Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-16
HOPE FOR THE NEGRO
Taft Addresses Gathering of
CoIored Clergymen.
HE DENOUNCES LYNCHING
Condemns Utterances of Instigators
of Race Bitterness.
BETTER FEELING IN THE SOUTH
Prejudice Will Fade Away, He Says,
When There Are Pecuniary Rea-
sons for It's Disappearance.
BETTER FEELING IN THE SOUTH

CINCINNATI. September 1s-Judge
William II. Taft. republican nominee for
the presidency. addressed gathering of
ministers composing the Ohio conference
Of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church last night. He expressed his SYM
pathy for the negroes and denounced
lynching. He was there, he said for the
purpose of expressing his sympathy with
the negro race in its struggle for better
things.
"A sympathy" he said, (which I have
had from the time was small boy. for
inherited 1t from my father. Alphonso
Taft. than whom the colored race never
had a better friend"
This interest. Mr.. Taft said, had been
stimulated through his experience in the
Philippines.
Education Of the Negro.
He reviewed the struggle of the race
from the time Of slavery. It had made
the most progress in agricultural pursuits
and 1t was in this line, he believed they
should continue. The education to be
most sought for by the negro race he
said was primarily the rudiments of
knowledge combined with industrial train
ing. This should be supplemented by
| higher education for a more limited num-
Der to furnish we'll rounded ministers,
doctors. teachers and lawyers.
at will be greatly easier for him nhe
negro to secure his civil and political
rights when he becomes useful to the
community and a source Of profit to many
members of it. Prejudice against the race
fades away most rapidly when there are
pecuniary reasons for its disappearance"
The candidate said he had not always
been in favor of higher education for
| members of the negro race; but after
full consideration Of the needs of the
race I am convinced that was in error"
Race Bitterness.
On the subject of race prejudice and
mob violence Mr.. Taft said
Il don't know that the race bitterness
is any stronger today than it ever was.
gether abated. and then there will Ne an
outbreak. a mob will be formed, develop
ing the most fiendish cruelty manifest
ing itself in the blindest and most un-
reasonable assaults upon perfectly limo
cent people, simply because of their color.
1t Is only fair to say that such british
exhibitions are not confined to any one
section
1T is impossible to read accounts of
this sort without having ones blood boil
with indignation that there can reside in
the human breast such a savage and
beaStly impulse and motive.
Spirit Of the Mob
But We must remember two things:
First, that, in spite of our education and
refinement and progress toward Christian
ideals, we still retain in our nature a
great deal of the original animal. and,
second. that the spirit OF a mob seems to
be a different spirit from that of the in
dividuals making it up, and to disclose
a more nhuman state Of impulse than 1t
would be possible to find in any one OF its
members
The best remedy, and the necessary one
is an improvement IN the administration
of our criminal laws. and the holding to
strict account the officers of the law who
do not use all possible means to prevent
and suppress such outbreaks.
Il cannot too strongly condemn the at
titude of those public men who in their
discussions of tie negro question use lam
guage calculated to arouse in the gnor-
ant Il deep contempt for the negro race
and an altogether unfriendly attitude to-
ward it. They must be held responsible
for much of she feeling that manifests
itself in the contumely heaped upon the
negro at times and the actual cruelty ex-
hibited toward him. On the other hand.
I believe sincerely that all through the
south a very much better feeling is grow
ing among many classes Of citizens to-
ward the negro"
Future Of the Negro.
Saying that he realized the heart throbs
of the negro. he added:
But, in spite of all, he should be Of
good cheer-the future is brighter for
him and Is more in his hands than ever.
While the negro is the ward Of the ma
ton, in the sense that the nation brought
him here against his will. and must now
deal with the problems that his pres
ence presents and solve them justly, fair
" and charitably he is not thereby re-
lieved from the burden of responsibility
that he must assume to win his way in
the community by industry and thrift to
a place in which he becomes too valuable
a part of society for his depreciators to
ignore his rights and we'll earned posi-
ton"