The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-23
SECRETARY TAFT
 ON RACE QUESTION
Continued from First Page.)

fests the slightest consideration for his view. am not a pessimist with respect to the race question am con- vinced that 1t is working itself out and 1 am convinced that nothing has so much contributed to it's gradual solu- tion as the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments"
 He discussed the first and second of l these and called attention to the devel- opment of the people, starting with the ! greatest illieracy and ignorance unil they became sustaining, giving much praise to Booker T. Washington
 and others who had urged "the wis.,
 dom of making the education manual
 and industrial"
 ! He continued:
 T shall not stop to give you the sta-
 tistics showing the great progress that
 has been made by the negro race in
 the south. We are apt to forget this
 real improvement in the diatribes that
 we occasionally hear from men who
 lack sympathy with the progress of the
 colored race and who denounce the entire race on account of compara- | lively small criminal class that forms
 the dregs of the southern population"
 After mentioning the various means
 of disfranchising voters, and declaring
 that such laws were proper if applied
 with equal fairness to both white and black, he expressed the hope that as
 the colored citizens under the leader
 ship of men such as Booker T. Wash
 ington would become respected busi- ness members of the communities in
 which they live and when they exer-
 else independence of judgment in res-
 pect to political issues, we may be sure
 that gradually the right to vote will
 be accorded them and they will exer-
 else a far more useful Influence as in
 telligent and solid members of the com
 munity than the ignorant members of
 their race would have exercised, had
 they been allowed to vote In this
 way, through devious ways which can
 not be justified or approved, we may
 still reach a result that will be square
 with the requirements of the federal
 constitution and will give to the negro
 every political and economic right. The
 negro is necessarily to the south as a
 laborer-skilled and unskiled. The
 world over to-day there is a demand for labor and were the negro to be
 withdrawn from the south the difficult ties under which agriculture would la
 bor can hardly be overstated
 "The negro is an American He , has no other country than this and,
 called upon to defend it, he lays down his life with the same freedom that i. the white man sacrifices it. Ours is the flag he loves7-the sorly one he
 knows. It is our duty to see to it that his path is made. asreasy as pos
 sible, and that his progress is as in- cessant as proper encouragement can make it. His best .friend---the one } that can do most for him and the one in many respects, who sympathizes with him most--is the southern white
 man He understandss 4his defects He knows his virtues, And if the ne gro responds to the opportunities foi : improvement as Booker Washington
 points them out, we can be sure that he will gro win the estimation of his white fellow citizens of the south, and that the, great problem, which has /. burdened the south Will be largely solved.
 "The fifteenth amendment does moi require that every negro should vote All that it requires is that he should not be excluded from voting because he is a negro. If he lacks education-
 la qualifications, property qualif1ca-
 tions or any other qualifications that
 the state may lawfully impose as g rule of eligibility for it's voters, then . l. he may be excluded, provided that
 every one else who lacks similar qual-
 ifications Is equally excluded. The , fifteenth amendment is merely in- { tended to secure him in his political rights from race discrimination by . the states. It is not intended to give 5 him affirmative privileges as a mem - Der of his race. It's strict enforce ; ment does not involve an amalgama- } ton of the races; has nothing to dc : with social association or equality [ It does not involve so-called negro 3 domination, and to permit the ques- t ton at this late day-forty years after 1 the war--to control the votes of in. s telligent men in respect to issues : that are living, is to indicate lack o1 3 sense of proportion, which, I cannot 7 think, will continue to manifest itseli 5 in the south.
 If only under the influence of Presi : dent Roosevelts administration som, of the southern state, notably Ken . lucky, could be led Into the republican column, in accordance with the cym. ; pathies of the voters of those states it would be crowning glory of his ad | ministration. It will not necessarily
 work for the benefit of the republican party in the end. because of the close t ness with which southern states havt t united in support of democratic candi
 dates has introduced similar cohe sion among the nothern state, and WI might expect much more independenc, ! of voting at the north if the voter
 solidarity of the south As an Ameri
 can citizen and lover of my country
 long for the time when the south shal 6 be received into the councils of tn r nation, and when the people of tha y section shall resume the influence t e which they are entitled, and whiol they deny themselves be being fright Il ened at the were ghost of the past" On the question of greater congres l sional representation than the vote O . the south seemed to warrant. he foun,
 an injustice which he believed had beel e largely counterbalanced by its tendenc [ | tn driun nnthArn Vntars intn tLo ,.A