The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-07-10
.TAFT'S KEY NOTE.
Secretary of War Addresses
North Carolina Republicans.
Opening Gun of the 1906 Con-
gressionaI Campaign.
REVIEWS THE RECORD
OF the Roosevelt Administration
and the 59th Congress.
COmmends Organization of Both
Labor and Capital.
REVIEWS THE RECORD

a speech that was generally regarded
as the opening gun Of the congression-
al campaign of 1905. The speech
dealt with current political questions
and opening with advice to the rank
and file of the party in North Carolina
and the south particularly. referred to
the achievements of the party in the
session of congress just closed. The
EZRA house was packed to overfowing
by a throng eager to hear the secre-
tary of war, and hundreds of persons
were turned away because OF the
limited size of the hall
Secretary Taft, in opening, said that
when he was invited to address this
meeting the committee advised him
that the political situation was such
that 4 a proper effort was made at the
coming election it would be possible to
carry the state for the Republican
sThe south has been kept solid by the
specter of negro domination, and by
stirring up racial prejudices and
arousing unfounded alarm over an I'M
/ possible return of reconstruction
days. said the secretary After
! long struggle he added, the negro
vote was made to count for nothing,
and then the political leaders of the
/ dominant party came to realize that
! dreadful decentralization of all society
that followed in a government If law
was fouted and fraud was to consti-
/ tute its basis They cast about TO
make the law square with existing
| conditions by property and education
/ al qualifications which should exclude
/ the negro. They adopted amendments
! to the state constitutions with the So
called grandfather clauses intended
to apply the new qualifications to the
negro. and not to apply them to the
/ whites.
The secretary said it is impossible to
! frame a law establishing an education
y lob
stand the test of the Fifteenth amend
ment. and which viii not operate ulti-
mately to exclude impartially the ne
! groes and whites from the ballot who
lacked educational requirement.
A policy in the south, he said,
which excludes from the ballot i'm
partially black and white. when ignor-
ant and irresponsible, can not be criti-
cised.
Two Parties Needed.
The question which shou. address
itself to the great business interests Of
the south, the secretary stated, is how
! u UGH longer the specter OF things
/ past is to hold them to a political
allegiance that does them no good in
national politics, and deprives their
/ communities of the .'inestimable bene-
fit of the presence in local politics Of
two parties, each of which, if it does
| wrong, has a real chance of being pun
! ished for Its misconduct"
Mr.. Taft contended that II the south
ern people had kept up with the times,
had they at the ballot box expressed
| their sentiments on the living issues Of
/ the dav instead of allowing themselves
| to be frightened by a specter and a
shadow of the past their political i'm
| portance as communities and the sig
nificance of their views upon measures
and men would have been vastly en-
HANGED"
Mr.. Taft advised the North Carolina
| Republicans that they must show by
| their nominees that they fully recognize
! the obligation they are under to give to
/ the people of the state an opportunity
| to choose able. honest and worthy men
for public offices and they are not mere
" an office seeking party, but are labor
ing to furnish q safe refuge for the
/ Democratic voter VINO has become tired
| Of the incompetency and the abuses
| arising from the permanent control for
many decades of one political party
Efforts to Curb the Trusts.
The secretary said the Republican
platform and Mr.. Roosevelt pledged the
further enforcement Of the antitrust
law and the interstate commerce law to
prevent discrimination against the ship
ping public and to prevent oppressive
combination and monopoly.
Continuing he said that only a year
and four months have elapsed since Mr..
Roosevelt took the oath of office after
| his election in 1904, and yet in that
short part of his term of office the Re-
publican party in congress of the United
States inspired by Mr. Roosevelt's rec
! concentrations. has adopted a railroad
| rate bill which greatly Increased the
power of the interstate commerce COM
mission and which taken together with
| previous legislation before his election,
will certainly have much to do in the
abolition of violations of unjust discrim-
nations and abuses.
THE Investigations by the department
of commerce and labor said Mr.. Taft
have shown the method by which the
Standard Oil company has maintained
its monopoly of the oil business and
prosecutions nave been ordered in many
of the federal CO. rts Of the country in
order not only to vindicate the law for
past violations. but TO bring about a
condition of things in which the man.
ayers Of prosperous and successful cor
porations of the country shall pay heed
to injunctions of the statutes and not
allow temptations of immense profits
to blind them to the necessity for obed-
fence to law"
Capital and Labor
The secretary said that the organiza-
ton Of capital has reduced the cost oil
production and has, therefore. contrib
uted to the material prosperity Of the
world and that the organization of labor
has undoubtedly bettered the condition
and raised the wages Of labor. but he
said it would be unFeasonab Bile to suppose
that in the power which organfza tor
has placed in the hands of individuals
there would be no temptation to oppres-
sion and abuse but when these are
, yielded by the few as compared with
the many, it is no reason for hysteria
or the destruction of the whole socia
order.
TT is no reason for giving up the sys-
tenn of private property or forbiddins
the formation of corporations or pre-
venting the organizing Of trades unions
It is no ground for the advocacy oi
socialism" said the secretary. adding
We must take up the abuses in the
good olo Anglo-Saxon way, adjust ev-