Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-03-11

Atlanta, Ga, March 10.-Presdent
Taft in notable speech before the
closing session of the Southern Com
mercial Congress tonight counselIed
the young men of the New South to
take up the political issues of tn" day
from broad and liberal standpoint and
to exclude from their consideration all
narrow partisanship and scctionalSm.
Come fully into our national com
munion," said the President with the
patriotic purpose of stimulating the
progress of our civilization in every
right direction, maintaining our coun-
try'S prosperity and accommodating its
wealth. but always in Subordination to
higher ethical standards and to the
promotion of righteousness and jus
|tice."
The President reviewed briefly the
accomplishments of the 61st Congress,
declaring that in its three sessions just
closed it enacted more helpful lcgisa-
ton than any Congress since the Civil
War Mr.. Taft asserted that the great
est accomplishment of the short ses-
sion ending March was the ratifca
ton of the japanese treaty. The
greatest disappointment. he said WAS
the failure of Congress to ratify the
reciprocity agreement with Canada.
In the hope. perhaps that tariff leg
isation may be avoided at the extra
session, the President pledged himself
to furnish to the Democratic House at
its regular meeting in December, next.
report from the tariff commission
on Schedule X of the Payne Aldrich
act, the wool and woolens schedule.
He said that sundry civil bill carry
ing the appropriation for the temper
airy board. provided that the board
should devote itself to the wool and
wooden SCHEDULED schedule that had
not been changed for 80 years, and
make report by December.
Other speakers of national promi-
hence at the closing session of the
Congress tonight were Governor Wood
row Wilson Of New Jersey and Secre
tary of War j. NJ. Dickinson. The
President arrived in Atlanta shortly
after l A. NJ. today and left again at
midnight for Augusta where he is to
have nine days vacation. From the
moment of his arrival until his de-
parture the President was busy He
was escorted from the terminal sta
ton, through streets crowded with
people to the auditorium, where the
Congress was in session. From there
he went to the Capital City Club for
luncheon. In the afternoon there was
a reception at the governors mansion,
visit to the University Club and a
dinner at the Piedmont Driving Club.
The President said;
THE commercial and Industrial de-
t-n1T. II. 1.,..s
20 years has been so great that the sta
tisticS Startle us. An examination
shows that proportionately the com
mercial and business growth of the
South is greater than that of any other
part of the country. A cotton crop that
sells for billion dollars insures pros
perity, and when in addition to that
you raise corn crop worth half a
billion dollars, and include the tobacco
YOU raise, the product of your iron in
dustry, your cotton manufacturing and
your truck gardening as well as the
naval stores of the CarolinaS and
Georgia. and the sugar and rice of
Louisiana and Texas, the fruits aud
the lumber of all the Southern states,
one begins to get conception of the
marvellous progress of the South. Good
business is not everything in life; the
making and accumulation of money
should not be the chief end of a com
munity. There has been danger in the
past that the rush for wealth would
injure the moral fibre of our people and
degrade their ideals and standards.
Nevertheless, prosperity and the ac-
emulation of wealth, if the effort to
acquire them is not too absorbing, are
very essential in the proper develop
ment of people and in the promotion
of refining civilization.
with the coming prosperity, with
the resumption of comfort in their
lives with a growing sympathy on the
part of the North in their working out
of the serious problems confronting
them and with the sense of triumph in
their success in overcoming their great
difficulties, the Southern people have
mellowed The Northern people have
met them half way, and never in the
history of the country have the two
sections been so friendly and so near
in such complete union as they are to-
day.
1.-THE cause of education has received
tremendous impetus all over the
South. look for a vast improvement
in the thoroughneSS of education in