The Sentinel=record., 1912-08-07
'IG CAME AND MINSTREL TONIGHT
ROOSEVELTS COLOR LINE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

| colered men who have won the es eem and respect of their white neigh bors, and they send them here hon. estly and of their own free will. That is what we progressiyes have finally succeeded in doing in the north. We have done it by simply encouraging the best men in the north to act as squarely by the colored man as they would by the white man We have not done it by trying to dragoon the white man into that action.
 Former System Failed.
 The other system of trying to force in the far southern states con ditions that we cannot make exist there, has failed. l propose to take toward the southern states the exact 1 attitude that we took toward West Vidginia and Maryland. 1 believe in adopting this action we shall natur- ally and spontaneously see from these southern states the replication of conditions in West Virginia and | sive national conventions you will see colored delegates come from the South Atlantic and Gulf states pre- ciseiy as they now come from Wesg | Virginia and from Maryland.
 T ask you to look carefully at the letter 1 wrote to MT. Julian Harris. 1 have just received from him an an swer. MT Harris is a Georgian, the son of Uncle Remus' Harris, a dele gate to this convention, and in his letter in speaking of my action MT Harris shows that his mind and my mind have met in the natter that he and those for whom he speaks look at it just as l would have hoped they would look at H. He writes as follows, after speaking of the new conditions it has produced:
 Under these conditions, it will become, for the first time. possible that the negro who shows the quality which entities him to respect and confidence will, with the cordial will of his white neighbors, do his part in lhealthy political work for the common good. (Applause.)
 Now, friends, l hold that the white man and the color-d s.;an who en- deavor to make the colored man dis contented with what we are doing are the worst foes for the colored race
 We are standing against the bru tality of the democracy. the hypocrisy of the republicans. We are in the first place beginning where all char ity must begin-at home. We are be- ginning by taking steps to do justice to the colored man in. our own states, We are setting the standard in semi southern states like West Virginia and Maryland here in this convention and setting a standard to which we can have a reasonable hope that our brethren of the south, when re no longer attempt to drive them, when it is a matter of honorable obligation with them as with us, to which we have a reasonable right 10 hope that they themselves will come up to and to which my correspondent, a delegate in this convention from Georgia. himself says he believes they will come mp to.
 Has Avoided BIunder.
 Now, friends, the easy thing for me to have done in this matter if I had been interested only in my own pc litieal advancement, was to have re- peated the dreadful blunders made for so many years by the republican party; to have uttered insincere pla- titudes about the black man and kept him out of the northern delegations and brought him from the south as a cheap method of paying any obliga- tion to him. That might have helped me- it would have helped me with those people who accept fine phrases as a substitute for honest actions. It would have driven still further down the black man of the south. It would have kept the white men of the south solidified in angry vindietive alliance against any party that hid justice to the negro; and it would have sown seeds at the outset in this progress sive party, the seeds of dissolution | which we saw blossom into perfect flower in the republican convention in this city six weeks ago.
 Now, 1 have advocated the action which, as far as 1 am able to judge my own soul, I believe with all my heart is the only action that offers 1 dnS 1hetANt Oi nOBt A0 AhA bA0Nh ihAAii ] ;;; :.h.s south tn the white man in the south. which has already given to the black man in the south better chance than he has ever had before, and if I had followed. or if l had ad
 yocated the following of any other action, l should have been in the po- sition of insincerely advocating for the purposes of temporary political
 advantage a course which has been
 followed for forty five years in the republican party and which has, dur ing that period, hurt the negro in the south. hurt the white man in the south. and finally has brought to crushing disaster and death the great republican party itself
 Now, friends. ! think l eau say , that have at any rate. met perfect
 ly fearlessly and oonselentiously the question you have put to me"