Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1909-11-07
Americas, Ga, November z, 1909.


liam Howard Taft, president of the
United States, and President Taft.
there is ample reason to believe, has
a good opinion of Georgia. 1t is hard
for any one not to like Georgia. The
sunshine of the country's in the faces
and the manners of It's folks. They
are companionable in as great de-
gree as any people upon earth The
stranger who comes among them en-
titled to a welcome is given a hearty
and royal reception, and their ten
dency is always TO measure him at his
full value and appreciate all of the
manly qualities he may possess. For
tunately for the country as whole
President Taft possesses in an eminent
degree those qualities that take hold
upon the affections of the people. Gen.
ial of disposition, yet strong of char
acter, with record showing devotion
to duty as the guiding impulse of his
official life inclined to sympathize
with this section in its peculiar local
problems, and to use his official posi-
ton, as far as may be proper, in pro-
noting the true welfare of the South,
he has already drawn the South closer
to his administration than it has been
to any other with the exception of the
closing days of President Mckinley,
whose generous impulse had broken
down many barriers and provoked a
warmth Of affeetionate regard for him
personally throughout this section.
That this feeling of attachment to the
president as an individual, and as the
official representative of the entire
people, may have a continuous growth
cannot but be the hope of every lover
of the South and of the nation While
it may be that the solidity of the
South in political way will not be
speedily broken it is certainly well
that the people of this section should
feel a direct personal interest in their
president; that he should not appear
to them as senli-foreigner, that they
should be brought to realize, and to
gladly welcome the realization, that he
is one with them in all that makes III
the true American citizen of to-day.
AS an agency to that end President
Taft's tour, now drawing to a close
has been wise expenditure of time.
Fatiguing though it must have been
to the chief executive it has served a
noble purpose. To-day President
Taft is something more than mere
name to millions of Southern people.
His personality, charming as it un-
doubtedly is, has been brought home
to them as it never could have been
done save by this personal contact. In
the crowded streets of its cities, at its
great gatherings at country fairs,
around the festal board, and in the
conventions of itstrade bodies, he has
met the people of all professions and
callings, has seen their calibre and
been seen of them. That he has left
behind him in the South the most
pleasing of recoliections there is no
gainsaying. That he has carried away
an even broader conception of it's bus
mess and social needs, a more COM
plete understanding of the vast ele-
ments of its greatness, past, present
and future, and that he cherishes
toward it an affectionate esteem as
part of one common country, and to
its people as his friends and fellow
Americans, there is no reason to doubt.
He has promised, and his acts have
borne out his promises, to help the
South by not throwing any obstacles
in its way, by extending to it the kind
ly hand of cooperation and the cheer
ing word of encouragement and of ad-
vice, and by lending the great weight
of his personal influence to all legiti-
mate movements that have for their
purpose the betterment of the condt-
tons surrounding it's commercial re-
lations with the world, such as the i'm
provement of its harbors and water
ways. Under his administration there
is every reason to believe that the
South's interests will be promoted to
as great an extent as conditions will
permit. And under any and all cir
cumstances the South, it would seem
at this time, can have the satisfactory
consciousness that it has friend IN
the White House, one to whom it can
go with its petitions and It's appeals,
with its rights and its demands, know
ing that it will have a cordial and
sympathetic hearing. A friend in the
White House is something worth hav-
ing, and no matter how radically the
South may differ with the Republican
party in some fundamental views on
public policies there is no reason that
there should ever be aught but a
Strengthening of the personal ties be-
tween it and President William How
ard Taft as the representative of the
nation as a whole.