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Republican Hand-Book North Carolina.
Republican State Executive Committee 1906:
Electronic Edition.

Republican Party (N.C.). Executive Committee

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First edition, 2002
ca. 280 K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2002.

        © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

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(title page) Republican Hand-Book North Carolina. Republican State Executive Committee 1906
Republican Party (N.C.). Executive Committee
107, [1] p.
Greensboro, NC
Republican Committee
1906

Call number C329 R42 c. 3 (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Illustration

[Title Page Image]

Republican Hand-Book
North Carolina.
REPUBLICAN STATE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
1906

ISSUED BY THE
REPUBLICAN
STATE
COMMITTEE
STATE HEADQUARTERS
BENBOW HOTEL
GREENSBORO. N. C.

Page verso

Republican State Executive Committee

Page 1

PREFATORY.

        The Republican party of North Carolina is not on trial; it is the Democratic party that is to give an account of its trusteeship to the people. In the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Departments of the State Government, Republicanism, representing two-fifths of the white voting strength, has no place or power. The disfranchisement features of the amendment of 1900 have extended in spirit to very nook and corner of the State government.

        Of the 97 counties of the State, all those having the smallest proportion of negro population are either decidedly Republican sentiment, or contest for county supremacy with their Democratic neighbors upon something like an equal footing. The most progressive parts of the State show the greatest Republican increase. Were the hands of the poorer classes in east and west, now tied by the poll tax requirement, once free, not so much of the amount of tribute as of the skilfully devised methods of its exaction, no reasonable doubt remains but that the State would have a Republican Governor, if not a majority in the Legislature.

        The conceded knowledge of these facts renders especially cruel and indecent the exclusion of all Republican representation from exery Charitable or other Executive Board having charge of State work. It cannot be that of more than 80,000 white voters, contributing at least their fair share to the States taxes and the State's wealth, there should not be found fit representatives from whom selection could be made to Supervise the distribution of their taxes, and the care of the State's unfortunates. Yet such has been the unchallenged status in North Carolina for the past ten years.

        It is government in which a large minority, pressing at the very gates of power, and apt in any election to become the majority, have had no voice or influence or consideration. We believe that similar conditions prevail nowhere else in self-governing communities, outside the narrow circle of certain Southern states. The charge should be kept distinct and clear in mind.

        It is not that we are denied patronage. The places referred to are in no sense lucrative, though of great responsibility

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and influence. There is no complaint that Democracy, faithful to its long history, maintains the tenet that to the victors belong the spoils. It is true that the Republican party committed thoroughly to the theory of civil service reform, throws open all the lesser offices to competition, and has on its pay-rolls, in many instances, more political opponents than friends. It is not expected that now, if ever, our Democratic friends should raise to this height; but it ought to be a matter of challenge that they discriminate against men as good as themselves in the selection of juries, in the conduct of the common schools, in the administration of the charities, in the supervision of the States great schools, in ways other than these, but easly suggested by the mention of these.

        The result of this policy has been to provincialize the State Democracy, and to nationalize the State Republicans.

        A Watts law is passed at Raleigh; it is administered upon and respected in its integrity by Washington. Its home friends have merely meant it as a tub to the whale, a soothing panacea to an aroused clerical conscience which possesses vast vote-getting power. This great moral question is now to be used by the Democratic party as the best available substitute at hand for the loss of the negro cry, once all potent in election years.

        Not that it would do to give up Mumbo Jumbo all at once. That asset has been too valuable in the past for instant renunciation, and hence we see in the recently issued Democratic Hand Book for 1906, a very awkward attempt to inject the negro question hyperdermically, so to speak. He is put in by way of historical survey, along with our old friend the three days election under Canby, and the count at Charleston, S. C.

        We were at one time minded to hunt up the old Twenty-negro conscript-exemption law of 1864, four years earlier in date than Canby, and the $50 per diem of the Legislature of 1864, with $11 a month for the soldier in the field, but we thought, in pleading the forty year statute of limitations we should in turn respect it, and hence forbore. Then we read the old bond story of 1868, and had Swepson in mind, but as he and Canby and all the other actors wer dead, and a generation had since arisen, who were now heads of families, we thought something fresher shoudl be offered to men who are to decide the election of 1906.

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        Bryan and Hoke Smith occurred to us as lievlier subjects of investigation and reflection.

        It there be to-day living two men, who represent in concrete form the settled purposes and secret hopes of the great party they represent in the North and in the South, surely it is these masterful characters. The one a native North Carolinian (how fruitful and old State of brain), has just carried off the governorship of Georgia upon a platform which in brutal frankness says damn the negro and down with the rairoads.

        Law was painfully moulded through sweating centuries to care for both of these. The one represents two-fifths of that State's people, and the other one-fifth of its property. The negro has never given the Georgia politicians any trouble; his suppression was in response to no actual need of the State's welfare, and the much abused corporations have placed that State in the very front rank of the Gulf sisterhood. The old Missouri platform of border days of "Free-liquor, good roads and no hell" raises almost to respectability compared with this Georgia declaration of war upon the weak and the rich, leaving the fulness of the earth to a self-constituted aristocracy of shiftless landlords.

        Mr. Bryan, imbued by recent travel with the New Zealand civilization of leveling down to an average, goes a bowshot beyond the wildest dreams of the most advanced men of his party, and declares for Government ownership of railroads. He is not one to go back after once putting his hand to the plow, and we may confidently count upon the railroads helping him to the Presidency, for their desire to unload upon Uncle Sam is not for a moment to be doubted.

        Cleveland's bond issues, which used to scare us in the old days of Morgan's domination, are but pebbles on the beach compared with the groaning presses a Bryan government will employ in issuing mortgages upon our wealth to take over the properties of a dozen or two gentlemen, who eat at Delmonico's and worship at Old Trinity, for mark you, it is only great through lines that are first to be taken.

        The startling effect of Mr. Bryan's declaration in favor of this wild scheme of centralization upon the sober thought of the country was so pronounced that hedging was at once resorted to, but we have so far seen no open rebellion upon the part of followers, who see in the scheme boundless fields of most pleasant pasturage, and long for the prospective flesh

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pots, as one only can long, who belongs to a hereditary office-holding family, and has been robbed of this perquisites by upstart Republicans risen to prominence since slavery was abolished.

        As to State ownership of the local lines, the Bryan program will find North Carolina fully posted and sadly experienced.

        The people, who expect to see Government ownership realized in any other manner than that before pointed out, decieve themselves.

        It is an open secret that the Cleveland election of 1892 was secured through Mr. Gorman's deal with Havemeyer on the eve of elction, and while the Sheriff promptly repudiated the deal of his lieutenant, yet the trade was carried out in good faith by the Marylander, though it destroyed the party in the effort. Mr. Bryan fell heir to the resultant hostility against Grover Cleveland. History may repeat itself, but not otherwise will Domcracy win the Presidency during the memory of men now living. The old snap, which once belonged to that party vanished, seemingly never to return, when it trusted its destinies to Secession,


                         "That fateful and perfidious bark,
                         Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark."

        Mr. Bryan's efforts merely galvanize the corpse into seeming life, sporadic and fitful, but the spectrum of popular inquiry develops moribund conditions easily read by the most ignorant layman. One ruling passion remains unchecked and in full Jacksonian vigor--the lust for office. The literary supremacy once enjoyed, through their Bancrofts, Hawthornes, Iirvings and Bryants gone, the statecraft of Calhoun and Forsyth, Marcy and Van Burn a memory, there is left the love of a job, which waits not for the grave to make vacancies, but, as we have just seen in Alabama, the party holds an election for the Senatorial shoes of venerable men, whose age is taken as offense. The wound deepest in Hamlet's heart, was "that the funeral baked meats did voldly furnish forth the marriage supper." Alabama Democracy are seemingly below the level of old-time Danish lust.

        We are more decent in this State. Here our Democratic friends are guilty of no more heinous offense than pre-empting the choice seats on the floor of the Senate and House at Raleigh immediately upon receiving nominations, and of declaring themeslves candidates for Speaker before the people

Page 5

have as much as signified a wish that they should have seats on the floor.

        "When I catch this bird and one more, I will have two", said a young sportsman, who came home at night with an empty game bag. This bit of homely wisdom is commended to more than one ambitious statesman, who has forgotten the surprises of 1894--to be more than repeated this year.

        Governor Aycock was the champion leader in the election of 1900, and stood sponsor for his party in promising that with the passage of the constitutional amendment the cry of negro domination, never true in fact, should caese to be a battle cry in election years. This promise attracted thousands of voters to the Democratic ticket in that year; yet in 1906, the Campaign Committee of that party, speaking through its Senator-Chairman, whose victories in the past have been won on that issue, goes back on Governor Aycock's pledge. "Negro Suffrage on People", "Pandemonium Reigned," "Overthrow of Carpet Bag and Negro Government," "Shame on a Horror," which same is that Jim Young was a fertilizer inspector under Russell, and remains a clerk under Duncan--these and headlines like these follow page after page in the Hand Book of this year of grace. Really the old editorial of Joe Turner is refreshing literature compared with this. And the purpose of it? Is it believed to be a vote-getting proposition? Surely not! It must be meant to carry the mind of the average Democrat instinctively back to the name of the Senator Chairman, who comes up for re-election this year.

        One other reference to this work of art. We have reason to suspect most of its matter to be the leavings of old News-Observer editorials, and great-to-do is made of the Democratic care for the insane, and the desire to reform young criminals. The State owes it to the News-Observer and its henchmen that the insane were not properly cared for by the last Legislature, and Senator Scales of Guilford carefully matured a bill for a Reformatory which, after passing the Senate, was killed in the House by these same henchmen. Yet, with unparalleled cheek, speakers of the Democratic party will have these broken pledges again in pawn for this campaign.

        It is the acknowledged merit of Republican platforms that they foreshadow corresponding action, and on both the Reformatory and the Care of the Insane we stand committed to the most liberal appropriations.

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        Coming into the sunlight from these dusty chambers of the past, what has the Republican party of North Carolina to offer the voter of 1906 by way of contrast to Democratic methods at present in vogue. We make answer and say--absolute respect for the will of a majority, ascertained upon an honest count, upon every question concerning which there is dispute.

        If it be temperance, the falsely clad name of Prohibition, let the people of each community settle the matter to suit themselves, instead of having it settled for them by some local Democratic boss, who manages to get into the Legislature instead of into the State Asylum.

        If it be the education of children, let the fathers and the brothers of those children by vote say in each county to whom shall be committed the management and distribution of the large tax fund raised for a holy purpose, but too often diverted in rewarding local favorites of the Democratic managers.

        If it be the regulation and control of corporations, especially common carriers, let the people decide whether confiscation is meant as outlined by Bryan, or fair treatment as advocated by Roosevelt, and we stand with Roosevelt.

        On other matters not so directly subject to popular vote, let the decision be made between platform promises that are kept, and those that once broken are again offered.

        As to the personnel of the two tickets offered North Carolina voters this years, we are not aware that any issue is being made. Children of a common mother, differently trained, with opposing prejudices and conflicting ambitions, it may be assumed that patriotic regard for the State's welfare would be the dominating influence controlling the action of each of them in the event of election.

        For ourselves, we pitch the key-note of the contest upon another octave, a higher one too we trust, to-wit that our opponents are not in harmony with the present conditions of society, except as they have advanced too far in the direction of socialism, and that both the genuine reformer and the conservative defender of property, whatever its species, are alike interested this year in the success of the State Republican party.

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PLATFORM OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
OF NORTH CAROLINA.

        The Republican party of North Carolina in convention assembled at Greensboro, N. C., July 10, 1906, congratulating all the people of the State upon prevaling conditions, as the unqusetioned offshoots of Republican policies enforced since 1897, resolve and declare the following to be a summary of their beliefs upon the more vital questions of present interest and of the action they will take if given power by the state:

        1 We claim for the adminstration of President Roosevelt that it has satisfied every reasonable demand of the patriot, the reformer and the worker in every field of human endeavor; that it has established the currency upon a basis not to be shaken; that it has vastly extended our foreign commerce, and so added largely to the nation's wealth; that it has kept the peace at home and promoted it abroad; that it has expended the national revenue wisely and with absolute honesty; that it has laid bare and punished with iron hand every species of official or corporate corruption, brought to light by vigilant agents of its own choosing, that it has hearkened to the voice of the oppressed in all alnds and given sympathy when forbidden by law to give more; that it has aimed with true and constant purpose to reflect in its every act the highest and finest aspirations of the American people, northern and southern, eastern and western.

        2. We state with regret the acknowledged fact that the laws of own State have not been enforced by the Democratic administrators in state and county affairs.

        The legislation upon the subject of temperance, so dear to a large part of our best people, is confessedly a dead letter as relates to its enforcement by State officials--Republican officials of Internal Revenue bearing the whole burden of commanding for it popular obedience.

        Yet the amazing spectacle is presented of a party, which has kept the promise to the ear and broken it to the hope now masquerading as Prohibitionists in such sections of the State, as they deem ripe for that experiment in law-making.

        The Republ can party insists that every county and every town should be allowed to determine for itself by vote the

Page 8

question of whether, and if so, how whiskey shall be sold in its limits as well as who shall hold its offices, and that they shall, none of them, be appointed by the Legislature or justices of the peace or any other authority than the people.

        3. We refute, in the proper spirit of just indignation, the frequent threat of danger to the State from our coming into power, made by Democratic speakers and newspapers. The merest novice in political conditions must know that victory for us can come from the addition of one constituency alone--the men of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's party, to whom alone, or in conjunction with the Republicans, the State owes the great upward movement in railroads regulation, in female education, in common school education, in the preserving, care and encouragement of the University, A & M. College and other State institutions, threatened then as now with ghost stories of their destruction.

        We pledge ourselves to continue and perfect the common school system begun by the republic until a good English education is in the reach of every child.

        We shall advocate one or more reformatories for youthful criminals, and pledge the people that, given power, no insane man or woman, white or black, shall lack the State's care, be the cost what it may.

        4. We congratulate the people of the state upon the removal of the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad from the sphere of active politics, but denounce the refusal of State Democratic officials to let the light of publicity shine upon the evidence taken behind closed doors, which led to the lease of that piece of State property.

        Graft was admitted, but never suffered punishment, thus showing in marked contrast a national Republican, as against a state Democratic administration. We further denounce the method of the Democratic party in appointing an investigating committee of strictly partism Democrats.

        5. If Democratic testimony is to be taken, the present Corporation Commission exists chiefly for the purpose or drawing salaries. We pledge ourselves to make it efficient. At present it is the laughing stock of well-informed people, but no less a burden upon the tax-payer.

        6. The Democratic party for years has vaunted its friendship for the Confederate soldier, while leaving him, in many cases, an object of charity. The Republicans by their votes in the General Assembly have ever shown their friendship

Page 9

for this most honored class of our countrymen, now daily lessening in number.

        We advocate doubling the pittance now received by these veterans and, if we secure a legislative majority, shall vote as we promise.

        7. We favor rigid restriction of the servile immigration now coming to this country from Europe, and shall aid by every means in our power to uphold the dignity and manhood of native American citizenship.

        We rejoice that sectionalism is a thing of the past.

        8. We favor the establishment of te Appalachian Park, and pledge any Republican congressman elected from this State to be its friend; but its establishment must be the work of Republican statesmanship and those its friends miscount who look to see it come from discredited Democratic bunglers in administration.

        9. We charge that the Democratic State administration has been costly beyond precedent without being efficient; that the dockets of the courts in very many counties remain clogged, through judges and solicitors have been increased in number and in pay.

        We are unalterably opposed to frauds upon the suffrage, and we believe that the great amount of crime and lawlessness that prevail and seem to be on the increase in our State, including lynchings, are due to the licentious tongues of Democratis orators and others who teach that it is right to commit crime and fraud for the Democratic party. Honest men can see no difference between stealing a ballot and a horse--between a false return of the result of an election and a false oath in the court house, a false verdict in the jury box.

        10. That it is the sense of this convention that town and city poll tax in North Carolina should not exceed one dollar.

        And whereas, some dissensions has arisen among Republicans on account of contest over appointment to federal offices, which with charges and counter charges have been given undue prominence by the Democratic press, and whereas the Democratic party has been enabled to retain its hold upon the State government by appeals to race prejudice,

Page 10

reference to the disorders and confusion resulting from the war and "the days of '68," as well as the manifold repetition of the statement that all Republicans are officeseekers; it is therefore now

        Resolved, That the State Executive Committee of the Republican party be and is hereby instructed to assemble, and each and every member thereof, in Greensboro, N. C., on the first day of September, 1906, and on the first days of March and September in each and every year thereafter, and shall then and there before adjournment consider application for appointment to all federal offices in North Carolina, the terms of which shall expire in the next six months, and to recommend to the appointing power in each instance a suitable person for each position, except in such districts as are represented by a Republican congressman. That no application shall be considered unless the applicant shall state in his application that he will submit to the action and recommendation of the committee without further contest.

        Resolved, That the executive committee in making recommendations for appointment to federal positions shall observe well that the applicant has the support of his local party friends, in addition to being well qualified for the position.

        Resolved, That the Republican party of North Carolina is in favor of extending the operations of what is known as the "grandfather clause" in the recently adopted amendment to the constitution of North Carolina, to the year 1920, and pledges itself to do all in its power to carry out this resolution and have the same enacted into law.

COMPARISON IN STATE EXPENDITURES

A STARTLING EXHIBIT.

        In the matter of State expenses the contrast between the Republican administration and the Democratic administration is very glaring indeed. The total expenses in 1898, the last year of the Republican administration, was $1,287,641.18, while the expenses last year of the State Government were $2,563,018.80, which is within $12,000.00 of just twice what it cost to run the State under Republicans, and is more than was spent by Gov. Jarvis in the entire four years of his administration.

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        It is due the people whose taxes are becoming burdensome that the Democratic party should account to them for this vast increase which is greater in amount over and above what was spent by the Republicans than was spent by Gov. Jarvis any two years of his administration. These were the days when Vance and Jarvis and Marmaduke Robbins and men of that type were in control of the Democratic party, and had to depend for their control of the State upon the fact that they were true to the people for majorities were too close during those days for such recklessness as these figures show to have been allowed.

        What has become of this enormous amount of money which would have been sufficient to have run the State Government the entire four years of 1877, 1878, 1879 and 1880? It has been wasted and squandered in a thousand ways,by increasing the force and expenditures in all departments, by the multiplication of offices and office holders, by increasing the judicial districts and judges, by the employment of additional help in almost every branch of the Government and by extravagance and waste in every department.

        A better understanding of how these State expenses have been increased can be had by a few illustrations, as follows:

        The Republicans spent in running the Agricultural Department in 1898, $61,377.94, last year the Democrats spent $96,523.06. The Auditors Departmetn cost in 1898, $3,500.00 last year it cost $5,494.31. The care of the Governor's Mansion and grounds in 1898 cost $1,883.43, last year it cost $9,306.78. The Judiciary which cost in 1898, $63,061.88 cost last year $77,326.59. Legal services that cost in 1898, $5,206.00 cost last year, $7,061.80. Laborers pay-roll around the Capitol which cost in 1898, $5,723.84, cost last year $7,615.39. Public printing which cost in 1898, when the Democrats said we were extravagant with it, $10,596.69, cost last year, $30,916.78. The Treasury Department which cost under the Republicans $6,250.00, cost last year $7,700.37. The State Department which cost under the Republicans when the entire corporation and Insurance business was transacted through that Department, $3,980.54, cost last year $5,330.03, for the State Department alone and $3,600.00 additional for the Commissioner of Insurance which really made that Department cost $8,930.03, as against $3,980.54, under the Republicans. The Department of Public Instruction which cost under the Republicans $3,000.00, cost last year $4,453.73.

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The total for these purposes under the Republicans is $164,581.03. Under the Democrats it is $255,330.84, making a difference in these items alone in favor of the Republican Administrations of $90,749.89, and just as in these items we see where more than $90,000.00 of our money has gone, just so it is in every other branch of the Government. This showing is bad enough, but it is even worse when we examine and compare the expenditures in the charitable institutions which will appear as follows:

        For the care of the deaf, dumb and blind at Raleigh we spent in 1898, $40,000.00 and took care of 311 children. In 1902 the Democrats spent $80,000.00 and took care of 331, and that is just 20 more than the Republicans took care of in 1898, and for which an additional $40,000.00 was spent. For 1903 and 1904 they spent $143,727.21 on an average of $71,863.60 each year, and took care of 334 children in 1904, or 3 more than in 1902.

        For the care of the inmates of the Insane Asylum at Raleigh, the Republicans spent in 1898, $55,450.00 and cared for 393 insane; the Democrats spent in 1902, $78,750.00 and cared for 397, or just four more than the Republicans had; and yet they spent $22,300.00 more than the Republicans. In 1904 they spent $82,563.70 and took care of 380, or 17 less than in 1902, and yet they spent $3,817.70 more money.

        In caring for the Insane at Morganton, the Republicans spent in 1898 $88,821.08 and had 754 patients; in 1902 the Democrats spent $109,491.61 and cared for 763 patients, or just nine more than the Republicans had, yet they spent $20,670.53 more in caring for these nine extra patients. In 1904 they cared for 1002 and spent $131,947.67.

        In caring for the asylum at Goldsboro, the Republicans spent in 1898 $39,990.41 and had 461 patients; in 1902 the Democrats spent $52,742.32 and had 481 patients, that is just 20 more than the Republicans had, yet to care for these they used $13,751.91 more of the peoples money than the Republicans had used. In 1904 they cared for 529 patients and spent $58,658.46, or nearly $6,000.00 more than in 1902.

        In runing the deaf and dumb asylum atMorganton in 1898 theRepublicans spent $35,000.00 and had 252 children; in 1902 the Democrats spent $40,000.00 and had 302 children. In 1903 and 1904 they spent $99,758.72 or an average of $49,879.36 each year and cared for 317 children in 1904.

        Thus we see that in these five institutions, with but few

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more patients and pupils, the increase under the Democrats in 1902 over the amount paid by the Republicans in 1898 is the enormous sum of $102,722.44, with a still further increase for 1904.

        The extravagance and recklessness of the Democratic party isagain shown by the fact that they have increased the State's indebtedness $820,000.00, since 1898 thereby increasing the yearly, interest to be paid by the tax payers $32,800.00.

        The Democrats in 1898 were loud in their abuse of the Republican party because their Legistlature of 1897 cost $70,760.75, whereas their Legislature last year, as shown by the Auditor's report, cost $72,013.90. This again shows that even here they were grossly extravagant if they were just in the complaint they made against the Republicans in 1898. All of this would be bad enough and we could possibly stand this enormous increase in our State expenses if we had the money to pay them, but an examination of the Auditor's report shows that while our expenses last year were $2,563,018.80 our total income was only $2,509,896,30; this shows that we spent last year $53,122.50 more money than we actually received, which condition can only be met and remedied by another sale of bonds in the near future, which in turn will mean an additional burden upon the tax payers to meet the interest on these bonds.

        The enormous increase of State expenses under the Democrats can possibly be better understood by the following general summary and comparison.

        The Republicans spent in 1898 their last year, $1,287,641.18. The Democrats spent in 1899, $1,597,066.08, an increase in one year of $310.000.00 in round numbers. The Democrats spent in 1900, $1,648,012.74, another increase of over $37,000. In 1902 they spent $1,866,795.18 which is another increase of over $181,000.00. In 1903 they spent $2,322,404.24, which is a still further increase of more than $450,000.00, while last year they spent $2,563,018.80, which is a still further increase of more than $240,000.00, and is practically twice what the Republicans spent the last year of their Administration. Again we ask what have they done with it, and the answer is, what? The unfortunate have gotten it as is shown by the figures given, which, while showing much larger amounts spent, show but few more of unfortunates being cared for. This tells it own story, that these greatly increased appropriations must have been used i ncaring for Democratic

Page 14

Supernumeraries and in reckless expenditures under the hyprocritical cry of caring for the unfortunate. But had all this been true it would still have accounted for only a small part of this vast increase in the State expenditures by the Democratic party. The people demand an answer to what have you done with our money. This answer they shall have when the Republicans have a chance to look at the books and publish the truth.

LAWLESSNESS IN NORTH CAROLINA.

A CARNIVAL OF CRIME.

        It is with regret that this subject is mentioned. The old saying that only a foul bird soils his own nest suggest itself, and instead of exploiting the shame of the State, we would Japhet like rather cover her nakedness with the mantel of oblivion. But the Democratic platform recently adopted at Greensboro boasts of existing conditions as related to this subject, and leaves no alternative other than a plain statement of the truth. It says "we congratulate the people of the State that under Democratic auspices there has been established throughout the border of the State a reign of law and liberty, peace and progress."

        This was not meant for the satire but in view of facts known to every one is it not satire in all its purity? The press of the State is weekly burdened with a list of homicides occuring among both the whites and colored races, and more rarely in the case of race against race. Lynching has reared its awful front to such an extent that the boldest among us stand aghast as to the possibilities of the future. The Anson County case was quickly followed by the Salisbury horror and what the next defiance of civilization will be is a thing to be guessed as to locality, but which may be safely prophesied. Good men are asking when is this condition to end? For what reason do we maintain a State Guard? Are the sixteen judges of the Superior Court and their adjunts, the sixteen solicitors powerless to accomplish what half their number twenty years ago successfully did? The Democratic boast in their platform is belied by every newspaper of that faith in the State. As examples, we quote from the Sandford express "There seems to be an epidemic of homicides and crime in this State. One can hardly pick up a State paper without finding the accounts of a number of murders and attempts to murder. The criminally inclined are handy with

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the pistol and the knife and use them on the slightest provocation. They have contempt for the law and carry these weapons and use them with impunity." These remarks are copied editorially by the Rockingham Anglo Saxon, and of course approved.

        The Charlotte Observer, the leading Independent paper, admits that "Lynch law is on the increase in North Carolina." How does this statement consist with the platform boast of the Democrats?

        Again it says "There is no negro vote, no negro legislature now; but there is a growing disrespect, not to say contempt on the part of the white people for the laws, which they themselves make. There must be an end to this or worse days will come."

        And yet the aforesaid platform congratulates the people upon the reign of law. There was one judge on the Superior Court bench (Shaw by name), who practiced what this platform preaches and acquired great repute thereby among all law-loving people, whatsoever might be their political affiliations. He came up for renomination this year, and was ignobly defeated, and on this account too. How does that action square with the above recited platform declaration?

        The Bishop case at Charlotte is fresh in the minds of all householders, who have young daughters. The Wilson County tragedy occurs to every commercial traveller, who deems his hotel a safe resting place. The Anson lynching of an insane man has put that defence, still good in the courts, of no avail against the mob. The negroes, who are nothing if not imitative, rarely slew each other in slave days or in the years just following the war, but are now rivals with the whites in homicides. The Haywood case is simply unmentionable.

        There can be no politics in a question of this sort. The plain duty of all good citizens is to stand together in defence of the law and its authorized agents of whatever political faithsuch agents may be. But it cannot escape notice that the Democratic party put a premium upon one sort of crime, when a Legislature of that party's choosing voted State money in defence of ballot box thieves. Nor did the Red Shirt campaign of 1900 pass without its aftermath of easy defiance of constituted authority and the successful triumph of lawlessness as applied to things political. How easy the step to crimes social and racial!

Page 16

        We all agree that there must be a change or our State will sink in the world's esteem, and what is even worse, in its own esteem.

        Men of property and correct lives will not take themselves and their families to States where human life is not held more sacred than it now is in North Carolina and we are never weary of extending invitations to such settlers. Our own people will more than ever flock to the towns of the State for that safety, which is denied them in the sparsely settled rural ditricts. The growth of highway robbery in recent years is one of the most alarming circumstances of the present situation. An attempt has been made to fasten the blame for our growing criminal record upon what is known as the factoyr population, the small tenant farmers who have left the country for the towns.

        The contention is absurd upon its face. Steady workers are rarely criminals. The advance in material comfort which has come to the class in question by reason of their new life is the best of all incentives to correct conduct and respect for law.

        Men mounting in the world, acquiring humble homes seeing their children better dressed and better fed than formerly, rarely descend the ladder to mingle with the criminal classes. At least such is not the rule.

        The truth lies elsewhere. What is it? Let us see. For a generation the fiercest racial passions of our people have been excited against the negro by a well trained corps of Democratic speakers and editors.

        In numbers we doubled him, and while we were spread over the whole surface of the State, he was numedically strong in but a comparatively small area. In all the accomplishments and defences which civilization gives over semi-barbarism there was left no room for comparison. His was the most docile of races as proven in two hundred years of subjection to us. The irritation caused by his enforced and unnatural political elevation was not his own fault, nor the fault of any man among us. The cause came from beyond the Potomac from victors in war, who thought thus to secure the fruits of their success. That this was a great mistake in statesmanship is now generally conceded; but it was not met by a counter-stroke of statesmanship, but by relentless denunciation of all men who submitted to it as the law of the land, till by law it could be changed. Then first was drawn the line

Page 17

cleavage between the law-abiding and the lawless, so far as concerned the leaders, and the masses qucikly caught the lesson of despising the courts taught them by Democratic speakers. When in course of time the courts were held by Democrats, the lesson could not at once be unlearned. So sure as the sowing of the wind brings the harvest of the whirlwind, in like manner will the lynching of negroes lead to the lynching of white men and for causes incerasing in numbers and lessening in digity. It is not argued that because the cock crows, daylight comes; but we do say that the type of Democracy known as the Bryan-Hearst type favors Socialism and inculcates lessons destructive of property rights, the protection of which is one of the chief functions of all law. At present, the assault is confined to corporation property, but all property stands on the same footing in the eye of the law and the downward path ever easy leads irrisistibly to Communion, which would have but one property owner, the all embracing State.

        So that when racial antagonism has weakened respect for life and indiscriminate attacks in the press and on the hustings against corporations has weakened respect for property, what else can we expect than what we now witness a condition alarming to every patriot and which calls for a proclamation from the Governor asking the law-abiding people to come to the rescue. The Republican party is the resolute foe of mob law, and in all its history has been the defender of property against the anarchist and the Socialist. If this government of ours is to be handed down unimpaired in strength and faith to the purpose of its founders, it will come through a continued administration of men reared in the faith of Washington, Hamilton and Lincoln. The doctrines of Hearst, Bryan, Altgeld and Tom Taggart are at war with all civic righteousness, and once enforced will bread a following far more dangerous than the authors now are. Far be it from us to argue that the great mass of the Democratic people look with favor or even with tolerance upon present conditions. Many of the best Democratic newspapers have denounced roundly the abuse of the pardoning power by former Democratic Governors, much just criticism has been evoked by reason of the conduct of some of their judges and one excellent paper, the Raleigh Times, published in the great metropolitan County of Wake, and recently endorsed overwhelmingly by the Democratic votens of that county,

Page 18

speaks of this paragraph by the Democratic voters of that county, speaks of this paragraph in its party platform as "idiotic." Continuing in its issue of August 11th, it says:

        "The paragraph was not complete. Some reference might have been made to the lynching of a white man in Wadesboro. The question of whether he was a democrat or a republican was of small moment. He was white. White men butchered him and whitecourts and white jurors practically excused and condoned the crime.

        Under 'democratic auspices' the Lyerly family was killed in cold blood at Barber Junction; under 'democratic auspices' the three alleged murderers were lynched at Salisbury. Under 'democratic auspices' the militia was called out with orders not to shoot--for fear that some good white citizen might be injured. A few hot bullets scattered through that mob of hoodlume might have saved the state the teribledisbrace of that shocking event--a few bullets might have shown that under 'democratic auspices' 'God Almighty reigns and the law is still supreme.'

        This newspaper does not wish to be misunderstood. It stands on the democratic platform--now and always--but it takes no stock in this demagoguery set forth in the platform of the party. If our leaders claim to be responsible for law and order, so must they shoulder the responsibility of the happenings at Wadesboro and Salisbury. Surely, our party is in a deplorable condition if we seek to triumph always on this talk of a 'reign of law and liberty.' We can redeem ourselves, however, by hanging the lynchers."

        No, men and brethern, it is no party question that confronts the people of North Carolina in 1906. It is something far higher. It is whether we shall submit to constituted authority, uphold the courts, enforce the laws and render life and property as safe here as they are in any part of the civilized world, or whether the passions of the mob, inflamed by race appeals and excited to envy against the rich and the well to do shall be allowed to run their course, which ends only in a general anarschy and the loss of our places among the well behaved States.

        On that question, the Republican party takes its old and well known stand and confidently relies upon the people being with it. The Democratic position, as stated in their platform, is a mockery of the facts and deceives no one unless he wishes to be deceived.

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AS TO WHAT YOU SHALL DRINK.

The Democratic Party and its Claims as a Temperance Party

        The Liquor Traffic, as conducted on the open saloon plan, was from twenty-five years-from 1870 to 1895--an important ally (or if the word ally is too strong a term lets say adjunct) of the Democratic Party: And by "Democratic Party" is meant the "machine", the chief committee which controls campaigns and distributes the spoils of victory and the offices amongst the most influential, for, it is not to be denied that there were in the ranks of the Democratic party a large number of voters who were sincere temperance men throughout all those years. In truth, however, it must be said that they had neither weight or influence in their party counsels.

        The coalition between the Democratic party managers and the saloon interests during the violent and fraudulent political campaigns of 1898 and 1900 was more helpful to that party than it had been in former years. In fact it is doubtful whether the armed red-shirt clubs, organized by a man who afterwards received a high office for that service, could have successfully carried out the work allotted to them in Eastern North Carolina without the saloons as relay and recruiting stations.

        For legislative favors demanded and received by the owners of liquor saloons they, as a rule, like all other special interests, were ready to render a due return in an organized vote of those whom they controlled. Every body in the least familiar with public affairs knows that for all those past years, in the township and county conventions of the Democrats the saloon owners and their friends were not infrequently conspicuous participants in the proceedings; and that true temperance men, when candidates for office, were often defeated by the activities of the liquor force.

        It is a fact that after the State election of 1900, a certain element of the temperance strength of the Democratic party began to get noisy--to agitate--and to indulge in ugly threats that very much frightened the "leaders" of the machine, and during the Legislative session of 1903, that influence, through temperance clubs and committees, and individuals, sent from the different sections of the State to Releigh to appear before the Legislative Committee, made itself so seriously felt as to force the machine "to do something". The result of that agitation is commonly known as the Watts Law. The christening

Page 20

of the Act was a mis-nomer; but sometimes it happens that the real honors are carried off by the undeserved on account of the modesty of the real hero; and such was the case in this instance. Anyway, since that time the Democratic party has claimed to be the only true temperance Party. Is it a valid claim? Let us examine it.

        Before the Watts Law was passed (1903) the general law of the State put no restriction upon the place of manufacture of liquor; and the Commissioners of the several counties were authorized to grant retail liquor licenses; and they were required, upon the petition of one fourth of the qualified voters to order an election to ascertain whether or not liquor might be sold in any township, city or town--the form of the ballot to be "Prohibition," "License." The general law was strictly local option. It gave to the people of any city, town or township the right to vote upon the question of the sale of liquor. The Watts Law introduced changes both as to the manufacture of liquor, and its sale by retail. It created Prohibition in the rural districts--in the townships--for, it made it unlawful to sell liquor anywhere in the State except in the incorporated cities and towns. In taking that step the Legislators deprived the country people of a right which they had enjoyed under the general law. But they saw, in that course, that there was not as much real danger to their party as there appeared to be in making that discrimination against the country people the townships. In the first place, because the Act did not specify a minimum population as necessary to the incorporation of towns, and hence any crossroads could become incorporated and avail itself of the rights of the cities and towns under the Watts Law; and in the second place, because a considerable portion of the State was at the time under Prohibition brought about by special legislation and the general local option law. The Legislators, in a quandary between the threats and demands of the temperance agitators and the danger of discrimination against the townships, decided to yield somewhat to the temperance forces and to deprive the townships of their right to settle by election whether or not liquor should be sold in the several townships. The loss of the temperance vote meant more to the party than the probably defection of the rural districts, under the circumstances already mentioned.

Of the Manufacture of Liquors under the Watts Law.

        It cannot reasonably be thought that the purpose and intent

Page 21

of the Watts Law was to restrict toany appeciable degree the manufacture of spirits within the State. It is true it destroyed numbers of distilleries outside incorporated cities and towns and provided for their future operation within the towns and cities; but with the increased facilities in the towns and cities for the manufacture of liquor and the wider markets likely to be opened up by the change, the output might have reasonably been expected to be increased. Besides, as we have seen, any handfull of people might become incorporated into a town by a Democratic legislature, there being no minimum population prescribed by the Watts Law as necessary to incorporation. As for instance,at the very time that the Watts bill was in process of passage there was a bill pending to incorporate a territory around a private distillery, the population not numbering more than a bakers dozen, under the name of the town of "Shore". Shore was incorporated, and the distillery not only continued its operations but its owner was given a monopoly of the manufacture of liquor within the town, it being provided in the act of incorporation that no other distillery besides the one man's for whom the legislation was enacted should be erected within the limits of Shore. No such special privilege was ever before that time conferred by the General Assembly of North Carolina upon any citizen.

        So the real intent of the Watts Law must have been for another purpose than to destroy, or even to reduce, the quantity of liquor manufactured. What then was, most probably, the real motive underlying the enactment of the Watts Law? Some contemporary political historyof the State will probably furnish the answer. Democratic newspapers and Democratic stump speakers had been, ceaselessly, and then were, characterizng the distilleries, in the western (Republican) counties especially, as hell-kettles", and denouncing their owners as Republican scoundrels and law-breakers; and the declaration was repeatedly made, year in and year out, that if these distilleries "hell kettles"--could be broken up the Republican vote in the State would be greatly reduced. The Watts Law broke up many of the country distilleries! It did not reduce the quantity of liquor manufactured. If the distilleries were "sore spots" and corrupters of public and private morals their powers for evil were but increased when transferred to the cities and towns.

        Precisely the views expressed above of the Watts Law were

Page 22

the views subsequently taken by the temparnce men in the Democratc party at their homes and out of the influence and presence of the leaders of the party whom they met at Raleigh when the Act was agreed on, for, at the next session of the General Assembly (1905) the Ward bill was introduced and passed as an amendment to the Watts Law. The Ward Law contained a requirement that each city and town where liquor might be sold should maintain a city or town government, and a police force of at least two policemen to inspect and report upon the sales and manufacture of liquor. The Ward Law, also prohibited the manufacture of liquor in North Carolina except in incorporated cities or towns having not less than one thousand population.

        If there was now, or had been in the past the least attempt to enforce the provisions of the Watts Law as amended by the Ward Law on the part of the Democratic officers, then it might be said that the Democratic party had taken a step towards temperance. But it is well understood all over the State that the law was not to be enforced, and with one or two lone exceptions no Democratic official, sheriff, policeman, justice of the peace, constable or grand jury has undertaken to indict anyone for the unlawful manufacture of liquor in the State or to show the least activity in bringing before the courts offenders against other denouncements of the Watts-Ward laws. The law is known to be a dead letter: and Mr. Ward the Author of the act which bears his name and who was an earnest and sincere advocate of the Bill was defeated recently in his county primary as a candidate for a member of the General Assembly!

PRODUCER AND CONSUMER.

(From Speech House of Representatives May 31, 1906, by
Hon. James S. Sherman of N. Y.)

        The leaders of all political parties are honest, patriotic and high minded. The Democratic party, the Prohibition party, the Socialist party are each dominated by honorable men. A few scamps in a party, and they exist in smaller numbers in all parties than ever before in our country's history, do not justify universal condemnation, any more than a few scamps in a church, and they, too, exist in smaller number, thank God, than ever before in the history of the church, justify its universal condemnation. But a party

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that believes nothing, has no doctrine, is not built around a principle, is as worthless as a church without a belief.

DIED OF INCOHERENCY.

        I knew one such so-called church in my State. It was organized by a very reputable gentleman of the legal profession, and its absence of belief was its boast. Its doors swung welcome to those who believed in the divinity of Christ and equally wide to those who denied the miraculous conception. It invited those who believed in the atonement and those who denied the necessity of a Redeemer. Like certain of the opposition parties, it sprang up in protest to some admitted evils and weakness of the churches. It was successful for a time in attracting numbers, and it built a fine edifice, but it died of incoherency, for it believed nothing, taught nothing, had no plans, no policies, no purposes. The eloquence of its founder, his sweet spirit, the influence of his blameless life did not make a church. A church presupposes a belief, and a political party ought to presuppose some political principles. It requires affirmative plans, affirmative policies, affirmative aims to carry the nation forward to higher ideals and to grander consumations.

POLITICAL PRINCIPLES INDISPENSABLE.

        Do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating adherence to party because of party name, regardless of the political principles which it professes, but loyalty to political principles because they are believed to be correct. The independent voter, the man who sees nothing in political parties but the personality of their candidates, may be a good man and a patriotic citizen, but we are in a sad plight when those who believe in nothing in particular and everything in general, and who vote according to the instinct of the hour instead of according to the principles of a lifetime, control our elections. I have no fear for my country so long as the American people think out their plans, formulate their policies and consistently adhere to them. My fear is of an incoherent, independent, undisciplined aggregation of well-intentioned men following a purposeless though ambitious leader, who promises much impossible of fulfilment, and whose chief argument is an indefinite protest against evils which have existed from the infancy of the race and which will continue while men remain mortal and so long as human nature continues to control the human family.

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PROTECTION AN AFFIRMATIVE PRINCIPLE.

        Permit me to refer briefly to one of the affirmative principles of the Republican party; a principle that was as correct and as capable of definite statement in the days of Thomas Jefferson as in the days of Theodore Roosevelt; a principle that has never been put in operation in this country without bringing prosperity to all our people, and that has never been abandoned without universal ruin. On the historic correctness of these propositions the Republican party stands or falls.

        The Republican party believes in Protection to American labor. Originally it was thought that our industries needed Protection until they should become established, and that thereafter they could successfully face world-wide competition. It was not then anticipated that adherence to the policy of Protection would create a standard of wages fully 50 per cent. higher than that of any other country, and more than 100 per cent. higher than the average standard of the world. Had conditions continued as early Protectionists supposed they would, and had all the world opened its markets to all the people on equal terms, the expressed thought of the fathers would have been verified in our experience. Protection, however, has been beneficial in unexpected ways. It has created a scale of wages and established a standard of living to which the outside world is a stranger, and renders necessary the continuance of Protection or the abandonment of these high standards.

EVERY INDUSTRIOUS CITIZEN A PRODUCER.

        Let me state the principle more clearly. Every industrious citizen is a producer. He may produce a day's work which he sells in the labor market. He may be a consumer of labor and a producer of farm or of factory products. He may produce exchanges of merchandise or exchanges of credit, or he may produce transportation. Any one who by his efforts adds to the sum total of our production, or in any way increases the aggregate of our commerce, is a producer. Then we are all, whether industrious or not, consumers. We consume food and clothes and cover. Therefore we have dual interests. We would like to buy that which we consume as cheap as possible. The man who produces a day's work is interested in high-priced labor, while he who buys labor and produces farm or factory products seeks to buy this labor as cheap as possible and to sell his products as high as possible.

Page 25

GROSS MISMANAGEMENT OF THE ATLANTIC
AND N. C. RAILROAD.

Extract from letter of Hon. C. S. Wooten in Caucasian of date May 25, 1905.

        In 1899, James A. Bryan was made president, and continued President for five years. He reversed the policy of Chadwick and said the earnings should be put upon the road. He was right in this, but the trouble was he did not make judicious use of the money in his improvements.

        Without going into details, I will mention only a few of the improvements he made that were improper. He built a warehouse in Goldsboro for $12,000.00 that was not necessary, for I heard a Goldsboro man say so; he built a large warehouse at Beston, a small station between Goldsboro and Lagrange, that cost $2500.00, when a $500.00 house would have answered; he spent about $30,000.00 at Newbern on a warehouse that was not needed at present. At other small stations he built magnificent warehouses, when cheaper ones would have done. Then he bought the hotel at Morehead and spent fabulous sums on it in improvements. Everybody knows about the free board and drinking at that hotel. A committee was appointed by Governor Aycock to investigate the affairs of the road. One gentleman, who was a witness, admitted that he had free board for himself and his family, but said his services at the hotel were worth it. He was asked what service he rendered, and he said he was general entertains. Free passes were granted indiscriminately.

        At the stockholders meeting Mr. Bryan in his report in 1903 said the road was in a deplorable condition and would have to borrow money to put it in a proper condition for business. After reading his report there went up throughout the State a demand for a lease. At a special meeting on the first Thursday in September, 1904, a lease was made to the Howland Improvement Company of Rhode Island.

ATLANTIC AND N. C. RAILROAD.

        The lease of the Atlantic and North Carolina Raidroad is still a topic for public discussion. The Charlotte Observer, quoting from the Wilmington Messenger, says:

        "Some remarkable facts" were brought out in the hearing at Newbern last Saturday before Judge Long of the suit brought by a man named Hill to annul the lease of the Atlantic

Page 26

and North Carolina Railroad to the Howland Improvement Company, which now has charge of the property. It is further stated that Mr. Hill himself took little interest in the matter of the lease at the time it was being agitated and did not attend the special meeting of stockholders called to consider it. Mr. Hill at that time, it is stated, owned one share of stock for which he paid $9, and so well pleased was he with the lease of the road that he subsequently purchased another share and is now possessor of two shares. He has declared that his costs in the case are secured by the $2,500 appropriated by the county of Craven to fight the leases. The Messenger says:

        "Craven county's representative was at the meeting which made the lease and voted for it, but that county is now a plaintiff in the suit to have the lease set aside and its officials have decided to spend $2,500 of the people's money, if necessary, in an effort to set aside a contract that they helped to make. The market value of the stock of the road has risen from $25 just before the lease to between $60 and $70. Thousands of shares have changed hands at the latter figures.

        "One reason the plaintiffs give why the lease should be declared void it that the special meeting ofstockholders which made the contract was advertised in only one newspaper in Newbern, while the charter declares that notice of such meetings shall be published in two papers in that city. The defendant's answer to this is that at that time there was but one paper published there, and that notice of the intended meeting and of its purpose appeared in papers all over the State and that personal notice was sent to every stockholder."


        The plaintiffs contend also that there is no power in the charter whereby directors or the stockholders can make a lease. This is challenged by the defendants, who aver that plain and excellent authority is contained in the charter; that the words in this clause in the charter are almost indentical with those in the charter of the North Carolina Railroad, which has been twice leased under the same authority contained in its charter, and such leases have held valid by the Supreme court, and that the Atlantic and North Carolina road was once before leased and no question was raised as to the validity of the contract. The matter is now in the courts, where it will be decided according to the legal points involved, but even though the lease were irregular--which hardly seems possible--we are unable to see why Craven

Page 27

county and Mr. Hill should desire to annul it. There has, it is true, been a good deal of kicking about one thing and another along the line of the road, but these were doubtless due largely to the cutting off of the free passes, etc. The lease of the road has done great things for that section of the State, and it is to be hoped Judge Long will find that there is no legal reason why the lease should not stand.

        The Tar Heel is not familiar with all the facts and is not, therefore, prepared to vouch for the views of the Charlotte Observer. The people have long wanted to know all the facts connected with this road. When the governor of North Carolina sent his commission down to Newbern to investigate and report on all of the facts it was supposed by an anxious public that all the facts would be forthcoming in such a report, but for some reason unknown to the public that report has never been given to the public. The writer has been told that Mr. Henry A. Page, who was a member of that commission and who hesitated and deliberated quite a while before he would sign said report, has a typewritten copy of said report, together with all the evidence elicited in that investigation. It would be interesting history at this time.

        There is nothing more intenselyinteresting in its dramatic and romantic features since the thrilling inciednts of Holden's impeachment trial than the startling developments contained in the precious typewritten copy now filed away by Mr. Page among his last year's Sunday school magazines or among the files of his Daily News and Observer. We shall always live in the hope that we may one day be able to see and peruse a copy of this most interesting bit of history.

The Tar Heel, March 29th, 1906.

ONE WAY TO CHECK IMMIGRATION.

J. S. SHERMAN.

        There be some who profess alarm at the large influx of immigration. I suggest one sure way of stopping it. Put the Democratic party in control. Immigrants never seek our shores in large numbers when Free-Trade poliicies have closed our factories. When millions of their families begging bread, there is little temptation for the people of other countries, however unfortunate their condition, to turn their faces this way. And be it known that our doors of trade cannot be opened to the free admission of competitive mercahndise

Page 28

from abroad without closing the doors of the shops and factories where this merchandise is now produced.

FARMERS HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.

        Is there a farmer with so poor a memory as to have forgotten 1894, when we consumed 45 per cent. less wheat per capita than we did in 1892? Is there a farmer who does not now feel the difference between the consumption of more than six bushels of wheat per capita, as against the consumption of less than three and a half bushels per capita during 1894? Is there a farmer with so short a memory as to have forgotten the effect upon him of the loss in the price of live stock, averaging over $4 for every horse, mule, steer, cow, calf, sheep, and pig between the years 1892 and 1896? Is there a farmer who does not not recognize the difference between an average price of $18.34 per head for every horse, mule, steer, cow, calf pig and sheep in 1905, as against an average of only $13.41 in 1896--an average gain of nearly $5 per head?

        The undenied figures of State expense submitted by Chairman Adams in his Asheville speech and which the News and Observer has been in labor with since--

REPUBLICAN.

        1898 Agricultural Dept. $61,377.94, 1898 Auditor's Dep't. 3,500.00, 1898 Governor's Mansio 1,883.43, 1898 The Judiciary 62,061.88; 1898 Laborors around capitol 5.753.84, 1898 Public printing 10,596.69, 1898 Treasury Dept. 6,250.00, 1898 State Dept. 3,980.54, 1898 Public Instruction 3,000.00,

DEMOCRATIC.

        1905 Agricultural Dept. $96,523.06, 1905 Auditor's Dept. 5,494.31, 1905 Governor's Mansion 9,308.78, 1905 The Judiciary 77,326.59, 1905 Laborers around captol 7,615.39, 1905 Public printing 30,916.78, 1905 Treasury Dept. 7,737.00, 1905 State Dept. 8,930.05, 1905 Public Instruction 4,453.73.

        In other words the sum total of expenses of the departments, as above enumerated for the year 1898 under a Republican administration cost the State $164,581.05 while under the Democratic last year the same departments cost the State $225,330.84, showing that the Democrats spent $90,649.89 more than the Republicans did.

THE DUTY OF A CONGRESSMAN.

        To be a Congressman and represent two hundred thousand

Page 29

American citizens in the legislative councils of the Nation is a great calling. It should not be termed a profession, and it must not be considered a trade. The Fathers builded wisely, and, some have suggested, more wisely than they knew. They planned a representative government and not a democracy.

        In harmony with the thought of the founders of our government the electors of a given precinct meet and selected a limited number, presumably from the better informed of the precinct, to represent all of the political faith at a county convention. Here similarly selected men from all the precincts of the county gather, and from this body of the better informed of their respective precincts select presumably the best informed to represent all of that faith at a congressional convention. Here representative and well-informed men similarly selected from all the various counties of the district meet and canvass the situation and after due deliberation select, by ballot, a candidate to represent the district. The party he represents is successful at the polls, and he is elected. By this election a hitherto private citizen is invited to step out from his law office, his store, his bank, or his farm, and to give himself to the study of statecraft.

        It is a great thing to be thus commissioned. Our friend now goes to Washington and there meets approximately two hundred others similarly selected and holding like commissions, who agree with him politically, and about the same number, sometimes more and sometimes less, who disagree with him politically. Here governmental questions are presented, discussed, views exchanged, and votes recorded.

        How shall our friend vote? He represents primarily a district and secondarily the whole country. It is manifestly his duty to listen to the advice of every well-balanced, intelligent man of his district, and also to every unbalanced ignorant man of his district, if such there be. The expressions of opinion from these sources are to be considered and given due weight. But how shall our friend vote? Shall he hold himself responsive to every wave of popuar sentiment which may effect his immediate constituents, or shall he rise in his manhood and intelligence and so speak and so vote as, in his judgement, will best conserve the interests of the people he primarily represents by best conserving the whole country? If I analyze the situation correctly, it is his duty to act always in harmony with his party on fundamental political principles,

Page 30

and to dissent from the policy of a majority of his political associates only when compelled to do so by an abiding conviction. In helping to shape the course of his party he must voice his own judgement even though it runs contrary to temporary local sentiment.

        Having been commissioned to study public questions, and having been a student of statecraft, he has a right to assume that he understands what is involved in pending measures somewhat better than the average man of his district, however much time he may have given thereto, and much better than the man of his district who has been admittedly intensely engrossed with his own individual affairs. If he rises to his plane he will sometimes record his vote otherwise than the majority of his constituents will desire. This he will regret but he will be controlled not thereby but by his enlightened judgement.

        But our friend's commission is not yet fulfilled. Having been called to the study of statecraft he is likewise called to be a teacher of statecraft. His constituents have sent him to a great political normal school, and it is now his duty to return to those who sent him and instruct then in matters political and to teach the relation between public questions and the normal, the commercial and the industrial interests of his district and of the country at large.

        Some years ago I was at Lexington, Kentucky, and heard the older citizens tell with commendable pride of the days when they used to meet Henry Clay at the Ohio river and bear him home amid an escort of admiring friends. They showed me the balcony of the hotel from which the great statesman of his time used to instruct the people of the hour. Such a course continued through a term of years will produce great statesmen, and such statesmanship continued will develop great constituencies.

        It may be that as some contend the trend of the times is not friendly to statesmanship. The temptation may be great to study local sentiment and promptly respond thereto rather than the real needs of the hour and be faithful thereto. The press too generally conveys the impression that it is the consummation of statesmanship to succeed in keeping oneself in office. To believe something and politically perish because of his convictions is painted in disgraceful colors. In some quarters it seems to be impossible of conception that a man does anything except with an eye single to his own political

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advancement. If this is to be the standard, if it is to eb approved by the public, then no one must be surprised if the next decade produces quite as many demagogues as statesmen.

Secretary SHAW.

AS TO SELLING ABROAD CHEAPER THAN
AT HOME.

        Secretary Shaw, speaking at Salisbury, N. C., on Monday evening, September 10,1906, said in part:

        Our political opponents lay much stress on the fact that some American manufactures are sold abroad cheaper than at home. That the practice prevails to some extent all must admit, but that it does not prevail generally or to any considerable extent is easily established. A nonpartisan industrial commission was appointed by Congress in 1898, which, after spending more than three years in the investigation, filed its report in 1902, which was published in 18 large volumes. This report contains all available evidence on this subject. After making careful compilations from the date therein contained, Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire, stated on the floor of the United States Senate, in April, 1904, that approximately $4,000.000 worth of American manufactured products are annuually sold abroad cheaper than in our own domestic market. No one has ever attempted to disprove Senator Gallinger's conclusions, though our political opponents continue to speak of the practice as well-nigh universal. This $4,000.000 worth can be far more than accounted for by the advantage given to exporters under our drawback laws, and it is quite likely the estimate is too low.

        It has been the policy of the Republican party for many years to allow manufacturers who export their products the advantage of the cheapest possible rawmaterial. The Dingley tariff law provides two ways by which exporters may avail themselves of this advantageoues privilege. First, the law authorizes the manufacture of merchandise for export in bonded factories and permits to be transferred thereto not not only import ores, iron, and steel billets and other material free of duty, but also spirits and tobacco free of internal-revenue tax. During the last fiscal year approximately $10,000.000 worth of imported spirits and tobacco were thus used and the entire product exported and no duty or internal revenue paid thereon. Had this material been entered for consumption in this country, the duty and internal-revenue

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tax would have been quite a large amount, and, to the extent of this saving in the cost of the finished product, the smelter and manufacturer could reduce his export price and still make the same profit.

        Under the American scale of wages the value of ordinary American manufacture is about equally divided between material and labor. The conversion into finished products, therefore, of $10,000.000 worth of raw material consumed in bonded factories would justify the sale abroad of twice that amount of refined or manufactured products cheaper than at home. I should not be surprised to learn that most of the output of these bonded smelteries and factories is sold abroad below the price prevailing in the United States.

        The other method provided in the Dingley law for allowing manufacturers who export their products the advantage of cheap material authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to pay back to the exporter of manufactured merchandise 99 per cent. of the duty which he has actually paid upon any imported material consumed therein. During the last fiscal year there was refunded to exporters of manufactures produced in the whole or in part from imported dutiable material approximately $6,000,000. The refund of duties averages about 5 per cent of the value of the exported merchandise. This drawback provision, therefore, justifies the sale abroad of $120,000,000 worth of American-manufactured merchandise 5 per cent below the domestic price of similar articles. Both these provisions of the Dingley tariff law were enacted for the avowed and sole purpose of enabling the American employer of labor to put his product on the foreign market at reduced prices. In this way only is he able sucessfully to compete with rivals who always have the benefit of cheap labor and frequently of nondutiable and untaxed material.

        The articles on which drawbacks are allowed are numerous and varied. Last year drawbacks were allowed on 18 articles in which dutiable iron or steel was consumed, 9 articles in which dutiable imported lead ore or lead bullion was incorporated, 3 articles in which dutiable tin plate formed a part, 9 articles in which dutiable sugar or molasses was used, 12 different articles in which imported dutiable alcohol was used, several in which imported dutiable hides or leather was used, and no end of articles in which dutiable imported wool was used. Drawbacks were allowed on over 130 manufactured

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articles, in the production of which 50 different kinds of dutiable imported materials were consumed.

        The policy of allowing drawbacks upon the exportation of manufactures into which dutiable raw material has entered is in strict harmony with the principle of protection. The protective principle avowedly and in fact gives the American producer an advantage within the American market, but no economic policy can give the American producer an advantage over his foreign competitor in the foreign market.

        The Treasury Department has many confidential agents in Europe, and I officially meet a large number of people, many of them importers, who annually go to Europe on business. Through these two sources I have sought to find what, if any, articles of American production can be purchased abroad cheaper than at home, and incidentally have accumulated abundant evidence to disprove the claim of our opponents that the practice of dumping, as it is called throughout Europe, is general. I hold in my hand a letter from a business man of New Jersey on the subject. He says he recently purchased at Trenton, N. J., a McCormick mower for $36. This he says, was the price at which anyone could buy, spot cash. He found the identical make and pattern for sale in England at 10 pounds (48.40 our money), and in France for francs 275, or $55. He found Smith & Wesson revolvers, which regularly sell in New York at $10.50, for sale in Paris at the equivalent of $15. He found the Douglas shoe, advertised in every town in the United States for $3.50 per pair, also popular in London, the metropolis of a free-trade country, at the equvalent of $4 per pair, and in Paris at the equivalent of $4.25 per pair. The identical Sorosis shoe, which sells in New York at $4.50, is sold in London at $5.25. My daughters who spent the winter in Europe, wrote their mother who was soon to join them, to bring shoes, for they could not get good shoes as cheap in Paris. My friend says he found a Singer sewing machine at a cheaper price in Europe than in America, but he added that it was a machine made at their German factory, and of much rougher finish and inferior in every way.

        But what shall be said of this practice as a policy? Is the practice bad per se? Who suffers because of it? Does the American laborer? Go ask the man who produces these exported wares thus dumped abroad. I have been criticised for saying that I would prefer to have the American manufacturer

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sell his products abroad cheaper than at home rather than have the foreign producer sell his wares in America cheaper than at home. This is the same as saying that I would prefer to have the products of our factories close foreign shops rather than have the products of foreign shops close our factories. I wish all the world well, but if anyone has to be out of employment, if there must be suffering somewhere, then I will use my best efforts that it come not nigh my country. If, to accomplish this, it shall be necessary that I pay more for my clothes, more for my shoes, more for sewing machine, more for my typewriter, more for the barbed wire used on my Iowa farm than is paid for the same articles in Europe, then I will not object so long as the products of American farms feed, and the products of Amercican looms clothe, and the products of American labor generally supply every need of, those who produce these things thus sold abroad at reduced prices. I will consent to pay a little more than otherwise would be necessary to the end that the products of American labor shall be put on foreign markets.

EXCLUSION OF CHEAP LABOR.

(From Sec. Shaw's Salisbury Speech.)

        The coolie laborer is unpopular, largely because of his inexpensive habits. He neither feeds himself, clothes himself, nor houses his family as do Americans. Living on a lower plane, he can of course afford to work cheaper than Americans, and his presence is a menace, not so much to American morals as to American labor. To the extent that he secures his pro rata share of American wages and fails to contribute proportionately to the consumptive capacity of the country his presence is undersirable. The Republican party therefore says to him: "Unless you consent to be an American consumer you shall not be an American producer. You must be an American in both respects or in neither."

        Republican laws against contract labor are of the same class. But for these laws manufacturers would go abroad, hire laborers at the European scale of wages, and bring them to this country under contract to work below the American scale. This was once the practice to the prejudice not only of labor but to the prejudice of the American farmer as well. Low wages compel poor living and poor living harms the farmer and the manufacturer also, for it restricts the consumptive capacity of the country.

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        The Republican party gives the American manufacturer for the foreign market, every possible advantage except that of cheap labor. No law can protect the American producer in the foreign market, hence the exporter of the product of American labor is given the cheapest possible raw material. If it be said that this is to the advantage of the exporter, I reply that it aids quite as much those whom the exporter employs, while those who supply the ordinary needs of these employed artisans are benefited also.

THE WORK OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S
ADMINISTRATION.

A MAGNIFICENT REVIEW.

THE MAN OF THE PERIOD.

        When a party comes to the people and asks for their suport, it should be able to show that this support is deserved because of pledges fulfilled, and public duty well and faithfully done, which has redowned to the welfare of the whole people. If the Repubiclan party can show such a record, then it deserves and should receive the support of every voter of the county. If the Democratic party cannot show such a record, then it does not deserve and should not receive such support. Every voter owes it to himself, to his family and to his ccountry to vote to endorse and continue those government policies which have proven best for the peace and prosperity of all.

        If the voters of the country should fail to do this with their ballots, then to that extent would we show we were wanting in intelligence, in patriotism and in capacity for self-government. This being true, then let us look at the record of the Republican party and also at the record of the opponent and decide how each of us should cast our ballots.

        In the last Republican National Platform the party declared for:

        1. A just and courageous enforcement of private and public rights in all controversies between thepeople and corporate combinations.

        2. Maintainance of the well established principle of protection for the fostering of home industries, and the protection of American labor against the competition of foreign pauper labor.

        3. The extension and increase of our foreign trade by all practicable methods.

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        4. Stable expansion of our currency and the preservation of the public credit.

        5. The building of the Isthmian Canal.

        6. The regulation of imigration and the enforcement of the laws pertaining thereto.

        The people believed in these principles and they believed in the wisdom and patriotism of the Republican party to carry them out in good faith.

        Was their faith well founded? Have these platform pledges been kept by the adminstration of Theodore Roosevelt? The humblest American knows that they have been kept and that too, without fear or favor. The rights of the poorest and humblest have been as zealously guarded as those of the rich and powerful. All that was promised has been faithfully done and even more.

PROTECTIVE TARIFF.

        Agitation against the principle of "Tariff for protection" has been rife, but the Republican party has stood "pat", demanding that the present stable business conditions must be preserved, and that the tariff tinkering of the Democratic agitators, whose destructive tariff legislation has involved the country more than once in industrial depression and ruin, must be shunned and avoided if we hope to preserve our present national prosperity. The Republican party will foster no evil that may creep in under the protection system, but pledges the public to correct the same as fast as practical and as often as they may arise. Wisdom and prudence demands that such correction must be by the friends of protection and not to be trusted to the enemies of protection, whose hope would be, not to cure any evil of the system, but to destroy it. No evil has ever existed under the Republican tariff that was equal to the wide spread evils thatsprang up to blight the country under the Democratic tariff. Do the voters perfer present prosperous conditions, or do they want to return to conditions of depression and hard times under the Cleveland tariff? On this question the Republican party confidently asks and expects the people's approval.

TRADE EXPANSION.

        During the years of the Roosevelt administration our trade has expanded at home and abroad. The South, and particularly the State of North Carolina, have been chief beneficiaries of this expansion through the policy of trade encouragement,

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and new markets for our cotton and other raw materials has been opened up in the Orient. And by reason of our well paid skilled labor, we are sending ships loaded with American-made goods all over the civilized world. The surplus product of our factories has found a market and at a remunerative price.

        Our party's pledge to promote these conditions has been kept inviolate. Compare the price of cotton now with the price under the Cleveland administration and look at the increasing number of factories of all kinds, all busy and none closed down. Is there a voter in the whole state who would like to return to the conditions under the Cleveland administration? If so, then that person may have some reason for voting the Democratic ticket.

THE PANAMA CANAL.

        Under the leadership of the President, and over the groundless objections of the Democratic leaders in Congress, the Republican party has enacted legislation and appropiated money for the construction of thegreat Canal,across the Isthmus ofPanama,--a commercial dream cherished by our country for more than a century. This gigantic and pregnant enterprise is now actively begun and will, in due and proper time, be completed and thus become one of the greatest governmental achivements ever accomplished in history. It wil mean a developement of national and international trade, and will be of the greatest advantage tothe industrial and material progress of the South. Already impetus has been given to the coast-wise traffic of our Atlantic and Gulf ports, and the improvement already noted is but an earnest of the remarkable development that may be expected when the ships of the world make the Isthmus of Panama their route for carrying the trade of the Orient from the eastern to the western world

        The people of the United States have not forgotten, and will not forget, with what singleness of purpose and patriotism endeavor the President entered upon negotiations for the cession of the Panama Canal strip tothe United States, nor have they forgotten how he was ruthlessly attacked by Democratic leaders for his actions, in spite of his wonderful success. He stood firm, completed his negotiations, and secured Congressional approval, and is now by his own great zeal inspiring 20,000 employees on the Canal to make the dirt fly

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and open it as rapidly as possible for the use of the world.

        When it is completed there will be opened the greatest waterway for the international trade in the world, and its completion will signalize the most wonderful accomplishment in the realm of practical statesmanship ever before realized. If he had done nothing more, this alone would have placed Theodore Roosevelt among the greatest men in the World's history.

        There have been so many other legislative and executive accomplishments during the administration of our affairs by President Roosevelt that to mention them in detail is impossible. It is only possible to speak of them briefly and ask the people to refer, for details, to the publications of public history since the Roosevelt administration began.

CUBA, THE PHILIPPINES AND PORTO RICO

        After our successful war with Spain, which gave to us the dominion of Cuba, the Philippine Islands and Porto Rico, the duties of carrying our policies of equity and justice to the people thus placed under our flag were numerous, delicate and important. The great administrative genius of President Roosevelt has established order and promoted theinterests of the natives of these islands, and there has been formed south of us, under the guiding hand, the Republic of Cuba, to which we are cemented by all the ties of freindship and national gratitude.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

        Through the influence of the Roosevelt administration the principles of non-interference by European powers with the status of the various countries of the Western Hemisphere, known as the Monroe Doctrine, has been greatly strengthened. The sending of the controversy between Venesuela, on the one hand, and England and Germany on the other, to the Hague Arbitration Tribunal was a striking instance in point. Also the settlement upon the basis of equity on the Alaskan Boundry question between the United States and Canada are only a few coses in point.

EXTRA CONSTITUTIONAL DUTIES.

        The handling of the questions enumerated above were all duties which fell upon the President under the Constitution. Each problem was met and solved upon the highest principles of patriotism and conservative statesmanship. The results

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achived have made every loyal American citizen prouder of his country and more loyal to the highest ideals of citizenship, upon which our Republic is founded. President Roosevelt however, unlike most Presidents, has not been content to perform solely the duties he was bound by law to perform. He has been willing to perform all duties which he felt attached morally, as well as legally, to the high office of President of our Republic. Note a few instances:

JAPAN AND RUSSIA.

        While the rulers of all nations of the world were watching in seemingly helpless way, the death struggle between Japan and Russia, which not only threatened the Commercial life of both nations as well as effecting seriously the commerce of the world, but which was also dealing death to thousands of brave soldiers daily, our President, with prestige of his high office, stepped between the combatants and urged them to lay down their swords and be at peace. Both mighty nations paused, the world held its breath, and both nations ceased hostilities, sent Peace Commissioners to our shores, where they met, conferred and agreed to terms of peace. Probably no other man in the world could have accomplished this result. It was the imposing personality of the President as much as the commanding position of our government that crowned the effort with success. The full significance of this stupendous act, fraught with such world wide significance, is beyond our comprehension. It will be left tothe historians of the future to record its mighty effect upon the world's progress towards the banishment of war, and the realization of a world-peace.

THE COAL STRIKE.

        It is fresh in the public minds how only two years ago the whole United States was threatened with a coal famine, and all the horrors that such a calamity would have entailed upon every class of our citizenship. The coal barons, steadfast in their determination not to yield an inch, were threatening a remorseless war of extermination upon the laboring millions who existed upon the results of their toil in the coal fields. Organized labor and organized capital faced each other with a purpose equally determined, and the helpless public lay prone and at the mercy of the two contending forces. No one could see a way of avoiding the untold misery and want which was certain from a long continuance of the strike, and its many attendant evils of riot, bloodshed and hunger. President

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Roosevelt, however, feeling that to be the President of a great people, demanded that he save the country from the dire disaster of a war of such great interests, if possible, so he called the capital and labor to the White House and with consummate tact secured a peaceful settlement, not only to the reliefof the contending powers, but to the whole country. As the representative of 80,000,000 American citizens he demanded of both labor and capital that they settle their controversy by making mutual concessions in the interest of the great masses, and as in all his splendid endeavors for the good of all the people, he won a significant victory, proving that the victories of peace are, in fact, greater, in an untold degree than those of war.

        The President did not have to undertake this mighty task. No law called upon him to do it. No citizen could have criticised him justly if he had left it undone. Yet his love of humanity, and his desire to serve the people who had honored him moved hom beyond the strict requirements of writen law into the wider fields of universal human needs and seeing that there was need for work to be done, he used his own forceful personality and the prestige of his high office to do it. But it took a deep patriotism backed by great courage to undertake such a task.

THE JEWISH MASSACRES.

        The Republican party had its birth in a desire to secure and perpetuate human freedom. Since it's "baptism of fire" in '61--'65, it has stood foremost for a broader liberty among the peoples of all nations. "Equal rights to all' has been its motto at home, and it has sought to spread the same Gospel by legitimate means to other nations. Our party has always declared for manhood sufferage, and for individual liberty. It has always looked with horror upon the violation of these fundimental principles, and has striven to enforce them universally. These principles are the hope of the world-civilization, and although a technical interpretation of international law might suggest our silence when they were violated by other nations, yet when the world was horror-struck with news of the heartless and merciless massacres of Russian Jews, President Roosevelt did not keep silent, as did all the other rulers of civilized nations, but in his own bold way, he cut the Gordian Knot of effete diplomacy and called on the Russian Tzar and the Russian people in the name of outraged

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humanity to desist from their barbarous deeds of blood. Such a deed required imperial courage, and the effect of his bold denunciation of Russian outrage has been heard around the world, and its echoes had,no doubt, some effect to arouse the dull-minded Russian peasant until to-day there is prospect of such a revolt by the common people of Russia against the tyranny of the Russian Tzar as to bring about at least a measure of self-government for the Russian people.

ROOSEVELT AND ENFORCEMENT OF
THE LAW.

        In the approaching campaign which will be heard upon the subject of aggression of trusts, money powers and corporate greed. On these subjects Republicans can stand defiant and meet their political opponents upon every stump and vanquish them with a magnificant record of wise Republican legislation fearlessly enforced by Republican Presidents. It is universallyknown that the only effective anti-trust legislation ever enacted has been placed upon the statute books by Republican Congressmen and signed by Republican Presidents, It is equally known that during the administration of President Cleveland when the Democrats were in full power in this country, that no effort to prosecute the trusts, which were as aggressive then as now, was made, and that President Cleveland's Attorney General expressly declared his inability to punish violators of the anti-trust law, and his helplessness to protect the rights of the people. How different have been the conditions under the Roosevelt administration. Time after time time the Attorney General of the United States has gone into the courts, proved violations of the anti-trust law before juries, secured convctions and judgments of thet court dissolving the trust organizations and punishing the offenders, and in all classes where the courts have appealed to, secured such adjunctions as established and guaranteed the rights of the public.

THE RAILROAD RATE AND PURE FOOD
BILL.

        The President has gone further than enforce existing laws. Where he has found a weak point in existing law, has called upon Congress to amend and strengthen the same. An instance in point is the recent Railroad Rate Regulation Bill, and the Pure Food Laws passed by the session of Congress.

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        These wise measures are a great step forward and guarantee in a large measure protection of the public from the impositions of the Greedy Meat Trust and the domination of the Commercial world by the great Railroad Trust which has had unrestrained sway for so many years. This legislation was the result of the deliberations of the Republican administration, and this administration is now determinedly enforcing these enactments, and in all cases are safeguarding the rights of the American public.

ROOSEVELT'S PERSONALITY.

        During the last four years there has been a great uplifting in the moral tone and business methods of our governmental administration of public affairs. Graft and corrupion have been hounded down and rooted out every where, and public servants have held to a higher sense of official obligation than ever before in the history of the country. The splendid personality of President Roosevelt has been largely responsible for this great reform along moral lines. He has stood for the highest official probity, and has made a violation of official duty the unpardonable sin in official life. His administration has indicated officials of his own and the Democratic party and punished them without regard to any question but their guilt. He has set a higher standard than ever before in making appointments, and has demanded a stricter performance of official duty for the public good.

        Secretary of the State, Elihu Root in speaking of President Roosevelt before the last Republican National Convention, paid him the following tribute:

        "No people can maintain free government who do not in their hearts value the qualities which have made the President of the United States conspicious among men of his time as a type of noble manhood. Come what may here, come what may in November, God grant that these qualities of brave, true manhood shall have honor throughout America, shall be held for an example in every home, and that the youth of generations to come may grow up to feel that it is better than wealth, or office, or power, to have the honesty, the purity and the courage of Theodore Roosevelt."


        The great Republican majority at the last election was the tribute of the people to these qualities and to the great work which President Roosevelt's administration had begun. Since the last election, the Republican party under

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his leadership has accomplished many fold more great reforms, and besides the President himself has grown in the love, esteem and admiration of the people of this country, and indeed, of the whole world as never before. Then the people will but be doing themselves honor in endorsing the President and the work of his administration by rolling up another great majority at the poles next November. And it is time that North Carolina was also getting in line with her endorsement.

WONDERFUL PROGRESS MADE BY THE
FUSIONISTS IN EDUCATION WHEN
IN CHARGE OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT.
THEY GAVE THE STATE THE
BEST SCHOOL LAW IT EVER HAD.

        They increased the School term 2 1-3 weeks in one year without increasing the schooltax. By changing the school law and economic management saved the state over one-half million dollars annually.

        The Democrats make false charges for campagin purposes.

        Commissioner Varner in his report for 1904 & 1905, shows that the educational conditional of the State is "POOR" and is growing worse.

        The democratic platform adopted at their state convention in Greensboro 1906, has the following to say of the record of the democratic party in education:

        "We express hearty approval of the great results accomplished through educational work during the past six years of democratic rule, and the great improvement made during that time in our educational conditions, and we promise a continuance of a 4 months school term for all the children of the state." The above statement sounds modest enough, and might be accepted as true by those who are not well informed, but when this statement from the democratic platform is considered in connection with the facts taken from the official records, and fully given elsewhere in our discussion of the record of the democratic party in education for the past six years, then this claim made in the democratic platform appears

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to be absurd, but for unadulterated gall, let us quote a few passages from the Democratic Handbook of 1904, to see the kind of stuff that was dished out by the democraitc press and democratic spell-binders to the uninformed voters during the last campaign. We quote from the Democratic Handbook for 1904: "Fusion rulechecked educational progress, and the fusionists by their law, under which negro committeemen could control white schools, they effectually checked educational progress, and lessened educational interest. On account of this law, and the general lack of confidence in the administration of, and respect for it, there was naturally a decided decraese in the enrollment and attendance of the white schools"?


        If any democratic candidate was elected to office in the state in 1904 by virture of the above statement, or if any democrat should succeed this year in deceiving the people by any such false and deceptive argument, in the face of the facts that can be found by an examination of the official school records of the state, he should be prosecuted and convicted for obtaining goods under false pretense. Now let us briefly review the work of the Fusionists on education when they had charge of the state government, and from the official records we can determine whether or not the above charges of the democrats are true or false.

        The legislature of 1897 did not increase the rate of taxation for public schools, nor did it borrow money and issue bonds for that purpose, but by abolishing the old Democrat school law, and enacting a new one, they increased the school term in North Carolina two and one-third weeks, and this without one cent of cost to the tax-payers of the State. This law was pased by the legislature of 1897, but the effect of the law on the schools of the State was not felt until the following year, 1898. Supt. Mebane's Report, on page 159, and Supt. Joyner's Report, on page 339, sow that the school term of the state in one year, from 1897 to 1898, made this remarkable increase. To show that increase was entirely due to the repeal of the old school law and the enactment of a new law the above reports on the pages cited show that the school term had not increased prior thereto, notwithstanding the successive legislatures during this period had increased the rate of taxation for public schools form 12 1-2 to 18 cents on property, making about 50 per cent. increase in tax.

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        The Legislature of 1899 was a Democratic Legislature and they amended the school alw, appointed their own Board of Education and school Committeemen, and made an appropriation of $100,000 for public schools, and promsied the people to thereby provide for them a four month's school. What was the result? The reports of the State Superintendents, on pages cited above, show that the white schools of the State did not increase a day by this extra appropriation, and the colored schools only about one hour. Think of it! The negro schools apparently got all of this $100,000 in 1899, and for that only one hour extra school term for the entire year! In 1899 it cost about $13,000 to run the white and colored schools in the State for one day, and for this extra $100,000 the school term for both should have increased one and one-half weeks, but the reports show only one hour increase for the negro schools, and no increase whatever for the white schools!

        The same reports show that the tax-payers of the State were required to pay $134,795.98 more for public schools in 1900 than in the year 1899. See Mebane's Report, pp. 157 and Joyner's Report, page 337; and these same reports show on pages 159 and 339 respectively, that this enormous sum increased the length of the white schools three days and the colored schools about one and one-fourth days, making te average cost of one day's school for both races about $63,433.34. If the money had been wisely and judiciously expended, it should have not cost more than $13,000 per day. What became of this money, we are unable to explain. Another strange fact shown in the report of Supt. Joyner, on page 338, is, that the average attendance of the children in the public schools of the state in 1898 was greater than in 1900. The exact number is 6,322. Think of it--6,322 fewer children in average attendance in the public schools in the state in 1900 than in 1898, not withstanding the increase in population and with the increase of 100,000 in appropriation.

        Supt. Joyner's Report on page 337, shows that $588,389.38 more money was put in the public schools during the year of 1902 than there was in 1899, yet the school terms for white schools in 1902 was only two and two-fifths longer than in 1899. Estimating the cost of the public schools at $13,000 for one day, this enormous increase in the school fund should have increased the school term nine weeks--thereby giving us

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a six-months' school term in 1902 throughout the state, instead of a four-months term as we now have.

        The school term in 1898 was two and one-third weeks longer than in 1897, without increasing the rate of taxation or appropriating an extra dollar for schools. This was done by the Fusion Legislature of 1897, who gave North Carolina the best school law of any Sstate in the South, and if that law had not been tampered with by subsequent Democratic Legislatures, North Carolina to-day would have had a four months school term without an extra dollar of appropriation, and North Carolina would have saved its credit and over one-half million dollars in money.

        Now as the Democratic charge that, "Fusion rule checked educational progress." The school law of 1897 was endorsed by every prominent educator in North Caroli