Taking up the reins of the Administration of the Government, with its
complex statesmanship, where a master had laid them down, President
Roosevelt, heretofore known for his sterling worth as an administrator,
and his imperial honesty as a man, has put forth no uncertain sound as
to his intended course. The announcement that the foreign policy of his
illustrious predecessor would be chiefly adhered to has struck a
responsive chord in every patriotic heart. The appointment of ex-Gov.
Jones, of Alabama, to a Federal judgeship was an appointment in unison
with the best of popular accord. The nobility of the Governor in his
utterances on the subject of lynching should endear him to every lover
of justice and the faithful execution of law. For he so grandly evinced
what is so sadly wanting in many humane and law-abiding men--the courage
of his convictions.
"For when a free thought sought expression,
He spoke it boldly, spoke it all."
It is only to the fruition of such expressions, the molding of an
adverse sentiment to such lawlessness that we can look for the
abolishment of that crime of crimes which, to the disgrace of our
country, is solely ours.
[Illustration: THEODORE ROOSEVELT,
President of the United States.
Civil Service Commissioner--Police Commissioner of New York--Assistant
Secretary of War and Vice-President of the United States--A Hero in War,
a Statesman in Peace.]
This appointment is considered eminently wise, not only for the superior
ability of the appointee as a jurist, but for his broad humanity as a
man, fully recognizing the inviolability of human life and its
subjection to law. For the Negro, his primal needs are protection and
the common liberty vouchsafed to his fellow-countrymen. To enjoy them it
is necessary that he be in harmony with his environments. A bulwark he
must have, of a friendship not the product of coercion, but a concession
from the pulse-beat of justice. Such appointments pass the word down the
line that President Roosevelt, in his endeavor to be the exponent of the
genius of American citizenship, will recognize the sterling advocates of
the basic elements of constitutional Government, those of law and order,
irrespective of party affiliation.
This appointment will probably cause dissent in Republican circles, but
it may be doubted if the Negro advances his political fortunes by
invidious criticism of the efforts of a Republican Administration to
harmonize ante-bellum issues. For while he in all honesty may be
strenuous for the inviolability of franchises of the Republican
household, and widens the gap between friendly surroundings, each of
the political litigants meet with their knees under each other's
mahogany, and jocularly discuss Negro idiosyncrasies, and tacitly agree
to give his political aspirations a "letting alone." For, with character
and ability unquestioned for the discharge of duties, the vote polled
for him usually falls far short of the average of that polled by his
party for other candidates on the ticket.
The summary killing of human beings by mobs without the form of law is
not of late origin. Ever since the first note of reconstruction was
sounded, each Administration has denounced lynching. All history is the
record that it is only through discussion and the ventilation of wrong
that right becomes a valued factor. But regard for justice is not
diminishing in our country. The judiciary, although weak and amenable to
prevailing local prejudices in localities, as a whole is far in advance
on the sustenance of righteous rule than in the middle of the last
century, when slavery ruled the Nation and its edicts were law, and its
baleful influence permeated every branch of the Government.
Of the judiciary at that period Theodore Parker, an eminent
Congregational divine and most noted leader of Christian thought, during
a sermon in 1854, said:
"Slavery corrupts the judicial class. In America, especially in New
England, no class of men has been so much respected as the judges, and
for this reason: We have had wise, learned, and excellent men for our
judges, men who reverenced the higher law of God, and sought by human
statutes to execute justice. You all know their venerable names and how
reverentially we have looked up to them. Many of them are dead, and some
are still living, and their hoary hairs are a crown of glory on a
judicial life without judicial blot. But of late slavery has put a
different class of men on the benches of the Federal Courts--mere tools
of the Government creatures who get their appointments as pay for past
political service, and as pay in advance for iniquity not yet
accomplished. You see the consequences. Note the zeal of the Federal
judges to execute iniquity by statute and destroy liberty. See how ready
they are to support the Fugitive Slave Bill, which tramples on the
spirit of the Constitution and its letter, too; which outrages justice
and violates the most sacred principles and precepts of Christianity.
Not a United States Judge, Circuit or District, has uttered one word
against that bill of abominations. Nay, how greedy they are to get
victims under it. No wolf loves better to rend a lamb into fragments
than these judges to kidnap a fugitive slave and punish any man who
desires to speak against it. You know what has happened in Fugitive
Slave Bill courts. You remember the 'miraculous' rescue of a Shadrach;
the peaceable snatching of a man from the hands of a cowardly kidnapper
was 'high treason;' it was 'levying war.' You remember the trial of the
rescuers! Judge Sprague's charge to the jury that if they thought the
question was which they ought to obey, the laws of man or the laws of
God, then they must 'obey both,' serve God and Mammon, Christ and the
devil in the same act. You remember the trial, the ruling of the bench,
the swearing on the stand, the witness coming back to alter and enlarge
his testimony and have another gird at the prisoner. You have not
forgotten the trials before Judge Kane at Philadelphia and Judge Greer
at Christiana and Wilkesbarre.
"These are natural results from causes well known. You cannot escape a
principle. Enslave a negro, will you? You doom to bondage your own sons
and daughters by your own act."
[Illustration: HON. GEORGE B. CORTELYOU.
Secretary to the President.
Born July, 1862, in State of New York--Has Made Mark in Literature and
Art--His Promotion Has Been Rapid, From Stenographer to Executive Clerk,
Thence to Secretary to Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, an Office Now
Grown to the Dignity of a Cabinet Position.]
At the death of Theodore Parker, among the many eulogies on his life was
one by Ralph Waldo Emerson, highly noted for his humanity, his learning
and his philosophy. It contains apples of gold, and richly deserves
immortality; for in the worldly strife for effervescent wealth and
prominence, a benign consciousness that our posthumous fame as unselfish
benefactors to our fellow-men is to live on through the ages, would be a
solace for much misrepresentation. Emerson said: "It is plain to me that
Theodore Parker has achieved a historic immortality here. It will not be
in the acts of City Councils nor of obsequious Mayors nor in the State
House; the proclamations of Governors, with their failing virtue failing
them at critical moments, that generations will study what really befel;
but in the plain lessons of Theodore Parker in this hall, in Faneuil
Hall and in legislative committee rooms, that the true temper and
authentic record of these days will be read. The next generation will
care little for the chances of election that govern Governors now; it
will care little for fine gentlemen who behaved shabbily; but it will
read very intelligently in his rough story, fortified with exact
anecdotes, precise with names and dates, what part was taken by each
actor who threw himself into the cause of humanity and came to the
rescue of civilization at a hard pinch; and those who blocked its
course.
"The vice charged against America is the want of sincerity in leading
men. It does not lie at his door. He never kept back the truth for fear
of making an enemy. But, on the other hand, it was complained that he
was bitter and harsh; that his zeal burned with too hot a flame. It is
so hard in evil times to escape this charge for the faithful preacher.
Most of all, it was his merit, like Luther, Knox, and Latimer and John
the Baptist, to speak tart truth when that was peremptory and when there
were few to say it. His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he
insisted beyond all men in pulpit--I cannot think of one rival--that
the essence of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for
use, or it is nothing: If you combine it with sharp trading, or with
ordinary city ambitions to glaze over municipal corruptions or private
intemperance, or successful frauds, or immoral politics, or unjust wars,
or the cheating of Indians, or the robbing of frontier natives, it is
hypocrisy and the truth is not in you, and no love of religious music,
or dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley or of Jeremy Taylor,
can save you from the Satan which you are."