The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-03-17
DICKINSON AND HIS POLITICS.

From the Savannah Press.
Mr.. Jacob NJ Dickinson, Presi-
dent Taft's appointee as secretary of
war, makes it his first business to
explain his appointment. He states,
in substance, that he is not only a
democrat, but southern democrat,
and that Mr.. Taft appointed him
because he determined to invite
into his cabinet a southern man,
thereby giving assurance to the
southern people that although their
solid electoral vote was against him
he wanted them to feel that they
were in close relations with his ad-
ministration, and would be in no
sense alien to it.
Then he adds that, in looking
around for a suitable parsonage, Mr..
Taft came to the conclusion that his
qualifications and relations to the
southern people were such as to JUS
tify putting him in his cabinet; and
gracefully intimates that the ap-
pointment Of a southern republican
might have lacked that ligament
with the southern people which
would exist between them and one
who had not left the party"
In other words, Mr.. Taft made the
appointment with a view to a be-
nevOlent assimilation of the south,
and Mr.. Dickinson accepted it in or
der to carry out this philanthropic
purpose.
The incoherence of such an expla-
nation is self-evident Nothing can
obscure the fact that Mr.. Taft wants
southern electoral votes, and that
Mr. Dickinson is lending himself to
an effort to procure them. Claiming
to be southern man, he is aiding
and abetting that political party to
which all the woes of the south are
due.
1t is one of the infexibIe canons
of American politics that he who ac-
cepts high Office at the hands of a
victorious party thereby becomes a
member of that party. The basis
of the rule is that fundamental prin-
ciple that no man can serve two
masters. Mr.. Dickinson cannot es-
cape the operation of this rule. Let
him protest as he will, he has aban-
doned the democratic party and
aligned himself with the republican
party.
If he were a citizen of, say, Yer
mont or Iowa this might be a mat
ter for himself, but it is a question
whether a southern man has any
good reason to turn republican. By
the act OF the republican party the
south has been environed and en-
comprised by darkest Africa. Its
labor system has been demoralized
and its homes put under constant
menace. Every native white acces-
sion in the south to the republican
ranks intensifies the causes which
lead to our agricultural difficulties
and domestic apprehensions. Most
or the southern states have in one
way or another neutralized to a
greater or less extent the evil of
negro suffrage, but the moment any
thing like a real white republican
party appears in any southern state
that moment the negro rises again
INTO prominence as an electoral fac
tor. Such party would, by the very
law of its nature, look to the col
Ored race for reinfOrcements in that
eIoFI IL would nave the aid and COM
fort of northern republicans, and I'M
der this combination of northern re-
publicans and southern allies we
would be back where we were forty
years ago.
What is now contemplated is an
other reconstruction of the southern
states, differing in form but the sans
in substance. Then the instrument
tally employed was force; now the
agency is to divide by purchase and
thus prevail.
1t is idle for Mr.. Dickinson to
speak of himself as zone who has
not left the party" He may find
that he has left his party and his
people-not only abandoned his col
ors and his comrades, but actually
enlisted in the hostile camp.