June 22, 1911

Mr. SMITH of South Carolina. Mr. President, yesterday the Senator from Mississippi [l\Ir. WILLIA.Ms] had sent to the desk and printed in the RECORD an editorial from one of the leading papers in my State in reference to a certain amendment introduced by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. BRISTOW] with respect to the election of the Senators by the direct vote of the people. That editorial being printed in the RECORD might lead to a misapprehension as to the selJ.timent of the people in my State in reference to the action taken by a Senator representing that State on this :tloor. Therefore, though I do not pretend to indorse either editorial, I ask the privilege of having printed in the RECORD an editorial from the other leading paper in order to counteract any misapprehension as to the sentiment of the people of my State in reference thereto.

The VICEl PRESIDENT. Without objection, permission is granted.

The matter referred to is as follows:

TALL ME"Y NTIEDED.

[Editorial article in The State, Columbia, S. C., June 21, 1911.]

When WILLIAM E. BoRAH, insurgent Republican from Idaho, speaking in the Senate in the latter days of the Sixty-first Congress, to.re the sham of Republican love for the negro from that pathetic political figure, asserted the existence of universal race antagonism in this country, charged flagrant· hypocrisy on the part of Republicans for assuming for political purposes such friendship, and declared in eff e ct that the negro issue was dead, there was applause in the South for the boldness and frankness of the speaker, and the whole country appeared to accept his portrayal of conditions as a true description. Th ere was recognition throughout the country that the intelligence and sanity of the country bad, after playing it more than 40 years, advanced beyond that phase of the political game.

When northern Republicans holding high office voluntarily concede political equality and political independence of the Southern States, and hold the small minority of South haters impotent to draw sectional lines for the punishment or humiliation of Southern States for dealing with their problems in their own way, it would be only compatible with the dignity and self·respect of representatives of the South to regard as settled that which is thus conceded, and to refuse to entertain the idea of this marvelously developing section being ever again regarded by other parts of the country as n. subject province.

It is time for men from the South to stand in the National Congress not merely in the attitude of local representatives, but as American statesmen and lawmak ers. It is past the day for southerners to huddle together like sheep at a note of alarm sounded by a timid Member, and to imagine that tricks of legislation can be used to oppress or are needed to defend this seetion. It is time for the South to be exhibiting tall men in Congress, men with faith in themselves and in their whole broad country, men whose view is not confined to their State or section and who n.re not frightened by such scarecrows as the Bristow amendment.

To be great there must be self-reliance and infinite faith in inherent strength. A United States Senator publicly OPP,Osed compulsory education in South Carolina on the ground that if educated the negroes would occupy fields of endeavor now monopolized by whites, and the whites would suffer. When there is such lack of faith in the inherent superiority of the whites as is expressed in such an argument, how far toward power and independence will such leadership carry the whites? Ginn equal opportunity, the white man fearing negro competition in life's race is not worthy to triumph. To be worthy he must have faith in himself, and for the South to be worthy of power nnd independence it must have faith in itself and the justness of its position.

Instead of cringing before the menace of a political switch such as the Bristow amendment, the South's Senators should spurn the suggestion of the rights of their States being invaded, just as New England Senators would scoff the idea of political oppression by a combination against their section of the South and the West.