The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-30
usING SOFT SOAP.

In his speech a few days ago at Lex lngton, Ky, Mir. Taft said that he hoped the solid South might be polit- ically broken. He thought it would be the crowning glory of the Roose- welt administration if some of the Southern States, including Kentucky. would be led under the Presidents in fluence into the Republican column"
 Plainly the big Secretary is bidding for votes for himself. He probably thinks 1t at least possible that some of the Northrn States may break away at the next election and wants to rope in enough Southern votes to make his calling and election sure. That's whats the matter with him.
 The Republican leaders cannot win the South by soft words. The South ern Democrats have long memories. They know that it was the Republican party that defeated the South's efforts for self government and robbed her people of some billions of property in slaves What is still more fresh and ineffaceable on their memories, they know that Republicans were responsi- ble for the era of reconstruction with all its damnable outrages. expressions and robberies; an era that, when we look back at it, seems incredible. It is almost incomprehensible that such things could have happened in a civil ized country in an enlightened era.
 And MT. Taft knows, for he is a man of intelligence and information, that the Republican party is not and has not been the friend of the South all through the years that have elapsed since reconstruction. As a rule the leaders of that party have acted on the assumption that the North is and has always been right and that the South has always been wrong. They eitker cannot or will not see that we understand conditions down here bet ter than they do and that we resent their air of superiority and refuse to be bossed by them. An the soft soap ing of such as Taft is solely for polit- ical effect and vote getting.
 1 We are free to say that 1t would be better if there were no sectionaIism in politics The South, as we have said, | has remained solid because 1t felt that it had nothing to hope or expect from the Republican party or a Republican administration, but why is the North solid? It has nothing to fear from Democratic rule, but some sections. at least, have much to gain from an ad- ministration conducted on the princi- ples of sound Democracy.
 | A number of the States North of Mason and Dixon's line are naturally Democratic. They could always be de- pended on to cast their electoral vote | for the Democratic ticket in the days before sectional partisanship became dominant in that region. This fact appears to make little impression on the average Republican splelers. They have much to say about the desirability of breaking up the solid South but we do not hear any of them advocating the breaking up of the solid North. Had not Taft and his sort better take a look nearer home before lamentlng the sol idarity of the south?
 Tafts talk about Southern States be- ing led into the Republican party un- der Roosevelt's influence is almost amusing. It is putting entirely too much strain on the imagination to try to And reason why a Southern State should discredit itself and its record by following the President into Repub-