The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-03-25

succeeds Roosevelt, has been fittingly
characterized in these columns. Many
messages of approval of the editorial
in yesterdays News and Observer,
upon that speech came to the editor
yesterday. 1t is gratifying to find
that the Norfolk Pilot and Virginian
gave a correct estimate of the speech
of Mr.. Yerkes very much along the
same line as that contained in this
paper.
The following answer to Yerkes'
speech in the Pilot virginian is as
correct as it is caustic and plain
spoken:
1.-THE speech of Mr.. Yerkes at the
banquet at Greensboro, North Caro-
lima, given for the purpose of initiating
the presidential boom of Hon. Charles
Warren Fairbanks, was about the
most impertinent deliverance that mas
been thrown in the faces of the South
ern people in recent times-which is
saying a good deal. The banquet in
question, as we understand it, was held
not merely to launch the Fairbanks
boom, but also to mark the rejuvena-
ton of that somewhat spawned and
decrepit brand of Republication that
has been kept alive in the South for
thirty or forty years by means of Fed
eral pap. If Mr.. Yerkas did the key
noting for the occasion il can be safe
ly said that the regeneration has been
indefinitely postponed.
''In the speech in question, Mr..
Yerkes took as his subject Political
Peonage in the South" The speech
r. hi c.1IlNi
He courteously intimated that the
Southern man was a moral coward,
affrighted by a man of straw in The
shape of negro domination, and fol-
lowed this up by the assertion that the
salvation of the South must depend
upon the somewhat militant moral
sense of the North. All of this Mr..
Yerkes said while he was a guest, not
only of Southern Republicans, but of
Southern Democrats as well.
''Since it is useless to quarrel over
questions of taste, that phase of the
matter may be passed by. But mat
ters of fact are always legitimate
topics for discussion. And to say
that Mr.. Yerkes was wide of the facts
in his remarks is to use a gentle term
where the natural inclination would
be to speak quite plainly.
I'm the first place, negro domina-
ton has not been in the past by any
means a mere shadow. 1t has been
an ever-present menace to the people
of almost every Southern State, eth
er in whole or in part. 1t has been
the most burdensome problem with
which the States of the South have
had to deal since the Civil War. and
finally they have been compelled to
deal with it decisively and in practi-
cal, though not legal, defiance of the
United States Constitution. This Mr..
Yerkes knew perfectly well, as every
other intelligent man in the country
does. For him to say, therefore, that
the solidarity of the South in matters
of politics is an indication of moral
cowardice was to utter a known and
malignant SANDER against the South
ern people.
"Mr. Yerkes further said that men
had been kept out of the Republican
party because in the South it was not
regarded as respectable to be Re-
publican. In certain sections of the
South this has been the case, but the
fact should not be forgotten that f
responsibility has failed to attach to
the Republican party in the South,
that failure is due in the main to the
further fact that the Republican
party has itself failed to be respecta-
bic, whenever and WheVer II mas op-
tanned temporary lease of power.
Parties, like men, are judged by their
action, and, so judged, the Republic
can party in the South has not, since
the Civil War, deserved the respect
of the Southern people.
'"That is a matter of history. How
ever leaving that out of account, we
are unable to understand that par
ticular type of mind that conceiyeS
that converts to ReDublicanism can
be made in this section by black
guarding it's inhabitants on their own
threshold. The people of the South
are rs Independent in opinion as any
people to be found in the country.
1.-THE South has today the most
wholesome and fearless influence in
the politics of the country, and the
country will have to look for sincere,
for courageous and for enlightened
leadership to the South. If that lead
ership is to come through the medium
of the Republican party it will certain
ly have to come after the supposed
opponents of Republican thought has
ceased to malign and traduce the
Southern people"