Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1908 — WARM COMMUNICATION [ARTICLE]

WARM COMMUNICATION

Written To Roosevelt By Georgia Republican League's President. Atlanta, Ga., June 28.—The following letter from T. M. Blodgett, president of the Republican League of Georgia, was written to President Roosevelt: “Atlanta, Ga., June 26, 1908. “To His Excellency Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States—Dear Sir: I have not written you since my reply to your noted letter to Hon. Dudley Foulke. I have, however, perused several letters you have written to friends and Federal officeholders In Georgia declaring and demanding that Tom Blodgett must be defeated and humiliated. Pressure of business, active participation in political affairs and my > great desire to carry the state that gave birth to your mother against your dictation prevented my answering these letters. lam foolish and egotistical enough to believe that I am stronger In defeat than your man Friday Is in apparent victory. Your Republican National Committee with Its steam roller and the 1 convention which verified the actions of your committee and nominated your heir apparent to the throne, William 1., is a thing of the past. “Honest men, negroes and organized labor, after mature reflection, can see what the committee, the convention, the platform and the nominee holds in common with thdm. The committee dominated and controlled by Senator H. C. Lodge and ex-Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock, was nothing more than the servile creature of Theodore I. The convention, composed of more than 400 Federal office holders, was acquiescent to your will and submissive to your dictation, the one man who has completely destroyed his party North and South, East and West. “The man you had nominated to the highest office in the gift of the American people has repudiated in private and in public utterances the two cardinal principles of the Republican party. The two great inspiriting ideas of the Republican party from Its birth until now have been human rights and protection of American labor and American industries. Mr. Taft, your man of straw, stands for neither. The great principles for which Phillips, Garrison, Lincoln and Grant stood and fought no longer form a conspicuous part In the platform upon which the Republican nominee will have to stand. The decline of the grand old party is at hand. /‘The negro, who for more than 40 years has clung tenaciously and loyally to the party on account of the doctrine of human rights, has been thrown overboard and must seek quarters other than in this party, that has left its moorings and gone adrift without rudder or compass. The men who have so gallantly and consistently fought for organized labor within the ranks of the republican party are thoroughly disgusted, have been put to rout, and must, if possessed of any manhood, repudiate the platform of principles which the Republican party presents to the people and spurn with contempt all offers of condolence on the part of the men who have betrayed them—the bone and sinew of the country—into the hands of their enemies.

“We know how the corporations have bought the Presidency and ruled conventions, and every plank needed to correct this great evil was either voted down or passed by in silence. The great mass of the progressive voters, the men who think for themselves, and outside of the old grooves of a few years ago, have been alienated from the Republican party. The negro has been driven from the party councils. His race is no longer a potent factor and he is no longer to be seen in the Senate, on the floor of Congress, in high state offices or on the National Committee. His influence is no longer courted, only as a voter at the polls. “Thousands upon thousands of our best laboring men are out of employment; factories and shops are shut down; business is flat and multitudes of poor people cry for bread. We are in the throes of panic, and you and the Republican party are responsible for it. Yet you have placed a man at the head of the ticket who favors the state and national disfranchisement of the negro race, and who, in the chaotic condition of labor, men, women and children crying for employment and destitute of food, is the acknowledged ‘father’ of injunctions, the great barrier between these unfortunate people and employment. . Can the honest man, the negro or organized labor support this ticket or vote fop this man who to them is an arch Onemy, a common foe? Youra truly, “T. M. BLODGETT.” When you want any furniture call on Jay Williams.