Secretary Taft and the Negro

The Planet condones Secretary of War William H. Taft’s speech in New York and the “new light” he sees upon the African American race.

We have read with no little interest the rather remarkable address of Hon. William H. Taft, Secretary of War at the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, New York, Monday night, March 16, 1908. We felt at one time that we had said enough concerning the position of this distinguished member of President Roosevelt's cabinet. But after mature consideration, we felt that it was due to our reader to comment upon some of the things that he was kind enough to say. That he is endeavoring to correct the unfavorable opinion of him entertained by a large majority of our people in this country goes without saying. That he has the cordial, if not enthusiastic support of that distinguished educator and economist is also a self-evident proposition if we read the signs of the times alright. The report as published in the New York Sun is now before us. He is quoted as follows: “The point which Mr. Taft seemed to desire to make was that while it doubtless was time that the educational and property qualifications were intended to be enforced only against Negroes and not against the whites yet no one under the Constitution could object to such qualifications where there was a large illiterate population. What the Negroes has a right to object to, he said, was the partial enforcement of such a law as to the ignorant Negroes and not as to ignorant white persons. Mr. Taft declared that all the signs in the South pointed to an amelioration of the conditions that had brought this about and to more impartial enforcement of these laws because political and economic wisdom demanded it. “Let the Negro make himself indispensable to the business prosperity of the South and his political influence will take care of itself.” Secretary Taft is correct in his position. We pause to paraphrase his remarks “Let the Negro make himself indispensable to the political success of the Republican Party in the doubtful States and his political influence in the Brownsville matter in the United States Senate will take care of itself.” But to the discussion Secretary Taft said further: “As far back as I can remember, which carries me into the middle of the civil war, my ideal of patriotic feeling derived from the political attitude of my father and mother as I understand it-- was closely associated with the hatred of slavery and sympathy with the Negro race. Subsequently under Republican tutelage that sympathy diffused itself into a strong political bias in favor of the maintenance of the political rights of the Negro in the South, intensified perhaps rather by a desire for Republican victory than for specific benefit to the Negro race.” The above is a frank admission. He states plainly that his desire was for Republican success rather than the supremacy of great principles and the according to a down-trodden people all of their rights under the law. While this admission could be used in a political contest to his detriment, we are disposed to regard in his favor, showing a disposition to deal fairly and squarely with a people that his recent official action has so deeply wounded and injured in the eyes of a civilized world. For the first time we have insight into why the distinguished statesmen has departed from the instructions of his parents and reached the plane of reasoning where he regards the Negro as an alien along side of the Filipinos. He said: “It feel to my lot thereafter to exercise judicial jurisdiction in two States of the South and to come more or less intimately face to face with the social and political problems then presented and to learn more and to understand better than ever I did before the real attitude of both sides upon the race issue in the Southern States. This quickened my interest in the whole question and gave me new light upon it. It is the “new light” upon the race question that has produced the change of heart in the distinguished Secretary of War. It is the “new light” as flashed by the brilliant Thomas Nelson Page and the Hon. William H. Taft that has caused Theodore Roosevelt to be one man as Governor of New York on the Negro question and another man as President of the United States upon the same question. It is this “new light” that is causing the promulgation of the ‘lily white’ doctrine in the Southern States and denying recognition and representation to colored men, who own property and who are graduates from Harvard University, Yale College, Howard University, Lincoln University, Chicago University...

“Secretary Taft and the Negro,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/535.