The Election and its Meaning

The Democratic Party is bitter about their loss in the presidential election, causing The Planet to give reason for William H. Taft’s win and why blacks should be “rejoicing.”

Hon. William H. Taft of Ohio will be the next President of the United States and Hon. James. S. Sherman of New York will be the next Vice President of this same country, according to the returns from the election last Tuesday. We are not surprised at the result for the attitude of the Democratic Party as reflected through Hon. William J. Bryan made the conservative business interests fearful that all of the many experiments of the demagogues and scheming “soldiers of fortune” might be put into practice if the fondest desires of the great Nebraskan were realized. We are more interested now in the pledges of the Republican platform than we are in anything else and it would be well to note too the utterances of Mr. Taft while on the stump relative to his attitude to the colored people of this country. The following plank from the party platform will be read with interest: “The Republican Party has been for more than fifty years the consistent friend of the American Negro. It gave him freedom and citizenship. It wrote into the organic law the declaration that proclaim his civil and political rights, and it believed today that his noteworthy progress in intelligence, industry and good citizenship has earned the respect and encouragement of the nation. “We demand equal justice for all men, without gard to race or color; we declare, once more, and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, which were designed for the protection and advancement of the Negro, and we condemn all devices that have for their real aim his disfranchisement for reasons of color and repugnant to the supreme law of the land.” The magnificent victory achieved last Tuesday means, if it means anything that the country is returning to its “first love” and that it is determined to recognize fully the doctrine of human rights. It is an open expression of opinion relative to the loyal colored men throughout the country, who have risked life and limb in behalf of the Party of Sumner, Lincoln and Grant. We are frank to state that all of the expressions of Hon. William H. Taft concerning the colored people have been the most friendly and complimentary of character. The wish of all interests opposed to Hon. William J. Bryan was that the present occupant of the White House should once more seek the exclusion of private life, knowing well that no man in the United States save Mr. Bryan could come anywhere near the “rough-rider” methods of Mr. Roosevelt, which methods, has caused such an appalling shrinkage in values throughout the country. The knowledge that the is going out of office will prove a sedative, improving business conditions and inducing capital to once more wander forth to those sections where it is most needed. If the Republican Party and its accredited representatives mean all that the platform says, then the colored people have more cause for rejoicing over the result than they have had for twenty-years or more. God’s hand may yet be seen in the affairs of parties as of nations and the faithful may rest assured that right will come uppermost and triumph in the end.

“The Election and its Meaning,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/738.