Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1912-09-20
Negro Turns On T. r.

William H. Lewis, the negro Assistant
Acknowledgement, who was born at Ports
mouth, Va, and educated at Harvard, in
an address to the Northern voters Of his
race advises them to vote against Theodore
Roosevelt on the ground that the policy Of
the Progressive party is both "hypocritical
and brutal" toward the colored man in that
it discrimnates between the negro of the
North and the South. Lewis says, in part
THE Progressive party has no record OF
performance; it is only voice and prom
Use. Progressive in theory, it is reactionary
in fact. 1t stands for equal and exact JUS
tice for all men except the colored man.
His rights are determined by the prejudices
OF his neighbors. The disfranchisement
Of eight millions of citizens in the South
from party representation in the new party
was the worst blow that the race has re-
ceived in the last so years, because ours
is party government, because it is the
only means through which the citizen can
make his ideas of government prevail, and
when he is denied his representation there
he is denied fundamental right essential
to liberty and happiness
THE policy Of the Progressive party is
both brutal and hypocritical, and if there
is choice OF one of two evils prefer one
to both. say that the policy is brutal
because the delegates to the National Re-
publican Convention from Mississippi, con-
sisting of Howard, Redmon, Gary, Mollison
and Banks, voted first and last for the
candidacy Of Colonel Roosevelt. They came
back as delegates from Mississippi to the
Progressive convention and were cruelty
and coldly thrust aside for a lily-white
delegation from that State.
Il say that it was hypocriticaI because
the real motive behind the policy was not
to benefit the negro but to secure, if DOS
sible, the electoral vote of some of the
Southern States. 1t was hypocritical be-
cause it excluded the negro where he had
no vote and tried to propitiate him in the
North, where he had vote, by giving him
few hand-picked delegates, thus playing
OH the Northern against the Southern negro.
The Progressive party overlooked Just
one thing in formulating this policy. and
that was that the Northern negro came
from the South. He has in many cases
a brother and a sister living in the South.
Il appeal from Colonel Roosevelt as a
candidate to President Roosevelt when he
said, The only safe rule in the long run
is all men up, not some men down, and
i will not consent that the door of oppor-
tunity shall be shut against any man on
account of his race and color
1T is said that the negroes are ex-
cluded because their delegates to the Ma |
tional Convention for the last as years
have been venal and corrupt This is an
indictment of whole people, an indict-
ment of some of the ablest and best men
that the negro race has produced in this
country. But is it not nearer the truth
to say that they were rejected by the Pro-
gressive party because the delegates to
the last National Republican Convention
refused to be venal and corrupt If they
had been venal and corrupt there would
have been no Progressive party. The
whole race is to be punished because its /
representatives in the National Conven-
lion. like men of honor, stood by their in |
structions and voted for the choice of the .
people they represented"