THE SPIRIT OF THE MONTH WATCHING WASHINGTON The New Lobbyist would Serve his Rich Men Wonder whether they are to be Taxed for Dying The Senate would Avenge the Republicans, face to face with the Europe Pretends to See in the Politics of California Cause for War between the United States and Japan The Central West Wants to Make And the Nation Looks to Roosevelt The World Go-Day VOLUME XII JANUARY, 1907 NUMBER 1 Y "To Hell With Such a Law" OU probably think that an anarchist, or a condemned criminal said these words. Therein you are mistaken. They were spoken by a member of the United States Senate in a public address at Chicago. It is not hard to guess his his name; it is Tillman. You may possibly suppose that this representative of a great state, who has sworn to observe the Constitution of the United States, was referring to some bit of legislation of which he did not approve. Quite the contrary. He was referring to the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. That is a Senator's solution of the negro problem: curse the Constitution. Forty years ago northern optimists thought that the negro question had been solved by making slaves into citizens. To-day we find the problem farther from an answer than ever. It is partly the negro's fault; it is partly the fault of that traditionless class of southerners whom Senator Tillman and his kind represent. To the old slave-holding families the negroes are a responsibility. But these families are no longer the political leaders of the South. They have been replaced by representatives of the formerly uninfluential commercial class to whom the negro is a political and social menace rather than a responsibility. Having disfranchised the negro, they have made the race question their political stock in trade. (Copyright, 1906, by THE WORLD TO-DAY COMPANY.) |