New-York tribune., 1909-01-06
Exercising sECTIONALISM.

In his speech the other day to a delegation
from Birmingham, Ala. which brought him an
invitation TO make address in that flourish
ing city, Mr.. Taft expressed with great felicity
the hopes he entertains for new and better
order in Southern politics. 1t would be hard
to put more clearly and happily than he did the
ideas behind the proposed movement for the
liberalization of political opinion in the South.
Mr. Taft properly emphasized the non-partisan
and broadly patriotic purpose of those who
would encourage Independent thinking and
voting below Mason and Dixon's line when he
said:
What I welcome is an agitation which means
Independence OF action, and that is all. If it
were to happen that the party Of which am the
representative were 10 succeed in controlling
two or three states in the South, it would by
no means necessarily inure to the benefit of
that party. for the reason that the sodity OF the
South has made a number of the states in the
North solid. It is not working for a party pur-
pose therefore. TO hope, either on your part or
on nv part. that the Solid South shall be broken
up It only means the hope that there shall not
be politically South or a North. or an East,
or a West, any sectional political lines.
The incoming administration will do what it
can to eliminate sectionalism in politics and to
eliminate it not for the benefit or to the detri-
ment of any party organization, hut for the
profit of the nation as whole. Sectionaism
has been the bane Of American politics. In the
[
nately. fatal seeds of sectional dissension The
separation in interest of the slave labor states
from the free labor states was Inevitable,
though the early statesmen of the Republic did
not foresee the spread of the slave system and
hoped that slavery might be gradually and
peacefully extinguished. Washington was more
fearful of a schism between the Atlantic Coast
States and the new settlements beyond the
mountains. and the disunion spirit with which
he and his successors had to cope was that
which plotted a Mississippi Valley cOnfederacy
with an outlet to the Gulf through the territory
of France and Spain. In his farewell address
Washington prOphetically declared that the
development of sectonalism would prove the
greatest peril tc the perpetuity of the Union.
In that address he said:
In contemplating the causes which may dis
turb our union it occurs as matter of serious
concern that any ground should have been fur
nished for characterizing parties by geographical
minations-Northern and Southern. At
lantic and Western-whence designing men may
endeayor to excite a belief that there is a real
difference of local interests and views. One of
the expedients OF party TO acquire influence
within particular districts is to misrepresent the
opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot
shield yourselves too much against the jealousieS
and heartburnings which spring from those mis-
representations; they tend TO render allen 10
each other those who ought to be bound by
fraterna1 ties
The purchase Of Louisiana quieted political
unrest In what Washington called the West
But from 1880 on the opposition OF interest be-
tween the North and the South grew more
and more intense, and the sectiohalism thus
gendered has warped and blighted politics ever
since. 1t cost gigantic civil war, with ma
terial losses difficult to compute. In political
sense ii checked for more than two generations
our normal progress as a democracy; for the
energy which should have gone into working
out the problems of self-government was largely
absorbed in the struggle for sectional advan-
tags.
take up a too long interrupted common task
Interests are no longer so conflicting to JUS
tify sectional divisions. Intelligent men at the