STATUS OF THE NEGRO.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 October 1921, Page 6

STATUS OF THE NEGRO.

AMERICA’S BIG PROBLEM. OLD CIVIL WAR ISSUES. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. New York, Oct. 26. President Harding created a sensation in the course of a speech at Birmingham, Alabama, concerning the status of the negro. Few Republican Presidents have ever had so enthusiastic receptions in the south as have been accorded to President Hardin?;, but when he began to speak at Birmingham he stirred the old Civil War issues. The negro section of the audience, who sat together in seats apart, cheered vociferously, but the whites remained stonily silent.

The President said he did not advocate racial equality, rather he stressed the impossibility and uudesirableness thereof, but he said that politically and economically there need be no occasion for great permanent differentiation, provided that on both sides there was a recognition of the absolute divergence in things social and racial. “I would say let the black man vote when he is fit to vote and prohibit the white man when he is unfit.” He would insist upon equal educational opportunities for both men and women of both races, but would stand uncompromisingly against every suggestion of social equality.

This was not a question of social equality, but a, question of recognising the fundamental, eternal and unescapable differences preventing racial amalgamation. There could .not be a partnership of the races developing the highest aim of all humanity. If humanity was to achieve the ends set for it the black man should be encouraged to be the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation white man.