JEWISH MEMORIAL

or, at any rate, to a suspension of diplomatic relations for some time?

All surmises proved vain. The incident was as unexciting as possible. The Russian Government declined to receive the memorial, as was expected. But no affront was given or assumed. Our representative at St. Petersburg visited the Foreign Office and came away without meeting with so much as a scowl of disapproval. Yet, by the clever handling of the affair, all had been done that any one set out to do; for the letter from Secretary Hay, in which our chargé was instructed to inquire whether the Russian Government would receive the memorial, itself recited the full text of that document. The cause for which the American Jews were pleading had been presented in their own chosen form not only to Russia but to the great tribunal of the world's opinion. The voice of American humanity had spoken, and without offense, while the dread of a fatal breach of etiquette was silencing all Europe.

It is such a position that President Roosevelt would have the United States occupy in the sisterhood of nations, as the great peacemaker, yet at the same time the fearless cham

pion of justice; the leader of the world in commerce and the useful arts, yet never flinching at the menace of war when a righteous cause demands aggression or requires defense. If war must come to us at any stage as an incident of this program, he would welcome it as a national inspiration; if it were forced upon us when not necessary, he would deplore it; as an end in itself, or as a means to an unworthy achievement, he would resist it as stoutly as he denounces peace bought at the price of dishonor.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SOUTH AND THE NEGRO

Two questions that blend-A policy never before tried—Ideal conditions for inaugurating it—The Washington dinner incident-A needless uproar-Dr. Crum's collectorship.

THE Southern question in American politics since the reconstruction era has been simply the negro question under a larger name. At least the negro has been so far the dominant element in the Southern question as to obscure all the other elements. The fact that, although economic issues of great importance have come up for discussion and settlement in every political campaign, the menace of negro supremacy has been too serious to admit of any trifling, has kept a large majority of Southern white men of all shades of opinion banded together for mutual protection. This is what is known as the Solid South. The Democratic party, as the only generally recognized opponent of the party to which the negroes belonged, has extended its

name over the heterogeneous group, regardless of the historic meaning of Democracy.

He

All Republican Presidents since Grant had found the Southern question the most troublesome in the foreground of the administrative field. All had been embarrassed by the fact that the votes of the negro leaders, good and bad alike, had been sought and used in the last national convention, and would be in the next, since they counted for just as much as an equal number of votes of white delegates. The manner in which Mr. Roosevelt came to the presidency, however, left him with a free hand. owed nothing to any delegations, negro or white, Northern or Southern, in the Philadelphia convention of 1900; for he had spent all his time there not in seeking the nomination for Vice-President, but in trying to ward it off. He had welcomed any aid he could get toward throwing the nomination to somebody else; the delegates who were most enthusiastic for him provoked his displeasure rather than his favor, and he did everything he could to nullify their efforts. On his accession to the presidency just one thought possessed his mind respecting the South: If he could not in his own term break its solidity, he could at least set the solvent

REHABILITATING THE SOUTH

forces at work so that this section would take its place politically with the others under some succeeding administration.

On the day of President McKinley's obsequies in Washington I sat for an hour with Mr. Roosevelt in his temporary home, going over with him his plans for the future. It was strictly a friendly talk, free from the professional savor on either side. A month or so later, discussing the Southern-patronage question in the New York Evening Post, I wrote:

The President, as a man who believes in parties, will prefer Republicans to Democrats, and strong party men to those who are uncertain and indifferent. But if it came to a question between an unfit Republican and a fit Democrat, he would not hesitate a moment to choose the Democrat. It has always been Mr. Roosevelt's desire to see the South back in full communion with the other sections in conducting the National Government, instead of standing on the outside whenever a Republican administration is installed at Washington. This is not the case with any other section, and he would take great pride in breaking it up in the South.

And the negro? He must take his chances like the rest. If he be a man who has earned the respect of his white neighbors by his efforts