The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-03-20
People Urged to Take Leader
ship Of the Party
BY JUDGE ALTON B.PARKER
Notable Address Delivered Before
Charlotte Democrats

Judge Parker stopped Over a Few
Hours in Charlotte While on the
Way From Mississippi to New York.
He Defended the Principles of the
Democratic Party and Described the
Part Taken in its Work by Men of
Said The Heat and Burden of the
Day and it is Thine to Assert Your
seires''-Praise From the Former
Candidate for the Southern States
men.
Charlotte, \. c., March 16.-Judge
Alton 3. Parker spent a few hours III
Charlotte tonight en- route home from
Mississippi. Upon invitation of prom
anent democrats Of this city he at
tended a reception at the Manufacture
ers club, and delivered an address in
which he urged that southern demo-
Gratis take the leadership of the party.
He said: .
In all address before the legislature
Of the state of Mississippi a few days
age, l had occasion to insist that never
before was it less possible to ignore the
growing tendency to look to the gov
eminent o. the state for support, as
sistance, or special favor, which Will
relieve the recipient from those obliga-
tons hitherto deemed incumbent upon
all our people. Whether it takes the
form of direct -subsidies-the cost of
which may be estimated-Or is hid
away in those more costly and dem9r-
aliZing systems, under which some ia
VOred individual Or class may levy too
relentless toll upon the earnings of the
income Of all our people, the effect
pom institutions and character is b
same. If We support a dozen paupers
in a poo house we can calculate the
cost, but the beneficiary of a vicious
system of corruption or bOSSism. in
country, state, county or city, o only
takes for his WI purpose the earn
ings of his neighbOrs, but he so breaks
all the prescepts of the moral law that
he becomes at once a menace to society
and an evil example to all u people.
During all it's history, the demo
cratic party has denounced the lodge
ment Of undue power in the govern
ment, has opposed the logical outcome,
the granting of special privileges in
the levy Of taxes, and has insisted
pom economy in expenditure. Under
these as guiding principles, it built up
its own organization and has only been
able to maintain it by constant devO-
ton to them. In time they have be-
come i~nalienable policies and Ingram
ed traditions. In or out of power, in
nation or state, in the demands Of its
leaders, in the devotion Of it's rank and
file, in war Or peace, in it's early or
later days, it has stood for these
things.
While this conscientious devotion to
an idea has commended itself to the
democrats of the whole country, n
has thus made and kept the party ma
tional, during recent years the people
of the south, without ~variableness or
shadow of turning, have been its MAIN
stay. Sinking no responsibility, seek
ing no national rewards, promoting no
special interests or movements, they
have neither been %truculent in victory
nor discouraged in defeat. Going On
their way, regulating their W affairs,
without hope of commanding subsidy,
paying cheerfu1ly TO carry out policies
in which they could have no part, they
have so impressed themselves upoE
their time, that the one special prob
lem coming to them from the past has
been solved in such a way that the
whole country has not only been forced
to approve and applaud. but to initiate
as the only way to deal with 1t.
But the time has come when new
luties and responsibilities must be I'M
dertaken by democrats of the south.
It is more than two Score years since
the war closed and your people find
themselves upon the threshold of what
promises to be the most remarkable
business development the world has
ever known within the same time and
space Some of your men have gone
forth to command the highest success,
in the most honorable way, in the
greatest financial and commercial
movements of the time, others have De-
come the managers Of great railway
interests, you have developed great
manufacturing enterprises, and most
difficult of all, your people, as a whole,
have so maintained ana increased their
own position and the dominance Of the
country in one of the greatest pro-
ducts of the soil as to make then the
wonder and admiration of the world
In spite of your devotion to princi-
pie and consistency, in the face of a
numerical importance that was pre-
ponderant, in politics only have you
stepped aside. From the earliest days,
you have sent your best men into pub
lie life. They have been at once mod
est. able, devoted, practical and honest,
No Jail or penitentiary has opened its
hospitable doors to admit your sena-
tors, representatives, or governors, nor
have the officers of the law, from de-
tectives to attorney general, been COM