The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-14
PLEADS FOR NEGRO
President Roosevelt Discusses
the Race Problem
In an Address at a Lincoln Day
Banquet.
APPEALS TO NORTH
To Make It's Friendship for the
South Greater.
Because of the Embarrassment
Because Of the Embarrassment
of Existing Conditions.

honor at the Lincoln dinner of the Re-
publican club in this city last night
President Roosevelt made a speech or
the race problem. He appealed to the
north to make it's friendship to the
south all the greater because of sthe
embarrassment of conditions for which
it is not alone responsible" and said
that the problem was to so adjust the
relations between two races of different
ethic type, that the backward race be
trained 50 that it may enter into the
possession Of true freedom, while the
forward race is enabled to preserve I'M
harmed the high civilization wrought
out by its forefathers."
Following the president, Senator Dol
liver of Iowa responded to the toast,
Abraham Lincoln" George A. Knight
of California spoke on The Republican
Party" and James NJ. Beck, ex-assist-
ant attorney general of the United
States, on the Unity of the Republic
The president said:
In his second inaugural, in a speech
which will be read as long as the mem
ory OF this nation endures, Abraham
Lincoln closed by saying:
with malice toward none; with char
ity 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 ne
had already spoken thus:
THE strife of the election is but hui
man nature 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, COM
pared 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 incidents of this
as philosophy to learn wisdom from,
and none of them as wrongs to be re-
common interest reunite in a common
effort to (serve) our common country?
For my own part, I have striven and
shall strive to avoid placing any OBJ
been here I have not willingly planted
a thorn in any mans bosom. While
am deeply sensible to the high compli-
ment of a reelection. and duly CRATE
full, as I trust, to Almighty God for
having directed my countrymen to a
right conclusion, as I think, for their
own good. it adds nothing to my salts
faction that any other man may be
disappointed or panied by the result
MAY I 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
wounds when its soul was yet Seething
with fierce hatreds, with wrath, with
ranCor, with all the evil and dreadful
passions provoked by civil war. Surely
this is the spirit which all Americans
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 that
in no other way could the Union 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 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 ten
derness of his great and sad heart for
all his cOuntrymen alike in the north
everything for the day when they
should once more be knit together in
the unbreakable bonds of eternal
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 |
steddfastness 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 accept the |
best that was practicable when the |
ideal best was unattainab his I'M /
ceasing effort to cure what was evil |
coupled with his refusal to make a /
bad situation worse by any i'll judged /
or i'll timed effort to make it better.
The great civil war in which Lin /
coin lowered as the Hottest figure left /
us not only a reunited country, but /
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 it was given him to
see the light; though it is now clear
10 all that the triumph of the cause
Or freedom and of the Union was eS-
sential to the welfare of mankind We
are now one people, a people with
-ailings which we must not blink. but
people with great qualities in which
we have the right to feel just pride.
All good Americans who dwell in
he north must. because they are good
Americans, feel the most earnest
friendship for their fellow countrymen
VINO dwell in the south. a friendship
al the greater because it is in the
south that we find in its most acute
phase one of the gravest problems be-
.ore our people: the problem of so |
dealing with the man of one color as
o secure him the rights that no one
would grudge him if he were of an
other color. To solve this problem it
S. of course, necessary to educate him
o perform the duties. a failure to per-
orm which will render him a curse
o himself and to all around him.
Most certainly all clear~sighted and
generous men in the north appreciate
he difficulty and perplexity of this
problem, sympathize with the south in
ne embarrassment of conditions for
which she is not alone responsible, feel
n honest wish to help her where help
5 practicable, and have the heartiest
aspect for those brave and earnest
men of the south who. in the face of
earful difficulties. are doing all that