The Columbus dispatch., 1907-08-01

s = 1-E7
announced that the government could |
mot exist half slave and half free.
There was race problem when three
and half million men met in the
deadly embrace Of war at the sacri-
ice of the lives Of one million white
men. There was a race problem
when Mr.. Lincoln issued his emanci-
patton proclamation. There was a
race problem when the Knights OF
the Invisible Empire" oyerthrew the
mongreI despotism of negro and car
pet bag rule. There was race prob
lem when the white men of the South
held by force and eternal vigilance
the white mans government restored
to them by the desperate prowess
of the Ku Klux.
There was a race problem in 1890,
when Mississippi led the way through
| constitutional methods in securing
| temporary elimination of the negro
| from participation in the government
of the State. And today we are con-
| fronted by the same problem in its
gravest aspect, by a large negro ma
jority qualified to resume political
powers under the very constitution
that gave us limited surcease of
trouble.
The dominant spirit of the Cau-
| casion and savage arrogance of the
educated African glare at each other
across the line of racial antagonism.
1t is worse than childish, it is Grim
inaI folly, to assume to wave aside
the impending conflict.
In the process of evolution through
more than a century the race problem
at least approaches its final and in
evitable solution. 1t can not be
avoided, except for a brief and de-
lusiye truce. 1t remains to be seen
| whether the solution is to be realized
/ through process salutary or detri-
mental to the races. We believe. that
when properly appealed to, the Cau-
casian blood of the North will unite
with the Caucasian blood of the
South in the humane and patriotic
effort to establish on a permanent
basis the relative position of the
races-Caucasian Mongolian, Indian
and African, and restore this govern
ment to it's normal functions and
original autonomy as defined by the
Supreme Court in 1851.
We are told that the ''time is not
ripe for this movement. This prob
lem has moved steadily forward, by
the process of natural evolution, for
more than a century. We cannot ar
rest it if we could we can only meet
it and endeavor to direct it to legit-
innate termination.
The expedient politician dallies
with the doubts of day and sptrts
with the possibilities of an hour. The
statesman reads in the distant future
the logical sequences of past history
and present events.
Jefferson spoke with the tongue of
a prophetic statesman in 1921, when
he said nothing is more surely writ
ten on the book of fate than that
these people will be free, and it is
equally certain that, when free, they
cannot live on terms of political
equality with the white man, under
the same government.
Lincoln was a statesman when he
repeated this prophetic utteranee for
ty years later
George was statesman when he
framed the constitution of 1880,
which he said would afford us fifteen
or twenty years of rest and reeuper-
alton. When he was asked, What
will you do, Senator, when, through
the education for which your consti-
tuition provides, the negro is quail
fed to voter He promptly replied,
when your fence gets too low again,
you must put on another rail"
The time has come for the .'other
rail.
/ Fellow citizens, this is no time for
bitterness and strife among the voters
of Mississippi ON personal or imma-
terial issues. It is time for serious
thought, calm delfberatfon, for COM
prehensive. consideration of an issue
/ that will not down at the bidding of
/ any man untH 1t is settled, and set
tied right.
/ If you agree with Jefferson, if you
agree with Lincoln, If you agree with
that large number of Mississipplans
with whom Gov. Vardaman agrees,
then register your vote accordingly,
and say whether we succeed or falE,
, we will try"
C. NJ. Williamson, Charm.
> Garard Harris, Secretary.
, The Vardaman State COMMITTEES.