The South and the National Government

by William H. Taft

The growth of the South since 1890 has been marvelous. The manufacturing capital in 1880 was $250,000,000, in 1890, $650,000,000, in 1900, $1,150,000,000 and in 1908, $2,100,000,000, while the value of the manufactures increased from $450,000,000, in 1880 to $900,000,000 in 1890, to $1,450,000,000 in 1900, and to $2,600,000,000, in 1908. The farm products in 1880 were $660,000,000, in 1890 were $770,000,000, in 1900, $1,270,000,000, in 1908 $2,220,000,000. The exports from the South in 1880 were $260,000,000, in 1890 $306,000,000, in 1900, $484,000,000, and in 1908, $648,000,000.

In this marvelous growth the manufactures of the South now exceed the agricultural products, and thus a complete change has come over the character of her industries. The South has become rich, and only the surface of her wealth has been scratched. Her growth has exceeded that of the rest of the country, and she is now in every way sharing in its prosperity.

Again, the Democratic party has not preserved inviolate its traditional doctrines as to state's rights and other issues, and has for the time adopted new doctrines of possibly doubtful economic truth and wisdom. Southern men, adhering to the party and the name, find themselves, through the influence of tradition and the fear of a restoration of conditions which are now impossible, supporting a platform and candidate whose political and economic theories they distrust. Under these conditions there was in the last campaign, and there is to-day throughout the South, among many of its most intelligent citizens, an impatience, a nervousness, and a restlessness in voting for one ticket and rejoicing in the success of another.

Now, I am not one of those who are disposed to criticize or emphasize the inconsistency of the position in which these gentlemen find themselves. I believe it would be wiser if all who sympathize with one party and its principles were to vote its ticket, but I can readily understand the weight and inertia of the tradition and the social considerations that make them hesitate. I believe that the movement away from political solidity has started, and ought to be encouraged, and I think one way to encourage it is to have the South understand that the attitude of the North and the Republican party toward it is not one of hostility or criticism or opposition, political or otherwise; that they believe in the maintenance of the Fifteenth Amendment; but that, as already explained, they do not deem that amendment to be inconsistent with the South's obtaining and maintaining what it regards as its political safety from domination of an ignorant electorate; that the North yearns for closer association with the South; that its citizens deprecate that reserve on the subject of politics which so long has been maintained in the otherwise delightful social relations between Southerners and Northerners as they are more and more frequently thrown together.

In welcoming to a change of party affiliation many Southerners who have been Democrats, we are brought face to face with a delicate situation which we can only meet with frankness and justice. In our anxiety to bring the Democratic Southerner into new political relations we should have and can have no desire to pass by or ignore the comparatively few white Southerners who from principle have consistently stood for our views in the South when it cost them social ostracism and a loss of all prestige. Nor can we sympathize with an effort to exclude from the support of Republicanism in the South or to read out of the party those colored voters who by their education and thrift have made themselves eligible to exercise the electoral franchise.

We believe that the solution of the race question in the South is largely a matter of industrial and thorough education. We believe that the best friend that the Southern Negro can have is the Southern white man, and that the growing interest which the Southern white man is taking in the development of the Negro is one of the most encouraging reasons for believing the problem is capable of solution. The hope of the Southern Negro is in teaching him how to be a good farmer, how to be a good mechanic; in teaching him how to make his home attractive and how to live more comfortably and according to the rules of health and morality.

Some Southerners who have given expression to their thoughts seem to think that the only solution of the Negro question is his migration to Africa, but to me such a proposition is utterly fatuous. The Negro is essential to the South in order that it may have proper labor. An attempt of Negroes to migrate from one state to another not many years ago led to open violence at white instigation to prevent it. More than this, the Negroes have now reached 9,000,000 in number. Their ancestors were brought here against their will. They have no country but this. They know no flag but ours. They wish to live under it, and are willing to die for it. They are Americans. They are part of our people and are entitled to our every effort to make them worthy of their responsibilities as free men and as citizens.

The success of the experiments which have been made with them on a large scale in giving them the benefit of thorough primary and industrial style=": " education, justifies and requires the extension of this system as far as possible to reach them all.

The proposition to increase the supply of labor in the South by emigration from Europe, it seems to me, instead of being inimical to the cause of the Negro, will aid him. As the industries of the South continue to grow in the marvelous ratio already shown, the demand for labor must increase. The presence of the Southern community of white European labor from the southern part of Europe will have, I am hopeful, the same effect that it has had upon Negro labor on the Isthmus of Panama. It has introduced a spirit of emulation or competition, so that to-day the tropical Negroes of the West Indies do much better work for us in the canal construction since we brought over Spanish, Italian, and Greek laborers.

Ultimately, of course, the burden of Negro education must fall on the Southern people and on Southern property owners. Private charity and munificence, except by way of furnishing an example and a model, can do comparatively little in this direction. It may take some time to hasten the movement for the most generous public appropriations for the education of the Negro, but the truth that in the uplifting of the Negro lies the welfare of the South is forcing itself on the far-sighted of the Southern leaders. Primary and industrial education for the masses, higher education for the leaders of the Negro race, for their professional men, their clergymen, their physicians, their lawyers, and their teachers, will make up a system under which their improvement, which statistics show to have been most noteworthy in the last forty years, will continue at the same rate.