STATUS OF THE NEGRO

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 30, 29 October 1921, Page 7

STATUS OF THE NEGRO

SENSATIONAL SPEECH BY PRESIDENT HARDING DEVELOPING THE BEST IN ALL HUMANITY By Telegraph—Pres« Association—Copyright New York, October 26. The "New York Times’’* reports that President Harding created a sensation in a speech at Birmingham; Alabama, concerning the status of the negro.' FewRepublican Presidents have ever received so enthusiastic a reception as President Harding got in the South, but when he began to speak he stirred, up old Civil War 'issues. The segregated negro section of tho audience cheered vociferously, but the whites remained stonily silent. He did not advocate racial equality, rather he stressed its impossibility and undesirableness. He said that politically and economically there' need be no occasion for a great .and permanent differentiation, provided that on both sides there was recognition of the absolute divergence in things social and racial. “I would say,” said tho Presittent, "lot the black man vote wherf he is fit to vote, and prohibit the white man. when he is unfit. I would insist upon equal educational opportunity for both. Men of both races may well stand uncompromisingly against every'suggestion for social equality. This is not a question of sccial equality, but a question of recognising tho fundamental, eternal, and inescapable difference. Racial amalgamation there cannot be; a partnership of the races, developing the highest aim of all humanity, there must be, if humanity is to achieve the ends which we set for it. Tho black man should be encouraged to be the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation white man." —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.