The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-06-24

 republican bosses in the Senate and House must feel to have their work thus endorsed by republican national convention.
 The plank demanding a permanent change In the currency system Is gem era1 enough to permit the republican orators to advocate in each section of the country the system most popular there, and sufficiently indefinite to en- able Congress to do whatever 1t pleases or nothing, without violating any pledge.
 'The trust plank must prove a dis appointment to every republican who has come to understand the inequity of the trusts. There Is no demand for a rigid enforcement of the law; there Is no suggestion that the criminal clause which has not yet brought the trust malefactor within the walls of the pen-should be called into use. The platform says that the law can be strengthened by amendments which will enlarge the supervision of the gem eral government but these amendments are not mentioned. and there Is noth- Ing In this plank of the platform that can be appealed to to secure any real Improvement in the law. If the Pres ident with all his strenuosity had not been able to enforce the criminai law against single trust, what progress can be made with such an anti-trust plank as that inserted in the republican platform?
 There Is plank in the platform in favor of such legislation and super vision as will prevent the future over Issue of stocks and bonds by interstate carriers.
 This is good. but 1t is coupled with ment which makes a large concession to the railroads without exacting any security to the public for the conven- tion voted down an amendment pro- posed by Senator La Foliette'S follow CTS authorizing an enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
 Tafy for Negroes.
 The negro comes in for his quad rennia1 quota of taffy. He is remind ed that the Republican party gave him freedom, and in this there Is the im- piled warning that he must not use his citizenship against the party that gave it to him. It boasts that he is indebted to that party for his politi- cal rights and for his progress in in- telligence, industry, etc The Repub- lican party has made political capital out of the negro for more than third of a century. In many of the close States 1t has won It's elections by the negro vote and in the States where 1t has power, 1t has never treated the negro any better than he has been treated by the Democrats. In other words. in the Northern States the Democrats, without receiv- ing any support from the negro vote, have been as friendly to him as the Republicans. In the South the Demo- crats 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 ne- gro by parading before him the restric- tions placed upon suffrage in some of the Southern States. They have been in control of the Government, with the exception of a few years. for now nearly half a century, and they have controlled the courts as we'll as the other branches of the Government. If the Democrats have done anything that they ought not to have done, why have not the Republicans prevented it7 Why is it that the Republican leaders are only solicitous about the colored man when voting time comes? The Republican platform says: We con- demn all devices which have for their real aim in his (the negro'sl disfran- chisement 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 Re- publican Supreme Court is supposed to stand guard over the supreme law of the land7
 There Is scarcely Republican plat form that does not approach the ne- gro with the assumption that his only interest Is in the suffrage laws of the South. No Republican speaker dis cusses economic questions before ne- gro audience. and yet the negro Is in- terested in every economic question that affects the white man.
 with most of the negroes raising cotton and scarcely any employed in factories. high tariff would be hard to Justify before a negro audience. It is an insult to his intelligence as we'll as to his patriotism to suggest, as the Republicans consistently do. that he thinks of no questions except those that arise between the races'