The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1912-08-03
ROOSEVELT ON THE
NEGRO IN POLITICS
lContinued from Page ID

Continued IRON rage ID
Union where there is Il considerable
tolored population we are able in
very fact and at the present moment.
.u bring the best cOlOred men into
the movement on the same terms as
he white man. In Rhode Island and
Maryland, in New York and Indiana.
in Ohio and Illinois, in New Jersey
and Pennsylvania, to speak only of
States of which have personal
knowledge, this is now being done,
and from some or all of these States
colored delegates will be sent to the
National Progressive convention in
Chicago.
I'm the Republican national con-
ventions the colored members have
been almost exclusively from the
south, and the great majority of
them have been men of such char
acter that their political activities
were merely a source of harm. and
of very grave harm. to their own
race. We, on the contrary, are hop
ing to see in the National Progressive
convention colored delegates from
the very places where We expect to
develop our greatest strength, and
we hope to see these men of such
character that their activities shall
be of benefit not only to the people
at large but especially to their own
race.
For forty-five years the Repub-
lican party has striven to build up
in the southern States in question
party based on the theory that the
pyramid will. unsupported. stand
permanently on it's apex instead of
en- its base. For forty-five years the
Republican party has endeavOred in
those States to build up a party in
which the negro should be dominant,
party consisting almost exclusively
of negroes. Those who took the lead
in this experiment were actuated by
high motives, and no one should now
blame them because of what, with
the knowledge they then had and I'M
der the then existing circumstances.
they strOve to do. But in actual
practice the result has been lament
able from every standpoint. 1t has
been productive of evil to the colOred
ran themselves; it has been produe-
tive only of evil to the white man Of
the south; and it has worked the
sravest injury to, and finally the dis
Eruption and destruction of, the great
Republican party itself.
"Thcrc has in the past been much
vcnality in Republican national con
Ncntions in which there was an az
tive contest for the nomination for
president for the most part
IamOng the negro delegates from
these southern States. Finally, in the
convention at Chicago last June, tn,
breakup of the Republican party was
forced by those rotten borough dele
gates from the south. In the pri
mary States of the north the cOlOret
men in most places voted substan
tally as their white ncighbOrs voted
But in the southern States, wher,
there was no real Republican party
and where cOlOred men, or white Sc
lccted purely by colOrcd men, wcr,
sent to the convention. representing
nothing but their own greed fol
money or office. the majority wa,
overwhelmingly anti progressive
Seven-eights of the cOlored men from
these rotten borough districts upheld
by their votes the fraudulent actions
OF the men who in that convention
defied and betrayed the will Of tn,
mass of the plain people OF the party
1t would be not merely foolish
but criminal TO disregard the teach
ings OF such lesson. The disruption
and destruction of the Republican
party, and the fact that il has been
rendered absolutely impotcnt AS an
instrument for anything but mis-
chief in the country at large. has
Leen brought about in large part by
the effort TO pretend that in tho
southern States a sham is a fact. b,
the insistence upon treating tn,
shost party in the southern States
as real party, by refusing to fac.
the truth. which is that under eX-
listing conditions there is not and
cannot be in the southern States a
party based primarily upon the negro
vote and under negro leadership q,
the leadership of white men who de-
rive their power solely from negroes
With these forty-five years OF failure
of this policy in the south before our
eyes and with catastrophe thereby
caused TO a great national party not