The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-14
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
 ON THE RACE PROBLEM

be revenged. - May not all hav- | ing a common interest reunite in | common effort to (serve) our common
 country? For my own part, have
 striven and shall strive to avoid plac- | ing any obstacle in the way. So long ! as have been here have. not willing | ly planted thorn in any mans bosom. While am deeply sensible to the high compliment of reelection, and duly i grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God | for having directed my countrymen to | right conclusion, as think, for their 1 own good. it adds nothing to my satts- l faction that any other man may be
 disappointed or pained by the result. May l ask those who have not diff fered with me to join with me in this
 same spirit toward those who have?' This is the spirit in which mighty | Lincoln sought to bind up the nations l wounds when it's soul was yet seething | with fierce hatreds, with wrath, with rancor, with all the evil and dreadful | passions provoked by civil war. Sure | ly this Is the spirit which all Ameri- cans should show 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
 be saved, for high though he put peace | he put righteousness still higher. He
 warred for the Union; he warred to | free the slave; and when he warred he
 warred in earnest, for 1t Is a sign of
 weakness to be half-hearted when blows must be struck. But he felt ] only love, Il love as deep as the tender l ness of his great and sad heart, for all his countrymen alike in the North and 1 in the South, and he longed above I everything for the day when they should once more be knit together in
 the unbreakable bonds of eternal friendship.
 Should Emulate Lincoln.
 We of today. in dealing with all our fellow-citizens, white or colored, North or South, should strive to show just the qualities that Lincoln showed: His | steadfastness in striving after the 1 right, and his infinite patience and for bearance with those who saw that right less clearly than he did; his earn
 est endeavor to do what was best, and | yet his readiness to accept the best that was practicable when the ideal best was unattainable; his unceasing ef- his refusal to make a bad situation
 worse by any ill-judged or ill-timed eff | fort to make 1t better. The great Civil War in which Lin-
 coin lowered as the ioftiest figure left
 us not only a reunited country, but a
 country which has the proud right to claim as its own the glory won alike by those who wore the blue and by those who wore the gray. by those who followed Grant and by those who followed Lee; for both fought with equal bravery and with equal sincerity
 of conviction, each striving for the
 light as 1t was given him to see the light; though it Is now clear to all
 that. the triumph of the cause of free
 dom and of the Union was essential to
 the welfare of mankind. We are now
 one people, a people with failings which we must not blink, hut 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
 frisndSblp or ths sdioweountTy SS
 men who dwell in the South, a friend
 ship all the greater because 1t is in
 the South that we find in its most
 acute phase one of the gravest prob
 so dealing with the man of one color
 as to secure him the rights that no , one would grudge him if he were of another color To solve this prob lem 1t is, of course, necessary to edu-
 cate him to perform the duties, fail ure to perform which will render him a curse to himself and to all around 1 him.
 Most certainly all clear-sighted and generous men In the North appreciate the difficulty and perplexity of this | problem, sympathize with the South in the embarrassment of conditions for
 
 | an honest wish to help her where help is practicable. and have the heartiest | respect fer those brave and earnest men of the South who, in the face Of fearful difficulties, are doing all that 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 upon the principle of giving to each man what Is justly due him. of treating him on his worth as man. granting him no special favors, but denying him no proper opportunity Tor labor and the reward of labor. But the peculiar circumstances of the South render the problem there far greater and far more acute.
 Justice Should Succeed.
 Neither nor any other man can say that any given way of approaching that problem will present in our time even an approximately perfect solution, but we can safely say that there can never ! be such solution at all unless we ap- proacn it with the effort to do fair and equal justice among all men: and to l demand from them in return just and fair treatment for others. Our eff Drt should be to secure to each man. what ever his color, equality of opportunity equality of treatment before the law.
 As a people striving toN shape our ac-
 tions in accordance with the great law of righteousness we can not afford to take part in or be indifferent to the oppression or m3ItFeatInenI or any
 man who, against crushing disadvan-
 tages, has by his own industry, ener-
 gy. self-respect and perseverance
 struggled upward to a position which
 would entitle him to the respect of
 his fellows, if only his skin were of 9
 different hue.
 Every generous impulse in us revolts
 at the thought of thrusting down in-
 stead of helping up such a man. To
 deny any man the fair treatment
 granted to others no better than he is
 to commit wrongFlpon nina wrong
 those guilty of such denial. The only
 safe principle upon which Americans
 can. act Is that of "all men up,' not
 that of some men down" If in any
 community the level of intelligence.
 morality. and thrift among the ,:ol red
 speaking, sure that the same level
 among the whites will be raised to an
 even higher degree; and 1t is no less
 sure that the debasement of the blacks
 will in the end carry with 1t an aI-
 tendant debasement of the whites.
 The problem is so to adjust the rela-
 tiOns between two races of different
 ethnic type that the rights or neither be abridged nor Jeoparded; that the backward race be trained so that it
 may enter into the possession of true freedom, while the forward race is en-
 abled to preserve unharmed the high civilization wrought out by its fore fathers The working out of this problem must necessarily be slow; 1t Is not possible in offhand fashion to cbtain or to confer the priceless boons 1f freedom. industrial efficiency, p0lit- teal capacity. and domestic morality. Nor Is 1t only necessary to train the colored man; it is quite as necessary to tr in the white man. for on his shoulders rests a wellnigh unparalleled ! seg.