The Mena weekly star., 1906-07-12
TAFTS "k[YEO1E'' SPEECH
The Secretary of War Opens the Campaign for Republicans in
 North Carolina.
oPENlM6 SUN OF CONGRESSIONAL FIGHT

Would be Advantageous to the
 Country at Lnrge-Current POli-
 ticnI Topics Dealt With-Educa-
 Greensboro, N. C., July 11.-Secreta- ry of War Taft Monday night, before a meeting of North Carolina republi- cans on the eve of their state conven- tion delivered a speech that was generally regarded as the opening gun of the congressional campaign of 1906. The speech dealt with current politi- cal questions and opening with ad- vice to the rank and file of the party in North Carolina and the south par ticularly referred to the achievements of the party in the session of congress just closed. The opera house was packed to overfowing by a throng eager to hear the secretary of war and hundreds of persons were turned away because of the limited size of the hall. Secretary Taft said in part:
 T believe that nothing that could happen in the politics of this country would work greater advantage to the country at large. and to the south III particular than the breaking up of what has been properly known as the soli1 south l say this in no parti- san spirit for am not one of those who think that this result would nec- essarily increase the probability Of the continuance in power of the repub- lican party. The solidity of the south has, in measure, furnished it's own lntidote in restraining many voters in the north who might have left the republican party but for what they re- gard as the injustice and danger of southern political conditions
 "The south has been kept solid by the specter of negro domination. and by stirring up racial prejudices and arousing unfounded alarm over ar impossible return of reconstruction days" said the secretary After long struggle" he added. "the ne- gros vote was made to count for nothing. and then the political leaders If the. dominant party came to real- ize that dreadful demoralization of all society that followed in a govern ment If law was fiouted and fraud was to constitute it's basis. They cast about to make the law square with existing conditions by property and educational 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 law establishing education al qualifications for suffrage which will stand the test of the 18th amend ment. and which will not operate al- .imately to exclude impartially the negroes and whites from the ballot who lacked educational requirement.
 A policy in tho south. he said which excludes from the ballot impar- tially black and white, when ignorant and irresponsible, cannot be criticised
 Again." continued the secretary. mo part of this country Is so vitaiiy interested in the construction or great waterway to connect the Allan tic and Pacific oceans across the isth- mus of Panama as the south It was indispensable to this enterprise that the. treaty made with Panama by President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay Should he promptly confirmed. and yet the majority of the represen- tatives in the south in the senate attempted to defeat the treaty"
 He added that there was enough of independence even auong those representatives to give the vote which made the canal possible, but the very fact that merely to accomplish some supposed advantage to the democratic party, majority of the senators from the south were willing to sacrifice her material interests and delay the great project of such capital importance to her indicates the disadvantage that she labors under in having 1t thought that she is tied irretrievably to the democratic party"
 The investigations by the depart ment of commerce and labor, said MT. Taft, have shown the method by which the Standard Oil company has maintained it's monopoly of the oil business and prosecutions have been ordered In many of the federal courts of the country in order not only to vindicate the law for past vio- lations, but to bring about condition of things fin which the managers of prosperous and successful corporations of the country shall pay heed to in- functions of the statutes