The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1904-10-11
Ghf @essenger.


The Charlotte chronicle Of the 4tt
instant says:
Inc Manufacturers Club can always
De depended on to do the right thing
Yesterday and last night the club en-.
~fertained the democratic and republi-
a speakers and their friends. and
made an effort TO draw Tom Watson in
also, but he could not come. The socia
intercourse had a broadening n ar
selevating effect. Tt was all very differ
ent from old times, when speakers Of
opposing candidates would put up a
different hotels and their adherent:
Were wont TO give each other the hs'
instead OF the glad hand.
What a change from a few years ago
Then the Manufacturers Club Of Char.
1otte would hardly have dared to enter
tain az its guests the republican can
dfdates. Nor would any other similar
organization IN the state.
The times have changed wonderfully
IN the south in the last few years. Nov
the parties are divided purely on po'
Htical issues where before the party
line in the south was almost exclusive
ly a question of race supremacy-the
white man against the black.
We are glad to know that that ques-
ton as a political issue has been elimi-
people are concerned.
but for the action Of President Roose-
welt 1t would nave been entirely wiped
put by this time, but he has brought
This vexed question into greater prom.
thence. In fact he has made it a ma
tional issue where as heretofore it was
entirely local and a local issue which
the southern states had settled.
When the states Of the south disfran-
chised the ignorant negro they sur
mounted the chief difficulty in this mo-
mentous problem so far as they were
concerned and the whole country
thought the solution of the problem had
been reached. But Mr.. Roosevelt comes
into office and for the purpose of sat-
isfying his personal political ambitions
he adopts a course regarding the negro
which not only opens the question
afresh, but broadens it into one of
udCOIIdI 1ndSI1luOc.
2 The democratic party of the south
can not be charged with ~resurrecting
the negro question after promising that
it would he buried 10y the adoption of
constitutions. It had carried out it's
and the southern negro had
quietly accepted the consequences of
those constitutional amendments. The
country was in a fair way to forget
that there ever was UGH a disturbing
political element when the fiery Roose-
welt dashed upon the national political
stage as the leader Of the republican
party AND champion of the social and
political rights of the negro. He took
up the negro cause, or what he AND
his immediate followers chose to sc
designate the action of the administra-
ton in appointing negroes to office In the
south, for the purpose Of welding to
the republican party and to the Roose-
welt faction of it the large negro vote in
the north.
The republicans are responsible fol
the reintroduction of the negro ques-
Roosevelt and his campaign managers
They are making the charge from thu
stump thai the democrats promised
that if the southern states would adop
gro question would be eliminated, blu
hat Notwithstanding the disfranchise
ment of the bulk of the negroes tn,
democrats still f1ount the black fla.
in the face of the people. This is no
true. 1t is the republicans who through
their president have raised this issu'
in the present campaign and the demo
Gratis are only defending themselve
against the threatened elevation of tn
negro in matters official and politica
SO far as it is in the power of tn
president through his appointive powe
to place him over the white people o
the south.
To be candid, We do not believe tina
Mr.. Roosevelt has adopted the cours
ne has in reference to the negro througl
any preference for him to the whit
man of the south or through any desir
to humilitata the southern people, bu
simply because he thinks it is his politi
cal interests to do soto convince tn
negro voters in those northern state
where they hold the balance of powe
hat he is the champion of their caus
Nevertheless whatever his motive ma
be, the result, so far as the south
concerned. is the same anu we are mad
10 suffer through the presidents roug
riding over his section with his negr
equality principles.
This resurrecting of the negro ques
~-