The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1909-06-04

In view Of the fact that the Charles
ton News and Courier invites Presi-
dent Taft to head a new party, with
| the promise that the south will follow
him, let us inquire with all due re-
spect and reverence into the position
of Mr.. Taft on a question of vital in
| terest to the south as we'll as to the
world. If a new party worthy the
support of the oSuth is to be formed.
its leader must be statesman who
stands 'on the truth, and will deliver
1T regardless of prejudice or passion
we fear Mr.. Taft either lacks the
freedom or the knowledge to take
such position in relation to the south
Speaking to the colored graduates of
Howard University with the weight
given TO his words by his position, Mr..
Taft arraigned the south particularly.
and then the nation. as guilty of a
great wrong, and If the south is to
follow him she admits her guilt and
acknowledges a debt yet due which
honesty requires her to pay with as
little delay as possible. Here it is:
This university is the partial re-
payment of the debt to a race to
which government and the people OF
the United States are eternally in
debted. They brought that race into
this country against its will. They
planted it here irretrievably. They
first put it in bondage and then Kept
it in the ignorance which that bond
age seemed to make necessary under
the system then in vogue, Then they
freed it and put upon it the response
bilities of citizenship"
Does Mr.. Taft possess the knowl-
edge which should precede such a
declaration that comes with all the
force of a judicial deliverance? Booker
Washington should have at least equal
knowledge, and he has been called a
statesman by the man who elected
Mr.. Taft; Booker Washington says the
debt is the other way about, and that
his race owes a debt of gratitude to
the south for the industrial training
that fitted it for the place it now
holds. Has not the south given at
least as much as she has received?
Take the man she received and the
man the nation took from her and
judge.
Principal Blackshear, another emf
nent negro educator, accepts Mr.. Car
negie's figures as true, and says:
I'm 1900 negroes as tenants or as
landowners cultivated 746,717 farms,
comprising 3S.233,93 acres, embrac-
ing 59.741 square miles or Just the
area of England and Wales. or double
that of Scotland and larger than the
kingdom of Belgium and Holland COM
bined; that 2,101 ,947 were engaged in
farming; that the race has amassed
property values to the extent of over
$500, 900 600 with zero as their start
ing point in 1865; these facts indicate
that in the conditions and influences
at the south where the bulk of our
race resides there must be friendly
factors whose extent and value have
been undereStimated
The testimony above was given in
June, 190s-AIr. Taft summed up his
judgment during the last week of
May, 1909; did he consider the other
side of the ledger in giving the debt
Of the south?
DR.. Lyman Abbott of the Outlook
said in 1908: Never in the history
of man has a race made such educa-
tional and material progress as the
American negro" Shall we believe
that the negro is superior to all other
races? Since not even the negro has
made such progress under any other
influence, and since the greater part
of his time in America was spent I'M
dar Central Of thu Sox1th aIoua NAV