The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1905-02-23
THE PRESIDENT GA
The NEGRO PROBLEM
Potable Address on Lincoln
Day Is Made Before a
New York Club.
lINcoLN's WORDS A TEXT
Urges that the White People, Espec-
tally Those of the South, Must
Help the Negro Learn to
Help Himself.

New York, Feb. 14-Before the New
York club last night President Roose-
welt spoke on the negro problem. as
follows:
The Formal Address.
In his second inaugural, in a speech
which will be read as long as the memory
OF this nation eedures, Abraham Lincoln
c.osed by saying:
With malice toward none: with charity
for all; with firmness in the right, as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive. on to
finish the work we are in; . to do
all which may achieve and cherish a
just and lasting peace among ourselves,
and with all nations
Immediately after his reelection he had
already spoken thus:
The strife of the election is but human
mature practically applied to the facts of
the case. What has occurred in this case
must ever recur In similar cases. Human
nature will not change. In any future
great national trial, compared with the
men of this, we shall have as weak and as
strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and
AS good. Let us, therefore, study the IN
cidents of this as philosophy to learn wis
dom from. and none of them as wrongs to
a common interest reunite in a common
effort to ~(serve) our common country? For
my own part, l have srriven and shall
strive to avoid placing any obstacle in
the way. So long as l have been here l
have not willingly planted a thorn in any
mans bosom. While | am deeply sensible
to the h.gh compliment of a reelection,
and duly grateful, as | trust, to Almighty
God for having directed my countrymen
to a right conclusion, as l think. for their
own good, it adds nothing to my satisfac-
ton that my other man may be disap-
pointed or panied by the result.
May I ask those who have not differed
with me to join with me IN this same spirit
toward those who have?"
The Spirit of Lincoln.
This Is the spirit in which mighty Lin
coin sought to bind up the nations wounds
when its soul was yet seething with fierce
hatreds, with wrath. with rancor, with all
civil war. Surely This is the spirit which
all Americans should snow now, when
there is so little excuse for malice or
rancor or hatred. when there is so little
of vital consequence to divide brother
from brother.
Lincoln, himself a man of southern
birth. did not hesitate to appeal to the
sword when he became satisfied that in no
other way could the union be saved, for
high though he put peace he put right
eousness still higher. He warred for the
when he warred he warred in earnest, for
it is a sign Of weakness to be half hearted
when blows must be struck. But he felt
only love, a love as deep as the tenderness
of his great and sad heart, for all his
.c~ountrymen alike in the north and in the
south: and he longed above everything for
the dag when they should once more be
knit together in the unbeatable bonds OF
eternal friendship.
We of today. in dealing with all our
fellow citizens. white or colored, north or
south. should strive to show just the quail
ties that Lincoln showed; his %steadfast-
ness in striving after the right, and his
infinite patience and forbearance with
those who saw that right less clearly than
he did; his earnest ~endeavor to do what
was best. and yet his readiness to accent
the best that was practicable when the
iHnn1 hnCt yya G =, ~ n 70; ~~l L., =
effort to cure what was evil, coupled with
his refusal to make a bad situation worse
by any Ill judged or i'll timed effort to
make it better.
What the War Beeueathed.
The great civil war, in which Lincoln
lowered as the loftiest figure. left us not
OILY a reunited country. but a country
WEsch has the proud right to claim as its
Ia the glory won alike by those who
VIE the blue and by those who wore the
by those who followed Grant and by
those who followed Lee: for both fought
with equal bravery and with equal sin
light as it was given him to see the light:
though 1t is now clear to all that the tri-
of the cause of freedom and of the
union was essential to the welfare of mai
kind. We are now one people, a people
with failings which we must not blink,
a people with great qualities in which
we have the right to feel just pride.
All good Americans who dwell In the
north must, because they are good Ameri-
cans, feel the most earnest friendship for
their FELLOW countrymen who dwell in the
south, a friendship all the greater because
II Is in the south that we find in it's most
acute phase one of the gravest problems
before our people; the problem of SO deal
with the mar of one color as to secure
MIN the rights that no one would grudge
aim II he were of another color. TO solve
TINS problem it is, of course, necessary to
are to perform which will render him a
curse to himself and to all around him.
The Great Problem.
Most certainly all clear sighted and gen
erous men in the north appreciate the diff
hculty and perpleXity Of this problem,
rassment of conditions for which she is
not alone responsible; feel an honest wish
help her where help is practicable, and
have the heartiest respect for those brave
and earnest men of the south who, in the
face of fearful difficulties, are doing all
men can do for the betterment alike
OF white and of black. The attitude of
the north toward the negro is far from
what it should be and there is need that
the north also should act in good faith
the principle of giving to each man
his worth as a man, granting him no
special favors. but denying him no proper
opportunity for labor and the reward of
labor. But the peculiar circumstances of
and far more acute.
Neither l nor any other man can say
that any given way of approaching thai
problem will present in our time even an
approximately perfect solution, but we can
say that there can never be such
solution at all unless we approach it with
the effort to do fair and equal Justice
among all men: and to demand from them
in return just ard fair treatment for 9TH
ers Our effort should be to secure to
each man, whatever his color, equality of
opportunity, equality of treatment before
the law. As a people striving to shape our
actions In accordance with the great law
Of righteousness we cannot afford to take
part in or be Indifferent to the oppression
or maltreatment of any man who, against
disadvantages. has. by his own
energy, self respect and perse-
which would entitle him to the respect Of
fellows, if only his skin We're of a
hue.
Every generous impulse in US revolts