The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-24
ROOSEVELTS IDEAS
 ARE REPUDlATE ED
CONFINED FROM PAGE 1.)


 as that inserted in the republican plat form?
 There is a plank in the platform in favor of such legislation and supervis- ion as will prevent the future over-issue of stocks and bonds by interstate car riers.
 Railroad Matters.
 "This is good, but it is coupled with the advocacy of a pooling arrangement which makes a large concession to the railroads without exacting any secur- ity to the public, for the convention voted down an amendment proposed by Senator Lafollette's followers authoriz- ing an enlargement of the powers of the interstate commerce commission.
 "The negro comes in for his quadren- nial quota of taffy He is reminded that the republican party gave him freedom and citizenship and in this there is the implied warning that he must not use his citizenship against the party that gave it to him. It boasts that he is indebted to that pary for his political rights and for his progress in intelligence. industry, etc.
 "The republican party has made po- litical capital out of the negro for more than a third of a century. In many of the close states it has won it's cleo tions by the negro votes and in the states where 1t has had power 1t has never treated the negro any better than he has been treated by the democrats. In other words, in the north ern states the democrats, without receiving any support from the negro vote, have been as friendly to him as the republicans. 'In the south the democrats have furnished a large part of the money to provide that education of which the republican platform boasts. And yet in each recurring campaign the republican leaders have attempted to appeal to the prejudices of the negro by parading be- fore him the restrictions placed upon suffrage in some of the southern states. They have been in control of the gov ernment, with the exception of few years, for nearly half a century and they have controlled the courts as well as the other branches of the govern ment If the democrats have done any thing that they ought not to have done, why have not the republicans prevented itc Why is 1t that the republican leaders are only solicitous about the colored man when voting time comes? The republican platform says:
 Negro Disfranchisement. r "We condemn all devices which have for their real aim his (the negro's) dis frahch isement for reasons of color alone as unfair, un-American and repugnant to the supreme law of the land. "How can these things be repugnant to the supreme law of the land when the republican supreme court is sup posed to stand guard over the supreme law of the land? There is scarcely a republican platform that does not ap- proch the nefro with the assumption that his only interest is in the suf- frage laws of the south. No repub- lican speaker discusses economic ques- tions before a colored audience and yet the negro, is interested in every economic question that affects the white man.
 with most of tn negroes raising cot ton and scarcely any employed in fac tories high tariff would be hard to Justify before a negro audience. It is an insult to his intelligence as well as to his patriotism to suggest, as the republican leaders constantly do, that he thinks of no questions except those that arise between the races"