Part 1

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The South and the National Government

By The Honorable William Howard Taft President-elect of the United States

An Address Delivered at the Dinner of the North Carolina Society of New York, at the Hotel Astor, December 7, 1908

%Introduction%

The speech of the President-Elect at the recent annual banquet of the North Carolina Society, New York, found a warm response in the hearts of the Northern people, who have not failed to sympathize deeply with their Southern fellow citizens during their long years of affliction.

The orator expresses our feelings with rare felicity, and so keenly did his sentiments touch our hearts, it was resolved to publish his address and send it to our fellow citizens of the South as the messenger of peace and perfect reunion from their Northern countrymen.

Our Southern friends will note that no phase of the present unfortunate situation is neglected by Mr. Taft; all are dealt with in a clear and masterly manner. The North, as well as the South is enlightened as to their respective duties toward bringing about the desirable return of the South to its normal condition politically, so that American citizens in all sections of our common country will again belong to both of the great political parties, thus proving to the world that both parties command the allegiance of good citizens in all parts of the country who are desirous only for what they believe to be best for the good of the nation as a whole.

The future President of our common country, North, South, East, and West, who appeals to us, is a man of large heart, warm sympathies, and cool brain, of sound judgment and lofty purpose, who has at heart as one of the greatest possible triumphs of his administration the restoration of normal political conditions in the South. Under his wise and sympathetic leadership the writer is sanguine of success--certain of it if the influential people of all sections give him the support he so richly deserves in this truly patriotic mission.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

%The Solid South%

ADDRESS BY MR. WALTER H. PAGE

IN INTRODUCING THE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. TAFT

At the Dinner of the North Carolina Society of New York, at the Hotel Astor. December 7, 1908

Here, if nowhere else, we leave political parties and preferences alone. But here, as everywhere else, we are patriotic men; and we North Carolinians have as our background a community that from the first showed a singularly independent temper. A freedom of opinion is our heritage. We once drove a Colonial Governor who disputed our freedom of political action to the safer shelter of the Colony of New York; and throughout our history we have shown a sort of passion for independent action, in spite of occasional eclipses; and that same temper shows itself now. We are, in fact, never sure that we are right till half our neighbors have proved that we are wrong.

We are, therefore, and have long been, much distressed by the political solidity of the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania; and we wish that it were broken--not for the sake of the Democratic party nor for the sake of the Republican party (for the breach would benefit each alike) but for the sake of greater freedom of political action by our unfortunate fellow citizens who dwell there. Where one party has too long and secure power it becomes intolerant and the other party falls into contempt. Thus these states have become stagnant or corrupt. For the sake of free political action we wish that their political solidity might be broken, so that the whole conscience and character of their people might find full political expression. What constructive influence have they, or have they in recent years had, in the nation's thought and political progress?

For the same reasons we have taken an especial pleasure in the recent breaking up of Ohio, Minnesota, and Indiana--where on the same day presidential electors of one party and governors of the other party were chosen; for this breaking asunder of party dominance makes both parties tolerant and careful, helping them both and showing the utmost freedom of political action. And these states contribute much to our political life.

By the same token we rush in where Texas and Virginia fear to tread, and we shall welcome the impending and inevitable breaking of the Solid South (perhaps we shall lead it), not for the sake of the Democratic party nor for the sake of the Republican party (although it would help each party equally), but for the sake of open-mindedness and of freedom of political action, so that all men there may walk by thought and not by formulas, and act by convictions and not by traditions. Where-ever one party by long power breeds intolerance, the other falls into contempt. And what constructive influence have the Southern States in our larger political life? From some of them, where parties have fallen low, we have seen men go to one national convention as a mere unthinking personal following of a candidate even then clad in garments of twofold defeat; and to the conventions of the other party we have sometimes seen office-holding shepherds with their crooks drive their mottled flocks to market. We are tired of this political inefficiency, this long isolation, and these continued scandals; and we are tired of the conditions that produce them. If parties are to be instruments of civilized government, the conditions that produce such scandals must cease. We must have in the South a Democratic party of tolerance and a Republican party of character; and neither party must be ranged on lines of race.

We aspire to a higher part in the Republic than can be played by men of closed minds or of unthinking habits or by organized ignorance. We aspire again to a share in the constructive work of the government in these stirring days of great tasks at home and growing influence abroad.

I am leaving party politics severely alone, but I am speaking to a national and patriotic theme. A Republican Administration or a Democratic Administration is a passing incident in our national history. Parties themselves shift and wane. And any party's supremacy is of little moment in comparison with the isolation of a large part of the Union from its proper political influence.

The manhood and the energy and the ambition of Southern men now find effective political expression through neither party. The South, therefore, neither contributes to the Nation's political thought and influence nor receives stimulation from the Nation's thought and influence. Its real patriotism counts for nothing--is smothered dumb under party systems that have become crimes against the character and the intelligence of the people. The South gives nothing and receives nothing from the increasing national political achievement of every decade. Politically it is yet a province; and we are tired of this barren seclusion. Men who prefer complaint to achievement may regard this as treason: let them make the most of it. We prefer a higher station in the Union than New Hampshire and Vermont and Pennsylvania and Arkansas hold.

From the first our commonwealth conspicuously stood for something greater than any party, something that antedates all our parties, that spirit of independence in political judgment and action which brought the old thirteen states into being and made the Republic possible. And that spirit is not dead yet.

If it cannot regain its old-time influence through one party, it will regain it through another.

We are the descendants of men who fashioned parties in their beginning; and, if need be, we can refashion them. For the aim of government is not to preserve parties but to give range to free individual action in a democracy. And it is in this spirit of national aspiration that we welcome our distinguished guest of honor--a man now placed above parties, and too just to regard the Republic by sections, our best equipped citizen for the highest office in the world.

TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT: May his administration mark the return of Southern character and sincerity to its old-time part in the constructive work of government and the end forever of political isolation from the achievements and the glory of the Union!

%The South and the National Government%

ADDRESS BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES