Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 83

9. William Garrott Brown, “President Roosevelt and the South,” Independent (November 9, 1905: 1086-89.

Assessment of the effect of President Theodore Roosevelt’s tour through the Southern states in an effort to attract support for his policies. “Whether or not the President gains among Southern representatives and Senators the allies he needs in the approaching contest with the Stalwarts in his own party in Congress, we may look to see less narrow partisanship among the Southern Democrats at Washington. They will, let us hope, co-operate more and more with the more liberal Republicans, and waste less of their own time and the country’s patience with shrill defenses of a social order which no considerable body of Northern public opinion now seriously threatens. If, meanwhile, the negro shall seem to be sacrificed, it may be well for his political champions to consider whether, after all, political championship is what he at present most imperatively needs. Many, to whose professions of friendship for the race we need not deny sincerity, hold that in the present stage of its development it would profit less from any share it could conceivably have in the political control of Southern States than from the version of political privilege held out as an incentive to steady progress, in industry, in education, in right living.”