now,
of course, that all our ancestors talk about
+inalienable rights" of self government, mo
taxation without representation, ha6eds
Of the press, freedom of speech and free
dom Of assembly, were only a paetext re-
sorted to by ranting Insurgents" In or.
der to throw off the 'civiiizing influences
of the best government which the world
had that far witnessed. We have not been
stupid enough to confine to mere words our
apology for this mistake In our history
we have apologized by deeds Of confession.
ple. have prospered industrially and other
wise. as we have prospered, so maryelOusly,
sir, in all our history, both as colonies and
States, in spite of this monstrous error
this unholy rebellion.
We found another period of popular hys-
terra, that is incomprehensible to us of a
wiser generation, in view OF some enlght-
ening facts in our recent history. Some
men in the troublesome little town OF sBos-
ton, masquerading as Indians, seized and
threw into the sea certain cases. of tea be-
longing to certain merchants OF the East
India Company. That this was q violation
of the law no man in England or America
rad any doubt that the violations of the
fnw were amenable to punishment under the
stw, through its usual processes, amongst
rhich were Indictment by a grand jury and
srial by a petit jury, none doubted. WITH
4 wisdom, however, equaled only by that OF
the present occupant of the chief executives
chair in these United States, these usual
remedies by law, against law breakers, were
ignored by that sapient statesman King
George, as being reeds too weak to depend
rnon In an extreme like that. The
consequence was that the entire population
"a Boston, men, women and children, OBJ
servers of the law as well as law breakers,
were punished, and the. Boston port bill was
nsssed thus in a ashton royalty excommu-
ricating the little town, commercially and
I-s4.iaIIu Then came that strange and