Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-07-10
Secretary Taft at Greensboro.

There is no paragraph In the speech OF
Secretary Taft delivered at Greensboro. n.
c. last night entitled to more consider
alton than the following:
The south has been kept solid by the
specter of negro domination and by sur
ring up racial prejudices and srou5ine ull-
founded alarm over an Impossible retulh
of reconstruction days. After a long strus
gle, the history of which / shall not repeat,
the negro's vote was made 10 count ipr
nothing in the southern states. Iheh t,ie
political leaders of the dominant parry
came to realize the dreadful demoralizatioh
OF all society that followed in government
A. law was fiouted and fraud was TO CON
stitute it's basis. They cast about 10 mar mar.
the law square with the existing cohoi t
bv property and educational qualifications
which should exclude the negro IhHy
adopted amendments to state CONSTITUTIONS
with the so-called grandfather clauses N
7erded to apply the new quanhca IONS ~ 10
the negro. and not TO apply them 10 the
whites 1t is impossible to frame law es
tablishing an educational qualification lof
suffrage which will stand the test or the
fifteenth amendment and which VIII not
ultimately operate no matter what me
qualification or present effect, TO exclude
jnipartiaIly the negroes and whites from
the ballot who lack educational acquire
ntut,
Here we have the opinion. not of poll
tician. but of a profound lawyer whose
name is under consideration In connection
with the vacancy existing in the supreme
court of the United States. Whether
will encourage those who have been trying
and are anxious TO get the suffrage laws
of the southern states before the supreme
Court. and who hold that they are In con-
nirt with the fifteenth amendment. is
question. 1t may That movement though
discouraged in high republican quarters
a
and politicians alike support it.
But while this paragraph attracts par
ticular attention. it by no means carries the
speech. The entire deliverance is a strong
and convincing summing up of the whole
Of what is called the southern question Ad-
vice to the one side is as pointed as to the
other. Republicans are adjured on the one
hand to give less consideration to patron
age and democrats on the other to give
more consideration to living principles. The
souths Indebtedness to protection, and yet
her opposition in Congress to that policy,
has never been better stated nor at a time
when voters had greater reason to weigh
the argument. There Is nothing stranger
IN history than the course of those
southern men who have made use of a mere
bogy to try to defeat a policy from which
their section has derived such incalculable
benefit.
The theme is not new. and nothing may
come of this latest sound and temperate
treatment of it. Still 1t was fully worth
while for a man who stands so high In the
estimation of men of both parties to take
IL up and bring out the salient points in
this day of the south's and the country's
phenomenal prosperity. If the Secretary
could repeat his speech in Nashville, Mont
somery. Atlanta. New Orleans and Calves
ton, he would be heard by thousands of
people, who. whatever their course at the
ballot box might be. would in their hearts
and minds indorse every economic truth ut
tered.