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MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
OF
LOCKE CRAIG
GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA
1913-1917
A History — Political and Otherwise
From Scrap Books and Old Manuscripts
Edited By May F. Jones
1923
HACKNEY & MOALE COMPANY
ASHEVILLE
f
>
TO:
My son, Locke Craig, Jr., who has been
the redeeming grace of my years of afflic-
tion. At all times and in all ways he has
ministered to me, not as a duty, but as a pe-
culiar pleasure. Whether at boyish play, or
waking from the sweet sleep of childhood, he
has ever heard my call swiftly and with
gladness. By this devotion he will be blessed
in the growth and beauty of an unselfish
character.
As an alabaster box of precious ointment
he has been to my life, and I hope that it
will be told as a memorial of him too.
LOCKE CRAIG.
«
* ■
This book is the work of Miss May F.
Jones. While Governor of North Carolina,
she was my Private Secretary, and kept a
scrap book of my public utterances and inci-
dents of my administration. I have turned
over to her this scrap book and all my manu-
scripts with full confidence in her ability, her
culture and interest. She has generously
offered to prepare these for the press, and
can do this most efficiently.
While Governor, and during the years of
my illness, she has been my loyal friend. I,
and my family, owe her an inestimable debt
of love and gratitude.
LOCKE CRAIG.
INDEX
PART I
PAGE
Governor Craig, Sketch by Artus Moser 11
Extract from Speech on the Tariff 16
Joint Debate Between Locke Craig and James M. Moody 20
Introducing William Jennings Bryan 22
Tribute to Industry 24
Campaign of 1898 25
Campaign Speech on Suffrage Amendment 32
On Resolution for Impeachment of Judges 56
Joint Debate with Senator Pritchard 71
The Democratic Convention of 1906 89
The Energy of Democracy 100
Address of Welcome to the Travelers' Protective Asso-
ciation of America 107
Carlyle 113
Accepting the Democratic Nomination for Governor 126
PART II
The Widow's Son, a Poem by Dr. Geo. T. Winston 145
The Inauguration 146
Inaugural Address 153
Opening of the Great State Fair, 1913 167
Needs of North Carolina Along Educational Lines 170
Introduction of Vice-President Marshall at Charlotte 175
Address to the Scottish Society of America 177
The Legacy of the Confederacy 180
Opportunities to State and Nation Through Triumph of
Democratic Principles 184
Accepting the Bust of Judge William Gaston 192
Accepting the Statue of Chief Justice Ruffin 193
Accepting the Bust of Judge W. P. Bynum 194
Inauguration of Edward Kidder Graham 195
Commutation of the Sentence of Ida Ball Warren 197
Introducing President Wilson 199
Commencement Address, A. & T. College, Greensboro 199
Commencement Address, School for the D. & D., Morgan-
ton 201
INDEX— CONTINUED
PAGE
Zebulon Baird Vance 203
Opening of the Great State Fair, 1916 214
Our Opportunity 222
Mount Mitchell 224
The Account of His Stewardship 227
Presentation of Governor-Elect Thomas Walter Bickett 246
Asheville's Welcome Home to Locke Craig 247
To the Departing Soldiers of the World War 252
Argument in Case of Railway Companies v. Commissioner
of Revenue 255
Bishop Kilgo 281
GOVERNOR CRAIG
"The career of Ex-Governor Locke Craig," is the title to
an interesting article regarding the life of one of Buncombe's
honored sons, which was written by Artus M. Moser and ap-
peared in The Carolina Magazine.
Governor Craig, who maintains his residence near the Old
Hickory Highway, overlooking the Swannanoa River, is one
of the twenty-two Governors of North Carolina which the
State University has produced. Mr. Moser, in his article,
gives a few reminiscences of Governor Craig's college days,
as well as the things he did after leaving the University. The
article follows in full:
"Prominent among the great men, who in their early days,
walked beneath these sturdy campus oaks and studied in these
ancient halls, is Ex-Governor Locke Craig, Governor of North
Carolina from 1913 to 1917.
"The Craigs were originally from the romantic land of
Scotland. The parental ancestor, William Craig, was born
there, and came to this country in 1749, and settled in Orange
County. He had three sons, John, David and James, ardent
patroits and soldiers in the Revolutionary War. John was the
grandfather of Andrew Craig, and the great grandfather of
Locke Craig.
"Andrew Craig, the father of Locke Craig, was an honor
graduate from the University, and though born of Presby-
terian family, he became a Baptist minister of great influence,
power and eloquence. He was a scholarly man of fine tastes
and literary attainments. His life was spotless and his large
generous and amiable nature caused him to be loved and ad-
mired by all with whom he came in contact.
"The mother of Locke Craig was Rebecca Gilliam Craig.
She was a fine type of womanhood, strong minded, handsome
and helpful; gentle and gracious in disposition. She num-
bered her friends by the score, and neither she nor her hus-
band ever knew what it meant to have an enemy. She was
essentially a home-loving wife and mother, and her chief pur-
pose in life was to make happiness for her husband and
children. The Civil War ended, Mr. Craig died, leaving Mrs.
12 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Craig a widow, with a small estate and two boys not yet in
their teens to be educated. It was a time of reconstruction,
depression and confusion, but her heroism, fortitude and
clearness of vision fitted her well for the task.
"Locke Craig was born in a modest home in Bertie County,
August 16, 1860, just in the beginning of the struggle be-
tween the North and South. His boyhood days were spent on
the farm amid a healthful and wholesome environment. Until
he was fourteen years of age he attended the common schools
of Bertie County. At this age his mother sent him to Hender-
son, to the Horner School, where he finished preparing himself
for college. When he was at the early age of fifteen, he
entered the University of North Carolina with the Class of
1880. He was the youngest student in the institution, and
while the years had been few he was exceedingly ambitious
and had taken advantage of every opportunity to improve him-
self and make a mark for himself in the world. At the uni-
versity he was among several of the future great men of the
State, such as Aycock, Francis D. Winston, R. W. Winston,
Mclver, Alderman, and others. He has been found ever since
among the greatest of the great men of the State. While at
the university he was a prominent member of the Philan-
thropic Society, in which he held various offices, including that
of President. He was an able speaker and at commencement
was elected commencement orator without opposition. He
was also an excellent writer, being considered the best in his
class. He was a diligent student, always devoted to duty.
While here he studied law, and before he had reached his
twentieth birthday he was graduated from the university with
the honors of his class, the youngest graduate of the institu-
tion.
"Finishing his work in the university he was appointed
Assistant Professor of Chemistry for one year. He evidently
liked teaching, for we find that during the next session he
taught in a private school in Chapel Hill. But he was not
satisfied with the lowlands of Orange County, so he decided to
go to the land of promise beyond the Blue Ridge, amid the
highlands of Buncombe. So in 1883 Locke Craig located in
Asheville. He intended to practice law, but found that clients
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 13
were less plentiful than attorneys, and expenses had to be
met. So teaching again appealed to him and for a while he
taught in a school there. In 1891 he began the practice of
law in earnest, and soon took his place among the most
popular and ablest. He soon became a potential factor in the
material and political life of the growing mountain city. He
was soon making speeches, telling anecdotes and catching the
spirit of the mountaineers. Asheville was then in the Ninth
Congressional District and in 1892 Craig was the Democratic
Elector from that District. Four years later he was named
as Elector at Large. This campaign offered him the first real
opportunity to show his ability and leadership. By his bril-
liant canvass of the State for the presidential candidate, Wil-
liam J. Bryan, he established his reputation as an orator and
from the mountains to the sea he presented his cause to the
people. The Republican Party was at that time in control of
Buncombe County by a majority of 600, but when he was
nominated in 1898 by the Democrats for the Legislature from
Buncombe, he was elected by a majority of 700, reversing the
Republican majority of 600. This only goes to show his great
popularity in both parties. " The General Assembly of 1899 is
now considered as one of the remarkable gatherings in the
history of the State. Men of great ability were gathered to-
gether from every section of the State. Among them Locke
Craig easily took his place as one of the ablest and foremost.
"The campaign of 1900 came on and he was again elected
by an increased majority. This campaign is yet remembered
by the mountain people as one of the fiercest and most ex-
citing ever held in that section of the State. Charles B. Ay-
cock, a former classmate of Craig's, opened the campaign at
Laurinburg. The two great men were together on the open-
ing day, both advocating the same things for the progress and
advancement of the Old North State.
"In 1903 Locke Craig was a candidate for the United States
Senate, but in the convention system of election he was de-
feated. Had it been by popular vote as now he would have
been elected by a good majority. However, like Lincoln, he
may have lost the senatorship, but he laid the foundation for
an office which offered him an opportunity for still greater
14 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
service to his fellowman. During the interval from 1903 to
1912 he practiced law in Asheville. In addition to his law
practice he also did some farming.
"In 1912 he was elected Governor of North Carolina. His
election marked the culmination of the dreams of the 'moun-
tain men' as well as other men in whatever section of the
State. All were pleased to bestow this honor upon him, and
he accepted it with gladness, because it offered him a still
greater opportunity to serve the State and Nation. During
the campaign wherever he spoke the people came for miles to
hear him, and he was greeted by ovation after ovation as he
toured the State.
"Locke Craig was inaugurated as the State's Chief Exe-
cutive on January 15, 1913, and held his office until 1917, dur-
ing the greater part of the World War. In constructive
achievements his administration has not been surpassed, if
ever equalled, since Vance rebuilt the Commonwealth upon
the ruins of the reconstruction days. In the first sentence of
his inaugural address, he uttered the watchword of his entire
administration in the phrase, The Pledge of Progress.' It
would be out of place in an article of this length to attempt to
recount and dwell on all the measures for progress and ad-
vancement which were accomplished under his leadership. In
everything — in education, in agriculture, in manufacturing —
the State went forward. One of the outstanding things was
the adjustment of interstate freight rates, which enabled
North Carolina to compete with other States. The saving to
North Carolinians has amounted to millions of dollars, and
greatly aided commercial and industrial enterprises. Next
was the improvement of our public highways, and the estab-
lishing of the good roads movement. This movement swept
the entire State, and Governor Craig became known as the
'Good Roads Governor.' The rate of improvement was set
and the spirit of this movement is still abroad in the land —
the State is still building good roads. A third and notable
achievement under the leadership of Governor Craig was the
purchase and preservation of Mount Mitchell, which was se-
cured by the State to be used as a State Park. As time goes
on the wisdom of this act will become more and more evident.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 15
Mount Mitchell, in Yancey County, is the highest point east
of the Rocky Mountains. The fine balsam and spruce forests
on its summit and on its sides were at that time beginning to
be cut for lumber. To preserve the original beauty of this
lofty peak and its nearby forests, a commission was appointed
by Governor Craig, which, with an appropriation from the
Legislature, purchased a 1200-acre tract, in the possession of
which the State may well take pride.
"Another notable act was that which regulated the in-
dustry and conservation of the fishing business in Eastern
North Carolina, where the industry will become increasingly
important as the years go by.
"Governor Craig left the governor's chair having literally
spent his energy and strength in the service of the people.
But he had achieved that for which he was elected, with a
great deal of credit to himself and the entire approbation of
the people of the State.
"Governor Craig now lives at his home, a few miles from
Asheville, near the beautiful Swannanoa River. His life
is more retired than in some days. He is devoted to his
home, family and church. He has a wife and three sons,
Carlyle, George and Arthur. One of the boys, George Craig,
a graduate of the University of North Carolina, is practicing
law in Asheville and is achieving success.
"In personal appearance Locke Craig is of medium height,
possessing a fine intellectual brow and face, heavy eyebrows,
dark penetrating eyes, and firm lips and chin. He presents a
very impressive appearance, and possesses a wonderful mag-
netism. I have seen the crowd 'go wild' on sight of him, the
applause and cheers lasting unusually long. As an orator, he
is a master. His voice is inspiring and thrilling, and the au-
dience is soon lost in his eloquence. The University and North
Carolina love, admire, and honor Locke Craig."
NOTE: The above sketch, which appeared also in The Asheville
Citizen, was highly appreciated by Governor Craig, but through in-
advertence, the author omitted the most important of events in the life
of the Governor, and that was the birth of Locke Craig, Jr., November
11, 1914, in The Mansion, at Raleigh.
In addition to the above it is worthy of note that at the commence-
ment exercises of the State University in 1915, the Governor was
honored with the degree of LL.D., which honor from his Alma Mater
he always highly appreciated.
16 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
EXTRACT FROM SPEECH ON
THE TARIFF
NOTE: This speech was made at Big Ivy, Buncombe County,
North Carolina, during the second campaign of President Cleveland, in
which the Tariff was the issue. This is the first political speech made
by Locke Craig. He was at that time twenty-eight years of age, and
engaged in the practice of law in Asheville.
(From The Asheville Citizen, Oct. 28, 1888)
When the Saracens invaded Africa they found in one of
the provinces an immense Idol in monstrous human shape, and
uglier than the devil. But, nevertheless, in their superstition
the natives worshipped it and thanked it prayerfully for
everything good that they received, and when anything bad
happened to them they attributed it to something else. And
the old thing was hollow, and for ages the people, poor as
they were, had given to it their money and their treasure and
jewels and whatever was best they had. When the Saracen
soldiers told them that this old thing was no god, but a fetich,
and that they were a set of fools for worshipping it, they
thought these soldiers guilty of blasphemy and that the first
one that dared to lay his hand on it would be stricken dead,
and the whole army, too, for the sacrilege ; and so they stood
in breathless awe. But when blow after blow had been
stricken, and the old thing's sides were broken in, and yet the
heavens and the earth were as firm and peaceful as ever, and
nobody hurt at all, the people began to think sure enough it
was no god, and they rose up and helped the soldiers to tear
down the old thing and burn it up. And the vast treasures
which had been accumulating for ages in its hollow sides were
distributed among the poor of that country.
Now we have just such an Idol in this country and they
have named it Protection ; and Jas. G. Blaine is the great High
Priest in the temple Monopoly, and Benjamin and Levi are the
chief priests, and Lusk and Ewart and Hardwicke are the
altar boys ; and whenever the country is prosperous and every-
thing goes on well and we have peace and fine weather and
good crops, James, the High Priest, says solemnly, "O Goddess
Protection! we know that thou art the giver of every good
and perfect gift, our only salvation, and that thou hast de-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 17
livered us from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence
and famine ; from battle and murder and from sudden death."
And Benjamin and Levi and Virgil and Hardwicke echo Amen !
and all the Republican congregation cry Amen! and of course
the colored brother, although he doesn't know what all this
big talk about tariff and protection means, will never be out-
done, especially in any religious demonstration, so he shouts
"Amen ! Brer Jeems and Brer Wergil, say dat agin."
And so, my countrymen, in this way these Republican
leaders are taking advantage of the ignorance of these poor
deluded people of this country and fooling them out of their
money, and the products of their toil, and the substance of
their living. Yes, slaves to this miserable fetich of "Protec-
tion" they are marching up in solid phalanx and pouring into
the old hollow thing all that they have by hard labor, though
they are needy, though they are ragged, though sometimes
they are haggard and hungry, though their wives are shiver-
ing with cold, and though their little ones are crying for
bread. But the wealth doesn't remain in this Idol as it did in
the one in Africa, for they have cut a hole in the back of this
fetich, and there, out of sight of the poor ragged congregation,
Carnegie and Jay Gould and these monopolists are taking the
money out just as fast as the deluded people put it in, and
they count their wealth by millions, and live in marble palaces
and wear purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every
day, while the people who have made this money are dragged
down to the lowest depths of poverty and despair. But while
this game of deception and thievery is going on, there enters
their temple of Monopoly, unceremoniously, a man who will
not bow to the Idol, who will not say Amen, he is not afraid of
the anathemas of James the High Priest, nor of all the
worshippers of Protection combined. Yes, he may appoint
some negroes to office and do some other things that we do
not like, but he is a man "a very man — with all his dross he
is a man, real, from the bosom of nature herself." He defies
the fetich ; he tells the congregation and all the people of the
world that Protection is no god, but a fetich, a hollow sham,
a miserable lie, and that he will tear it down. In holy horror
all men expect that he will be stricken dead. But he is
18 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
stronger than ever, for even James, the High Priest, trembles,
declines the contest, but exhorts Benjamin and Levi to have
courage. Struck dead ! the old fetich totters ; a grateful people
hail him chief with shouts of victory and crown him with
immortal praise! With giant hand he will strike down for-
ever the iniquitous thing, for he is the leader of the armies
of Truth and Righteousness, and the God of Hosts is with him !
When the great apostle of the Gentiles preached the
Gospel at Ephesus, he created no small stir, for he preached
against a religion which many believed to be the source of
their happiness and prosperity; they said that believing in
Diana they had built a magnificent city, and had come to be
a mighty and prosperous people ; and they attributed all these
blessings to the worship of this heathen goddess. When Paul
told that Diana was no goddess, that her worship was
mockery, they raised a great uproar, and howled down the
preacher of Truth, shouting, "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians !" But who was it that was instigating the uproar ?
It was Demetrius, the silversmith, and his fellow-craftsmen
who made silver shrines for Diana, and wrought no small gain
unto themselves; and when Demetrius had called them to-
gether he said, "Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our
wealth. Moreover, ye see and hear that not alone at Ephesus
but throughout all Asia, this Paul hath turned away much
people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with
hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set
at naught, but also that the temple of the great Goddess,
Diana, should be despised, and her magnificence destroyed,
whom all Asia and the world worshipeth." And it was when
they heard these sayings that they were filled with wrath
against the new religion, and raised the uproar and cried out,
saying, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" So today when
Carnegie and these monopolist millionaires see that this
Grover, not only in Pennsylvania and New York, but through-
out all the Union, hath persuaded and turned away much peo-
ple, saying that Protection is no god; and seeing, more-
over, that the craft which brings them no small gain is in
danger to be set at naught, they give their millions to defeat
the champion of the Truth, and tell the people that by the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 19
Goddess, "Protection," this has come to be a mighty nation
with magnificent industries and that they are kept from pau-
perism. Some will not see through these shallow hypocrisies,
and cry with them, "Great is Protection of the Americans."
But the Temple of Diana was burned and upon its ruins was
raised the proudest church of ancient Christendom. All the
shrines and worshippers of Diana have passed away, but the
truth that Paul preached will stand when heaven and earth
shall pass away! When this fetich worship of "Protection"
shall be swept away, free trade in all its full and logical sense
shall be established, we will have no millionaires and no pau-
pers, but a free, prosperous and happy people from where that
Goddess of Liberty rises with her beacon hand from the surges
of the Atlantic far away over mighty rivers and broad empire
states to where the waves of another ocean beat gently on
golden sands. The men who love justice and freedom are
rallying around the standard which Grover Cleveland has
raised. From every state in the Union they come. From
New York and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois they are
coming in resistless power as with the swell of mighty waters,
as with "the tramp of embattled hosts!"
20 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
JOINT DEBATE BETWEEN LOCKE CRAIG
AND JAMES M. MOODY
NOTE: This account of Mr. Craig's speech, at Waynesville, N. C,
October 15, 1894, appeared in The Asheville Citizen on the following
day. While the speech is not reported in full, the sketch is vivid, and
gives a good impression of Governor Craig's power before an audience.
He said this was the beginning of his reputation as a speaker. In the
campaign of 1894 both he and James M. Moody, who was afterwards
a member of Congress, were running for the State Senate. Moody was
elected, however, as the State went Republican by a large majority,
only seven Democrats being elected to the General Assembly of 1895,
which preceded by two years the beginning of the long to be remem-
bered administration of Daniel L. Russell, the second Republican Gov-
ernor of North Carolina since the War Between the States.
Waynesville, N. C, Oct. 13. — This has been a great day
for the Democracy of old Haywood. There was a large crowd
of representative men from all parts, a great speech and great
enthusiasm. This was the culmination of what is probably
the best campaign ever made in this county.
Mr. Moody led off in a fifty minutes speech (for he did not
speak his time out.) He presented the Republican side in as
fair and as able manner as it could have been presented.
Mr. Moody is a lawyer and a good one, and speaks as an at-
torney for the defense in this great action being tried before
the people. He finished his speech, which was a good one for
his cause, and sat down amidst the most overwhelming and
enthusiastic silence. The traditional welkin refused to ring.
Mr. Craig then rose. Before he had been speaking ten
minutes every man in the house, except those around him in
the bar, Democrat, Populist and Republican, was standing on
his feet. He disposed of what few so-called arguments Mr.
Moody had made in a few moments and then laid him out in
grand style. It is no exaggeration to say the young man
actually seemed to be inspired. Every eye in the house was
fastened on the face of the speaker, glowing with the in-
tensity of inspiration. No report can possibly do justice to
his speech, the equal of which, the oldest men who heard it
say, was never made in Waynesville by any man, old or young.
Everybody was spell-bound. Old men wept, young men
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 21
went wild, Populists opened wide their mouths, and Repub-
licans were absolutely thunder-struck. Even Mr. Moody-
seemed dazed, if not hypnotized. Dr. Wells, of Clyde, said,
"It was a succession of electric cloudbursts"; that he had
heard great speakers all over the Union and had never heard
it surpassed. Mr. Hall, late of Alabama, said he had never
heard any better speech anywhere. Mr. Tom Lee said that
everybody pronounced it the greatest political speech they had
ever heard. Mr. James Ferguson said it was the best speech
by far that had been made in Waynesville since the campaign
began. In fact, everybody agreed that it was indeed a great
speech for Democracy and one that undoubtedly won many
votes.
22 ' ' '"' MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
INTRODUCING WILLIAM JENNINGS
BRYAN IN ASHEVILLE
NOTE: The first time Mr. Craig ever introduced Mr. Bryan was
in 1896, during Bryan's first campaign for the presidency. Mr. Craig
was then Elector at Large. On this occasion there was assembled in
Asheville the largest audience that perhaps has ever gathered for any
political speaking, the crowd being estimated at twenty-five thousand.
The great Commoner's star had risen to its zenith, and the following
speech of Mr. Craig, from The Asheville Citizen, is expressive of the
hope and enthusiasm of the democracy of North Carolina in the famous
campaign of 1896.
Years afterwards, Governor Craig laughingly said, when intro-
ducing Mrs. Bryan at her first appearance before an Asheville audience,
in 1917, that he had won his reputation as a speaker introducing her
illustrious husband, and that he now proposed to extend that reputation
by introducing her.
(From The Asheville Citizen, Sept. 16, 1896)
At 4:15 Hon. Locke Craig began his speech of introduction
of Mr. Bryan. Mr. Craig said: "Half a century ago Henry
Clay, while a candidate for the presidency, addressed the peo-
ple of North Carolina from the eastern portico of our capitol.
Again we are honored, and with the deepest emotions of grati-
tude and admiration, with souls ablaze with enthusiasm for
the cause of humanity, this vast multitude, as with the voice
of the whirlwind, sends forth its shout to welcome within the
borders of our Commonwealth the grandest of the tribunes of
the people.
"A short time ago, comparatively unknown, the effulgence
of his genius burst upon the astonished gaze of men, and he
in our midst is the most conspicuous personage on earth. In
that historic convention at Chicago, amid the tumult of dark-
ness and doubt and uncertainty, he flashed the light that
brought order out of chaos. As with trumpet call he sounded
the note of the holy war against the great iniquity, he stands
forth today the splendid leader of the mighty hosts of a re-
juvenated, a purified and a triumphant Democracy to restore
the heritage of our fathers, to write upon the immortal page
of history a sound declaration of American independence.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 23
"In the citadels of plutocracy with words of living fire he
hurled his denunciations against the grinding greed of op-
pression. With a strength that never tires, with a courage
that never shrinks, with a faith that never falters, he pleads
the cause of the lowly and fires with victorious assurance the
patriot hearts of the sons of the Republic. There are times
in the lives of nations when the souls of men glow with a fire
that cannot be quenched — it is that divine moral force that
defies the power of gold. It is more resistless than the tread
of imperial armies. Guided, sustained, swept on by the power
of Almighty God, we are marching in ranks that cannot be
broken. In this great crisis of our country's life, in this
eventful struggle of humanity, we stretch forth our arms and
look with inspired hope on the glorious manhood of our young
leader, for we know that on him rests the benediction of One
who came to preach the gospel to the poor. I present to you
William J. Bryan."
24 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
TRIBUTE TO INDUSTRY
(From A Speech Made In 1896)
I shall never forget with what emotion I saw and heard
for the first time in operation, a large cotton mill.
I have stood upon the dome of Mount Mitchell at midnight,
while beneath me the storm thundered in terrific rage and
power, the clouds shot electric fire, and the awful artillery of
Heaven was unlimbered. The giant oak and granite boulders
were uprooted, and hurled booming and crashing into the
abyss amid the mighty battle of the elements, as of primeval
chaos.
I have stood upon the sand dunes of Hatteras, and seen
the stampede of hurricanes from equatorial storm fields, as
they swept over the seething, tumultuous Atlantic in unbridled
force and destruction from tropics to polar sea.
But, when I stood in that great cotton mill and listened to
the song of a thousand looms, and the music of thousands of
spindles, it was finer and grander than mountain storm or
ocean hurricane. It was a marching Hymn of universal
progress. The energy that wrought the havoc of the storm
had been harnessed and trained by the genius of man to do
the service of man. This chorus in the recitative of
triumphant industry sounds around the world, to feed and to
clothe — to liberate the toiler from ancient bondage — to beat
down poverty from its hopelessness and degradation — to bless
all God's children to a higher life — answering the prayer:
"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 25
CAMPAIGN OF 1898
NOTE: The campaign of 1898 has long since become a part of
history, with its victory bringing redemption to the State from Repub-
lican mis-rule. This campaign was bitterly fought out on the hustings
by the ablest leaders of the State, every section giving of its best in
the hour of need. The News and Observer, of Raleigh, in an editorial on
the morning of the inauguration of Locke Craig as Governor, calls to
mind in eloquent remembrance the service rendered by him in 1898 and
1900:
The people of North Carolina will never forget the great
campaign of 1898, the most important in the life of this gen-
eration, or the campaign of 1900 when the suffrage constitu-
tional amendment was ratified. The very life, industrially and
politically of the East was at stake. Its people were aroused,,
but the question of the hour was : "Will the West understand
our sore needs and come to our assistance?" The amendment
was not popular in the West. It put a burden upon the militant
Democracy of that battling ground, where every inch won by
the Democrats was won in hand to hand conflict with a
vigorous and resourceful political enemy. In that supreme
moment, Locke Craig, the voice of Vance's home and Merri-
mon's home, speaking for himself and his people, rang like a
bell declaring that the cause of Bertie was the cause of Bun-
combe, the cause of Halifax was the cause of Haywood, the
cause of Craven was the cause of Cherokee, and that to pre-
serve good government and its splendid civilization the
mountain Democracy would spend and be spent to the last
man. He made the sacrifice to run for the Legislature in Bun-
combe, and won a victory unparalleled in that county by the
most courageous and glorious campaign in its history. In the
Legislature he was a potent leader. On the stump he was in
the West what Aycock was in the East. He never counted the
cost when principle was at stake. * * *
A MAMMOTH MEETING
NOTE: While Mr. Craig was canvassing in Eastern North Car-
olina, he was unanimously nominated for the Legislature by the Demo-
26 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
crats at home, and imperatively called back to Buncombe County to
make the canvass there.
The account of his closing speech at Asheville is from The Citizen
of November 3, 1898:
Perhaps never in the history of Asheville, certainly not
within the memory of the present generation, has been wit-
nessed such a political gathering as that which assembled in
the Grand Opera House last evening.
Grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers,
sisters and brothers joined to make up the magnificent au-
dience that filled every seat and occupied nearly every foot of
space in the great building.
And every heart and mind in the great throng throbbed
in sympathy with the determination of the men of Buncombe
and North Carolina to restore white rule and honest govern-
ment in this State.
There was a prophecy on the face of every man present
of a majority of not less than 500 in Buncombe for Democracy
on Tuesday next, and a promise in every blazing eye that no
power known to modern Radicalism should thwart them.
The speeches were appropriate in every word. No threats,
no incendiarism, no bitterness, but in every one was manifest
an unshakable determination to redeem North Carolina this
year.
Chairman Murphy commenced, President Van Winkle of
the Biltmore Club and C. A. Webb continued, and Locke Craig
concluded, amid the shouts of enthusiastic hundreds, the exer-
cises of this most memorable public gathering.
Craig surpassed himself. It is no exaggeration to say
that he swayed his audience with the hand of a master. Words
that burned into the minds of his hearers poured from his
lips for a full hour, and when he closed with a grand appeal
for every one to rise who would pledge his time and his all to
Democratic success until the polls closed on Tuesday, every
man, woman and child stood up and shouted the genuineness
of a determination to do it.
It was a great meeting, and a harbinger of the great vic-
tory that awaits Democracy on Tuesday.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 27
THE VICTORY
NOTE: Mr. Craig was triumphantly elected to the Legislature, re-
versing a Republican majority of 600 to a Democratic majority of more
than 700. The Asheville Gazette, in the following editorial, gives some
idea of what this victory meant to the State:
The election in this State resulted as it should have. Re-
garded as a contest for white supremacy, in which the negro
vote was solidly aligned on the Republican side, the immense
majority that the Democrats obtained in the State — probably
not far from 40,000 — proves that the newly elected Legislature
goes into office with the endorsement of the massed multitude
of the white voters of the State. As Chairman Simmons said
to The Gazette's representative at Raleigh yesterday, "It is
the greatest political revolution ever known to have taken
place in the State, or probably in any State of the Union."
With hardly another issue to obscure the contest the fight
from the first was for control of the State Government. The
Democratic Legislative Committees were selected with extra-
ordinary care, and the Democratic majority in the coming ses-
sion of the Legislature should possess the qualifications neces-
sary for the great work before them. They are to be the cus-
todians of the honor of the State and of the great political
union of its white citizenship. The Democratic Party enters
office by a revolution achieved by the people. A solemn trust
reposes in the hands of the legislative majority. Their course
must be marked by devotion to the credit of the State. They
must rise to a dignity becoming the representatives of a con-
stituency that measures the progress and civilization of the
State. By this alone can they preserve the union of this vast
and splendid constituency.
THE CELEBRATION
Outdoor Meeting At Raleigh
NOTE: After the victory there was a great outpouring of the
people in an outdoor meeting, held in Raleigh, the night of November
15, 1898, in which the prominent speakers of the campaign took part.
The account from Raleigh to The Asheville Gazette is interesting:
Raleigh, N. C, Nov. 15. — The demonstration tonight was
28 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
attended by thousands and was orderly and enthusiastic. The
speeches were excellent. Locke Craig captured the audience.
His speech was second to none. There were repeated calls for
him after he finished.
A feature of the big meeting was that it resolved itself
into a great outburst of popular demand that Simmons succeed
Marion Butler in the Senate.
Besides Craig the speakers were : Simmons (unexpected) ,
Kluttz, Overman, W. B. Shaw, Avery, B. P. Long, Atwater,
R. A. P. Cooley, W. H. Carroll and D. J. Currie.
An arch spanned Fayetteville Street in front of the City
Hall. It was illuminated and decorated, and under it a big
procession passed. The speakers' stand was on the mound in
the centre of Nash Square, the place where Bryan spoke in
1896. It was brilliant with electric lights.
There was especial interest to hear Craig and as he arose
to speak he was greeted with an enthusiastic round of ap-
plause. His speech was a finished oration, difficult to do
justice to in a brief newspaper report. Some of its points
were as follows:
"This is a climax in history. The irrepressible conflict is
ended. This peaceful revolution has restored the government
of the Commonwealth to a position of stable equilibrium.
The triumph of the Anglo-Saxon was inevitable. We rejoice
that the victory is so peaceful, so speedy and so com-
plete. * * *
"It was the Teuton that died before the legions of Caesar,
but not a man surrendered. It was the Anglo-Saxon that
stood like a wall of granite, where the great emperor hurled
against him those projectiles of war — the grand army and
the old guard. It was the Anglo-Saxon that drove back the
savage and reclaimed the New World. Before his pioneer axe
primeval forests fell, the wilderness was transformed into
wide seed fields and steepled cities. It was the Anglo-Saxon
at Santiago that stretched out his arm of power to crush the
tyrant and unshackle the slave ; at Manila, that sent his bomb-
shells blazing and crashing through the miasma of despotism
in the Orient.
"He has sent forth his fleets and armies, not as Rome sent
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 29
forth her legions to conquer, rule and crush, not as Napoleon
sent forth his armies, to march by the light of blazing cities,
to found new dynasties and consolidate arbitrary power, but
to civilize, to Christianize and make peace on earth.
"In South Africa, in Australia, in the Philippines, in
America, from whence the Goddess of Liberty lifts her beacon
hand from the surges of the Atlantic — over mighty rivers and
empire States — to where the waves of another ocean beat
gently on golden sands, in all the world wherever he set his
foot he was ruler — except in North Carolina. And this is the
State of Halifax Court House and Mecklenburg; this is the
State consecrated by the blood of Guilford Court House and
Kings Mountain. It is the State of Nathaniel Macon and Bad-
ger and Pender and Vance. It is the State that has 125,000
sons who sleep in the battle-scarred bosom of old Virginia.
It is our sacred Fatherland. Inspired by the hallowed, glorious
memories of the past, commanded by the solemn duties of the
present, sustained by the prayers of her manhood, empowered
by Him who dwells in omnipotence beyond the morning stars,
who wrote the Eternal Law, we have decreed that North Car-
olina too is the Anglo-Saxon's heritage and shall be ruled by
the Anglo-Saxon men. * * *
"The race question is the most difficult problem of the ages.
The sins of our fathers will be visited upon us and our children.
We must solve this problem with the courage and with the
enlightened conscience of the Anglo-Saxon. Justice must be
done to all men. * * *
Never yet share of truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow,
Other hands may sow the seed,
Other hands from hill and mead,
Reap the harvest yellow.
"The public weal, the welfare of both races, self-
preservation, demand that the negro be eliminated as a dis-
turbing element in politics. They stand in a solid phalanx,
120,000 strong, ignorant and politically vicious, with smart,
unscrupulous leaders — they are a constant menace to the
State, a constant threat of anarchy and ruin, 'red ruin and the
30 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
breaking up of laws.' They cannot rule this State. When
the armies of Louis XIV encircled Holland and it seemed as
if resistance were almost useless, William, Prince of Orange,
called the State's General together and it was solemnly de-
creed that sooner than surrender to the foreign conqueror,
they would cut loose the dykes and let the ocean sweep over
the land; that nothing should appear above the waves except
the towers and steeples of the cities of Holland. The people
of North Carolina, too, have determined that the African shall
not rule in this land, and this determination might as well be
written into law.
"The ballot box should be protected from corruption. We
should have an election law to prevent as far as possible all
corruption and bribery. The Democratic Party is the friend
of the poor man. His sovereign right to vote should be pro-
tected and jealously guarded. * * *
"In this great struggle the souls of men were aglow with a
fire that could not be quenched. They were moved by that
mysterious moral power that despises gold and bayonets ; that
is more resistless than the advance of imperial armies. The
Democratic host, like the avalanche crushing all before it,
swept onward to victory.
"In this hour of triumph let all the sons and daughters of
Carolina rejoice. For the honest Republican we have nothing
but good-will. There are no Populists, they are all Democrats,
and the Democrats all belong to the great People's Party. We
are united more firmly than ever in the brotherhood of the
Democracy of Zeb. Vance. The rivers are shouting hallelujahs
and the mountains are clapping their hands for joy. * * *
"There are a few men in North Carolina who were traitors
to every trust and false to every instinct of our race. They
not only basely betrayed the cause of the poor, but tried to
crush the manhood and womanhood of North Carolina be-
neath the heel of an alien and senile race, and it ought to be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for these men
in North Carolina.
"Good government will be restored. We will drive the
rascals out and keep the rascals out. The true sons of the
Old North State will make and administer her law. Justice
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 31
will be done to the corporation and to the individual, and the
laws will be administered in equity to the rich and in mercy
to the poor."
32 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
CRAIG'S CAMPAIGN SPEECH ON THE
SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
NOTE: The Legislature of 1899 was strongly Democratic, as the
result of the victory won by the Party in the November elections. The
outstanding work of this Legislature being the passage of the Bill sub-
mitting to a vote of the people, the Suffrage Amendment to the State
Constitution. The campaign of 1898 was won on this pledge to the
people, that they should be rid of negro domination. Following is a
stenographic report of Mr. Craig's speech in the campaign for the
Amendment, which resulted in a great victory for Democracy, sweep-
ing Daniel Russell and his colleagues out of power, and bringing into
the Governor's office Charles Brantley Aycock, the great Educational
Governor of North Carolina, and with him the dawn of a new era for
the advancement of the State.
(Stenographic Report)
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is customary for political speakers to say that the cam-
paign in which they are engaged is the most important in the
State's history. We can truthfully say that about this cam-
paign, for the issue affects our fundamental law. It is pro-
posed to change our Constitution and modify the provisions
regulating the suffrage of the people. Prior to 1894 the State
had been continuously Democratic for a quarter of a century,
and the people were reasonably satisfied. In 1894 many of
the best men in North Carolina, dissatisfied on account of the
administration of the national affairs of our party, saw proper
to sever their allegiance from the party of their fathers, the
party of their young manhood, the party whose principles
they loved, and whose history they had helped to write. They
shook hands with their ancient political enemies of the Repub-
lican Party. It was not long before they found that they had
made a mistake. They came to see that when they shook
hands with the enemies of the Democratic Party they had
joined hands with the enemies of North Carolina. The al-
liance which they formed was about to consummate the ruin
of the State, and brought shame to all the people. Scarcely
a law among the Statutes of 1895 and 1897 except those which
good men would prefer had never been written. When the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 33
Legislature of 1899 met, Dan Hugh McLane, of the County of
Harnett, introduced a Bill to repeal all Acts of the Legislature
of 1895 and 1897, but the Legislature thought those laws
should be treated as well as Sodom was treated. You re-
member that God promised to spare Sodom if there were five
righteous men in the city, and we thought that peradventure
there might be five righteous laws in the whole lot, and so~we
spared them as a whole. If the good men who quit the Demo-
cratic Party in 1894 had had the remotest idea that the new
alliance which they formed would have resulted as it did, they
would have been as far from quitting the Democratic Party
as we are today. And so in 1898 they came back home, many
of them — they came back to the house of their fathers and the
house of their young manhood — they quit the house of po-
litical prostitutes, and we welcomed them back. We killed the
fatted calf for them, but did not treat them as prodigals. They
were somewhat like the young country boy who got married
and went off on a bridal trip. He had some money, and
stopped at the finest hotel in the city. The next morning they
had nice brown fish cakes for breakfast. He never had seen
any such things before, and thought they were biscuits. He
reached out his hand and took one and tried to cut it open.
As it would not cut, he pulled it open with his fingers, and
did not like the looks of the inside much. He pinched a piece
out of it, smelled of it, turned around to his bride and said,
"Sal, this seems to be a mighty nice hotel, and these people
have treated us mighty nice, and I don't like to say anything
agin them, but I'll be durned if there isn't something rotten
in this bread." Sal she smelled of it and turned up her nose,
and said she'd be dinged if the whole thing wasn't rotten, and
she was gwine to leave any such house. And these good men
left the house where dwelt that mongrel crew, and helped us
to win the great victory of 1898. They feel better, too. A
man by the name of Barefoot, in the County of Harnett, told
me the other day that he left in 1894, but that his old father
who raised him a Democrat told him that he and all his
brothers would come back, because he left from honest mo-
tives. He said that good old father was dead and gone, but
that his prophecy had been fulfilled; that he was back, that
34 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
he felt better because he was among white folks, and that his
brothers were coming back. You, my friends, who have left,
are not happy where you are. You never will be satisfied
again until you get within the Democratic Party where you
belong. When that Legislature of 1898 met, it found many
things to undo and many things to do. The political pie
hunters that were in power from 1894 to 1898 had laid their
unholy hands on every institution in the State save one. They
had practically destroyed the public school system. In the
good old Republican County of Madison three school houses
were burned to ashes by an indignant people because they
would not suffer their school money stolen and squandered.
The Democratic Legislature of 1898 had to re-write the laws
relating to railroads and all other corporations in the State,
and had to re-organize the public institutions of the State,
and had to rehabilitate the public school system.
It was necessary to pass a separate car law, which was a
great blessing to the people of Eastern North Carolina, especi-
ally to those who ride in second-class coaches. They had to
relieve white people of many of the counties of the East from
the shame and humiliation of negro domination.
But there is one act which we passed which is of more
importance than all other acts put together. It is an act that
is today engrossing the attention of the people of North Car-
olina throughout the whole State. People think about it and
talk about it wherever two or three are gathered together.
That act, if it become a law, will simply make the written law
of North Carolina conform to the unwritten law. It will write
into law what has already been determined in the breast of
every white man in North Carolina. It will make the Consti-
tution of our State conform to the moral law, if you please,
yes, to the Divine Law that was indicated when God made the
races of men. It will write into an irrevocable constitutional
decree, that the white men of North Carolina shall make and
administer all the laws. This is the purpose and effect of the
Constitutional Amendment. That Amendment is not yet
written into law. You have heard of the doctrine of the ini-
tiative and the referendum. They say it is a Populist doc-
trine. That is a mistake. It was conceived 4,000 years before
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 35
the Populist Party was ever heard of, and will exist 4,000 years
after the Populist Party is dead and forgotten. Four thousand
years ago the people of Israel assembled on Mt. Ebal and
Gerizim. There they were assembled in that awful Presence,
with the majestic mountains towering around — men, women
and children, prophets, priests and rabbis — and that law which
was handed down to them by their law givers, which has been
a law unto the people of Israel and their fathers for 4,000
years, and which has been a law unto us and unto our fathers,
and will be a law unto all generations of men, had no effect
and force of law until the Levites stood up before the people
and read it line by line and item by item, and until it was
ratified and acknowledged as a law by all the people of Israel.
That was the first and grandest constitutional convention that
history records. And so on the second day of next August
another great constitutional convention will assemble. It will
assemble around the ballot box in North Carolina, from the
shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains, on the purple hills of
the Piedmont, and in this Tidewater section. In that conven-
tion the men of North Carolina will speak, and of that conven-
tion, you, my friend, will be a member, and however poor and
however humble you be, your voice will be heard and heeded
as much as the voice of the greatest and most enlightened in
all this land. The people of North Carolina will speak, and
when they do speak in their sovereign capacity as a people,
and write this Amendment into their fundamental law, it will
be a law unto us and unto our children. And George White
and Marion Butler and Abe Middleton, and the gates of Hell
thrown in, shall not prevail against it. This Amendment has
been much misrepresented by the revenue doodlers of this
State. We expected this. We expected them to deceive the
people in every possible way. I will read you the fourth and
fifth sections of the Amendment, as they are the only sections
that the Republicans complain of. You have doubtless heard
that before a man could vote under this amendment he must
own three hundred dollars worth of property. An illiterate
man in Morganton told me the other day that he had been
told by one of these fellows that before a man could vote he
must be able to read and write in three separate languages.
36 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
They would deceive the very elect if they could. Do not take
their reading of the Amendment. They will read it to suit
themselves. If you cannot read it get some good Democratic
neighbor to read it for you, or some honest Republican — if you
can find him, or honest Populist, as to that matter. These
revenue officers would, if they could, do like the boys did the
old minister, who announced on one Sunday what chapter of
the Scripture he would read from. He was going to read from
that chapter that tells of Noah and the Deluge, and describes
the Ark. These two boys got into the church, found his place,
and pasted two of the leaves of the Bible together, so that
they looked like one leaf. The old minister got up, opened his
Bible at the place he had picked out, and read: "In those
days Noah took unto himself a wife, who was at that time,"
and he turned over the leaf, "three hundred cubits long, forty
cubits deep and twenty cubits wide, made of gopher wood,
and covered with pitch on the inside and the outside." He
turned back and read again slowly and carefully. He threw
down his Bible and said, "Brethren and sisters, I have been
reading the Scriptures and searching them diligently for a
long time, but I never came across this passage before. It
only convinces my mind of the truth of that other wonderful
passage in this book which says that man is fearfully and
wonderfully made, and especially is it so with a woman."
Don't let them paste the leaves of the Amendment together,
but make them read it all and read it right, and when it is
all read and all understood every patriot in North Carolina
will vote for it and support it, because it is just and right, and
what the people of North Carolina want. (Here Section 4 of
the Amendment is read.) You see at once that that dis-
franchises the negro. He cannot read the Constitution; he
cannot write it. Let an election officer read to him some such
passage in the Constitution as this: "The privileges of the
writ of habeas corpus shall never be suspended." What does
he know about the Constitution or the writ of habeas corpus ?
What does he care about it ? He has never tried to know any-
thing about it and never will know anything about it. This
one section will wipe out the negro vote in North Carolina.
Of the 120,000 negro voters it will disfranchise 110,000 of
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 37
them, practically all of them. It will be good-bye to all negro
office holders, and all those who base their hope of office on
the negro vote. It will be good-bye to Mr. Butler and all men
who pander to the prejudice and ignorance of the negro for the
offices they hold. No wonder they are against it. It means
their political annihilation. It sends them into nothingness,
out of which they ought never to have arisen. But unfortu-
nately while it would disfranchise practically all of the negroes
this section would disfranchise many good white men, for un-
fortunately there are many good white men in this State who
cannot read and write. They have never had the opportunity
to learn. During their boyhood and young manhood they or
their fathers stood in the lines of battle in the vanguard of
the Army of Northern Virginia, and so we did not stop at the
fourth section. Many of the best men in North Carolina can-
not read and write. When I left my home in Eastern North
Carolina and went beyond the Blue Ridge to enter upon the
work of life, I did not know a man in that country. The first
man who met me and gave me the right hand of welcome was
Lafayette Burnett. He is not educated. He is a brave moun-
taineer, the descendant of a noble race of mountain pioneers.
He and his three brothers shouldered their muskets when the
drums beat the morning reveille of 1861, and never laid down
their arms until the roll of the last drum at Appomattox. Two
of his brothers never came home. He stands six feet, and
weighs 200 pounds. He is every inch a man and every ounce
a hero. When he was told by one of these Republicans that
the Democrats had formulated a measure that would dis-
franchise him he said that he knew it was a lie, because he
knew that the Democrats would take care of him, but that if
it was necessary to disfranchise him in order to save his
brethren of the east — the men and the sons of the men with
whom he fought from '61 to '65 — he for one, would be willing
to be disfranchised.
When this measure was under consideration in the hall of
the House of Representatives, there sat in that hall an old
man with gray hair and gray beard. He too was a soldier.
His face had been burned in the battle smoke that blazed from
Mission Ridge. He bore upon his bosom, scars that were made
38 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
by the bayonets that blazed on the fields of war. His name
was Alfred Holt. He thought that this was an educational
qualification pure and simple. With tears streaming down
his face he declared that if it were necessary to disfranchise
him to redeem North Carolina, that he too was willing to be
disfranchised.
My unlettered friend, I come here today to tell you that
the Democratic Party did not forget you and Lafayette Bur-
nett and Alfred Holt. They remembered you, yes, though you
be a Republican who have opposed and villified the Democratic
Party and Democratic leaders ; though you be a Populist that
have said hard things about your Democratic neighbor, we
forgot not you. If you belong to the great brotherhood of
the Anglo-Saxon race we have made a provision for you. We
are standing by you. One hundred and seventy-five thousand
Democrats have recorded their vow that you shall never be
disfranchised. The arms of 175,000 white men are around
and about you. We stand in a solid phalanx. We are march-
ing in ranks that cannot be broken. And so, after we wrote
Section 4, we wrote Section 5. (Here Section 5 is read.)
Could you vote prior to 1867? If you could, you can vote
now. Did you have a father or a grandfather or a great-
grandfather who could vote prior to that time? Your rights
are not interfered with. You may not know who your father
was, but if you know who your mother was, or your grand-
mother, you are provided for. You can plant yourself on Sec-
tion 5 and demand your right as a sovereign citizen. No
power on earth can take it from you. Your great heritage is
guaranteed to you under this Constitution. There is 1 only one
kind of a white man in North Carolina that will be dis-
franchised, and that is the white man who, when the day
comes and the books are open, goes up and denies his race and
his color; surrenders the inheritance from his fathers, goes
back upon his daddy and his grand-daddy, and his mammy
and his grand-mammy, and swears that he is a negro or the
son of a negro, or the grandson of a negro, and that white
man will be disfranchised.
But they say that this is unconstitutional, and Section 5
will be stricken out, leaving Section 4 to stand. These revenue
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 39
officers and stillhouse raiders have suddenly bloomed out into
great constitutional lawyers. There is not a lawyer of re-
spectability in North Carolina, not a single one, who declared
this unconstitutional, unless that lawyer is holding office by
means of the negro vote. On the other hand, all the eminent
lawyers in North Carolina, whether they be Republicans or
Democrats or Populists, have declared this measure constitu-
tional. Major Guthrie, the leading Populist lawyer in North
Carolina — Judge Purnell, Tom Argo, Tom Settle — able Repub-
lican lawyers and judges, and all great men who adorn the
bench and bar of this State, have pronounced this measure
constitutional. But these men must hide their diminished
heads in the presence of revenue officers ! What do they care
about the Constitution? It is a new thing under the sun for
Republicans to be upholding the sanctity of the Constitution.
When it was necessary to disfranchise the white men of North
Carolina and enfranchise the negroes of North Carolina, they
denounced the Constitution as a league with Death and a
covenant with Hell. They trampled down the Constitution.
They care no more for it than they do for a filthy rag. What
do these revenue officers know about the Constitution? They
would not know the Constitution from a camel with two humps
on his back. I have heard a story about two fellows migrat-
ing to the West in a covered wagon. While they were driving
across the great prairies they came to the track of the Wes-
tern Union Pacific Railway. Jim says to Tom, "What's this ?"
Tom says, "Why, this; I know what this is. This is some-
thing you tie your wagon to of nights to keep the cyclone from
blowing it away." Tom knew everything. Jim said he 'lowed
that that was what it was, and as it was about night they
decided to camp. They pulled and hauled their wagon until
finally it landed right down between the rails. Tom says,
"There, by gum, I told you so. I knowed what it was made
for. Don't you see it fits to a gnat's heel ?" And so they tied
their wheels to the track and lashed it with ropes and got in
the wagon and went to sleep. In the night they heard a
mighty rumble. Tom nudged Jim in the side and said, "Jim,
the cyclone is coming, but we're all right." The rumbling
came nearer, and sounded like the voice of thunder. By and
40 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
by a bright light climbed over the edge of the horizon, bright
as a steady flash of lightning. Nearer it came. It was the
west-bound vestibule limited, sweeping over the prairie at
the rate of sixty miles an hour. The engine screamed in
terror. Tom he burst out of one side of the wagon, Jim out
of the other, and the train dashed it into ten thousand pieces.
Tom stood off and got his breath and said, "Jim, I was just
somewhat mistaken about that thing. I bet that thing that
passed along here was that durn Constitutional Amendment."
And these fellows know just as much about the Constitution
as Tom did about the Pacific Railway track.
If it be unconstitutional at all it is so because it is in con-
flict with the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, which declares that the right to vote shall not
de denied or abridged on account of race, color or previous con-
dition of servitude. This Amendment to our Constitution says
nothing about race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
If a negro can read and write he is allowed to vote just as a
white man is. Or if he had a father or a grandfather who
could vote he is allowed that privilege. The free negroes in
this State could vote prior to 1835, and all negroes who can
show their descent from these free negroes are allowed this
privilege under the fifth section, and can demand their rights
under it. If there is a negro in North Carolina, and there are
doubtless some, though he was a slave, if he had a negro
father or a negro grandfather who lived in the State of Massa-
chusetts, and that ancestor of his could vote in the State of
Massachusetts, he can vote in North Carolina under this Sec-
tion 5. The color line is not drawn. No man is disfranchised on
account of his race, color or previous condition of servitude,
but under Section 5 he is given the right to vote as an in-
heritance, and not on account of his race. It puts the negro
in North Carolina on an equality before the law with all
foreign born races, on an equality with the Irishman, the
Englishman and the German, and surely he is entitled to and
can claim no more rights than these descendants of those
great races. Take a woman, an unmarried woman over
twenty-one years of age. She may have property, she may
pay her taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 41
property. She is subject to all the burdens of government
that a man is. She is a citizen of the United States, and she
has all the priviliges of a citizen of the United States. But the
law of North Carolina takes from her the right to vote, dis-
franchises her on account of her sex. That is not unconsti-
tutional, and why; because it does not disfranchise her on ac-
count of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Surely
she is entitled to as many privileges in the eye of the law as
the illiterate, foreign, negro race. Take a boy under twenty-
one. He may have property. He has to pay his taxes, yet
he is not allowed to vote because of his age. The State is
absolute sovereign as to qualifications of a voter, with these
three exceptions, race, color and previous condition of servi-
tude. And this Amendment disfranchises nobody on account
of race, color or previous condition of servitude. The illiterate
negro is disfranchised because he has not inherited the same
privileges as the white man, and he ought not to inherit that
privilege. In the State of Massachusetts the law allows no
man to vote unless he can read and write, or unless he could
vote prior to the first day of May, 1857. That is ten years
before the date fixed in our Amendment, and no one has ever
questioned the constitutionality of that law. If there were
100,000 negroes in Massachusetts, would it make that law any
less constitutional? It would be questioned, if Russell and
Butler lived in Massachusetts, and their only hope of office
was to get that 100,000 negro votes. The Constitution of
Mississippi has disfranchised the negro in that State. The
Supreme Court of the United States declares that the Con-
stitutional Convention of Mississippi swept the field of expe-
dients for the purpose of disfranchising the negro, yet the
Court upheld that Constitution because, as they said, the
negro was not disfranchised on account of his race, color, or
previous condition of servitude. In Louisiana they have prac-
tically the same amendment as we have. That amendment
has been in force for two years. There are members in Con-
gress now elected under that amendment. A Governor has
been elected under it. Why has not that been declared un-
constitutional? * * *
But this is not the greatest reason, there is no danger that
42 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
a white man will be disfranchised under this Amendment.
The white people of North Carolina now have the right to vote
under Section 5 of the Constitution. Section 5 is repealed by
this Amendment, but the very same act that repeals Section 5
inserts this Amendment in its place, and this Amendment
guarantees to the white man the right to vote with as much
sanctity as the old section did. The old Section 5 is repealed
on the condition — on the solemn agreement by the people of a
Sovereign State, that the new Section 5 takes its place. You
have entered into a solemn contract and covenant with your
State that Section 5 be repealed on this condition. To take
the right from you would be an iniquity, a diabolical wrong,
and yet they tell you that the Supreme Court of the United
States, the greatest judicial tribunal in the world, a tribunal
sitting there to guarantee justice and equality to all men, to
uphold the supreme law of right, will perpetrate this
diabolical fraud and wrong; that this Court that stamped the
Civil Rights Bill, by which the Republicans attempted to put
the negro on an equality with the white man ; this Court that
has declared Beckham the Governor of Kentucky, because the
people of Kentucky had decided that he was Governor; this
Court that upheld the Constitution of Mississippi, that upheld
the School Law of Georgia, which divided the negroes and the
whites ; which has upheld the Election Law of South Carolina,
which is more stringent against the negro than ours ; that this
great Court will violate its rule of law and justice, and take
from you a right guaranteed to you by all solemnities of your
Constitution. Such an Act would be the end of Republican
Government. Like Samson, in blind rage, to do this they
would have to take hold of the pillars of the State and pull
down the whole fabric of the Federal system. They would
have to destroy the very cornerstone of the Republic. I de-
nounce it as a slander and the vilest imputation upon this
great tribunal. No one wants to disfranchise you, my il-
literate friend, and no one can disfranchise you. If the il-
literate white man in North Carolina should be thus unjustly
disfranchised it would create riot and civil war, and every
white man in North Carolina, except these revenue officers
and negro politicians, would stand at your side to defend your
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 43
rights with the last drop of their blood. You can disfranchise
negroes, but you cannot disfranchise white people. * * *
They also object to the clause in the Amendment providing
for the payment of the poll tax. There is no new poll tax
levied. The Constitution guarantees that the poll tax shall
not exceed two dollars, that no man more than fifty years of
age is liable to poll tax, and that if he be physically disabled
or too poor to pay it, he is not liable for it. This Amendment
provides that the able-bodied man under fifty years of age,
able to pay his poll tax, shall pay that tax on or before the
first day of March of the year in which he proposes to vote
for the preceding year — six months after its date. And here is
the able-bodied man under fifty, able to pay his poll tax. He
enjoys all the blessings of our Government. He lives in a
State that builds your school houses, your court houses, your
public roads, asylums for the unfortunate. She stations the
law as a sentinel around your door in the night time. She
protects your property with the strong arm of the law, and
you enjoy it all. You live in a great Government that would
expend untold millions of its treasures and send its fleets and
armies to the uttermost parts of the earth to assert your
manhood and maintain your rights, and you enjoy it all. You
accept all of these privileges, and it is all paid for out of
money that is taken out of the pockets of your neighbors by
taxation. And yet these Republicans say that you able-bodied
man, under fifty years, able to pay your poll tax, are not will-
ing to do it. It is a slander on the poor manhood of North
Carolina. It is an appeal to the dishonesty of the poor people,
a contemptible demogogic appeal that will be repudiated.
* * * The poor people of this country are not the ones who
escape the payment of taxes. It is the rich, who can hide
their wealth on the tax-levying day. The poor man cannot
hide his head. He has to pay his taxes, and he is willing to
do it. But if he is not willing, and wants to enjoy all the
benefits of this Government that are paid for by the neighbor
just as poor as he is — if there be such a man in North Caro-
lina, and I do not believe there is — that man ought to be dis-
franchised. * * *
They also object to the clause in the Amendment providing
44 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
that after 1908 all persons who have not registered at that
time must know how to read and write. If you get your name
on the registration book before 1908 you will not be troubled
to register any more. You have the right to vote guaranteed
to you forever. Your name is enrolled in the capital, and that
roll will stay there as a memorial of the great inheritance that
you have received from your fathers. I may be able to read
and write the Constitution, but I am not going to vote that
way. I am going to vote because my ancestors could vote.
I will have my name enrolled in the capital along with those
of my race who are less fortunate than I am, and we can
always vote, and never have the trouble to register any
more. * * *
But boys under thirteen years of age will not become
twenty-one until after 1908, and so they cannot register under
the Grandfather Clause. They will have to read and write.
These Republicans tell us that there are white boys in North
Carolina who will be disfranchised. * * * I am not afraid
for the white boys of North Carolina to run an intellectual
race with the kinky heads of North Carolina, and I would be
unwilling that this clause be stricken out of our Amendment.
* * * I would be unwilling that a great inducement should
be offered to the negroes of North Carolina to become edu-
cated, while a great inducement should be offered to the white
boys of North Carolina to remain forever ignorant. When
the white boys of North Carolina know that before they can
vote they must know how to read and write you cannot pre-
vent them from learning. * * * They learn it while they
rest at noon from the labors on the farm. They learn it by
pine knots at night. And here in North Carolina, where we
have a splendid public school system, and C. B. Aycock, the
next Governor of North Carolina, promises to use all the
power of the administration to guarantee every boy an edu-
cation, it is an insult to boys to say that they will not take
advantage of that opportunity. * * *
In 1908 there is not a boy who is now under thirteen years
of age who will not be educated. We will have an educated
citizenship, a citizenship that understands the Constitution
and Government of their country. We will have a purer Gov-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 45
eminent, and wiser and juster laws. These boys are not
cowards, either. They are not afraid of this. They have
read in their school histories that this great privilege of the
franchise was not given to our fathers. It was won by the
shedding of the most costly blood that ever crimsoned this
world, by the sacrifice of the most heroic lives that ever saved
humanity. They have read that their ancestors 800 years ago
stood at Runnymede with sword in hand, and defied the king
and the armies of the king, and forced him to sign the great
Charter of English liberties, and they have stood from that
day to this ready to defend their rights. And they tell me
that these boys will not learn how to read and write to pre-
serve for themselves the legacy that has been handed down to
them from their fathers. This young Anglo-Saxon race in
whose veins flows the blood of the men of the Revolution!
There is no man in all this land that will say that his boy can-
not and will not learn. * * * If there be such a man he is
unworthy of that boy, and that boy will stand up here today
and repudiate that statement. The Democratic Party wishes
to educate and elevate the manhood of the State. The Repub-
licans would keep them forever in ignorance. * * *
Perhaps it would not be improper to ask when the Repub-
licans got to be the friends of the poor white men of this
country ? There was a time when the poor white people needed
sympahty and support. Sherman's army had marched to the
sea through North Carolina, and left behind it nothing but
smoking ruins and wasted country. Around every fireside in
North Carolina there was a vacant chair. The young boy
that filled it was in an unknown grave in Northern Virginia.
North Carolina had felt upon her bosom the tread of em-
battled hosts. She had felt to the very quick the scourge of
avenging armies. Tears were pent up in the silent desolation
of mothers and widows and sisters. All our people were poor,
and yet in that day of grief and distress and poverty, these
men who are today pitying the poor, sat in the high places of
power and luxury. They rode in the second Chariot. They
dwelt in the house of feasting while we were in the house of
mourning. While we wept they laughed and danced and re-
joiced. Now when the poor white people of North Carolina
46 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
are somewhat recovered from the scourge that they brought
upon this State they are pitying our poverty and illiteracy.
It is not the first time in the history of the world that the
hypocrite has used the cause of the poor to accomplish his
vile designs. You remember that when the Master was worn
and weary by traveling over the burning, scorching desert,
He went into the house of the rich Pharisee to rest. While
He and His disciples were there, there came in, unannounced,
unbidden, all disheveled, all unworthy and all unwelcome too,
the poor, despised outcast woman. She saw the stony faces
of the Pharisees, but when she caught a glimpse of that in-
effable face of love she burst into tears and fell down at His
feet and washed them in those tears and wiped them with her
disheveled hair. She broke open the alabaster box of precious
ointment. It was all she had. She annointed His feet with
the costly oil. There was one in all that company that saw
unmoved. He raised his voice against it and rebuked her.
He said that this ointment ought to have been sold for much,
and the money given to the poor. That was Judas, who
wanted to steal the money. * * *
My illiterate friend, how came you to be illiterate? You
are illiterate because you never had the opportunity of an
education. At the time when you would have been at school
you had on a suit of gray; and a confederate musket on your
shoulder. You were in the storm of war. But while you and
your brothers and your fathers were in a distant land, you
had a great friend down here in North Carolina. He was the
greatest friend that the poor man ever had. He glorified the
poor manhood of this State, for he himself came from the
loins of the poor manhood. He glorified the Democratic Party
too, for he himself lived and died a Democrat. While you
were fighting the battles of your country, old Zeb. Vance, by
honesty and frugality, had accumulated a school fund of
$450,000, and had it laid away in the public treasury. It was
yours. It was there to educate you and your children when
you came back from the war. It was your priceless heritage.
But as soon as the war was over, by means of the negro vote,
the Republicans got into power. They laid their unholy hands
upon that sacred fund, and stole and squandered the last cent
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 47
of it and ran away. School houses were closed because the
money was stolen. You had no opportunity to get an educa-
tion, because they stole that money. Now they are pitying
you because you are illiterate. They are like the fellow that
was indicted for murdering his father and mother, and stood
up in open court and confessed his guilt and when the judge
asked him what he had to say why sentence of death should
not be pronounced upon him according to law, he said, "I hope
Your Honor will have mercy on the poor orphan that stands
before you." You have been robbed, you are the disinherited
heirs of a great estate, and these men who are today pitying
you for your illiteracy are the ones who are responsible for
that wrong, that great misfortune. And now these men are
trying to invoke the name of Zeb. Vance, and say they are
following in the footsteps of Vance, these men — they de-
nounced him and reviled him and slandered him while he
lived! They would have stoned him to death. It is not the
first time, either, in the history of the world that a generation
of vipers has been ready to build the tombs of prophets, and
garnish the sepulchres of the righteous. They shall not invoke
the name of Zeb. Vance! They shall build no tomb to his
memory! You miserable demagogue, he denounced you, too,
while he lived. He stigmatized you with infamy. I wish that
the great old Senator were living today, that he could speak
one word to the people of North Carolina; that from those
lips of love, and melting pity and greatness, and fiery wrath,
there could come one blast. He would make it more tolerable
for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment, than for
you in North Carolina. But the Stately Ship is gone to the
"haven under the hill" —
"Oh, for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"
I submit that the negro has no right to vote. He has the
right to vote neither by constitutional enactment nor by in-
heritance, nor has he deserved that right by a proper use of
it. In 1867, in flagrant outrage of the Constitution, by a mili-
tary edict, he was given that right, and 20,000 white men in
North Carolina were disfranchised by the Republican Party
48 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
at the point of a bloody bayonet. In defiance of the Constitu-
tion, the negroes were enfranchised and the white people were
disfranchised, and by that despotic military law the negro
ratified the Cander Constitution, which guarantees to him the
right to vote. He hardly knew what he was doing when he
voted himself the right to vote. They say that down here in
Eastern North Carolina, at the first election held under the
Reconstruction Acts, when the negroes voted for the first
time, they swarmed around that ballot box in great numbers.
They say that down here at one of these voting precincts on
that day, there was a man who had rat poison to sell. He
thought it was a good time to advertise and sell his poison,
and so he was standing up in the crowd talking up his drug
and advertising it, by distributing among the crowd little cir-
culars with the picture of a rat, that had taken some of
this poison. The rat was dead and laid out in fine shape, and
the negroes got hold of this rat circular and got it confused
with their tickets and began to vote it, and they were shoving
them into the ballot box just by the thousands. Along towards
night one old coon went up to the leader and said, "Look here,
there must be something wrong about this thing; I don't
believe this is no 'publican ticket. This thing got nothing but
a dead rat on it." The negro said, "You fool, that is a 'pub-
lican ticket, the very thing you want. Vote that ticket and it
means that you vote for to ratify the Constitution." It was
with such voters as these that the Canby Constitution was
ratified, and the votes were taken to South Carolina and
counted in Charleston by Gen. Canby, the Military Governor
in North Carolina.
The negroes certainly did not inherit the right to vote,
because they, nor their ancestors, have ever won or deserved
that right. In all the ages they have never shed one single
drop of blood for the liberties and the privileges which we
enjoy. In all our history they have never laid one stone upon
another in this great fabric of our Government.
Have they used the privilege so as to entitle them to the
right to it ? The man that was given ten talents so used them
that he acquired the ownership. How has the negro used this
talent? They were given the right to vote in 1867, and in two
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 49
years they bankrupted North Carolina. They plunged the
State into a debt of forty millions of dollars, and the men that
they had elected wasted and squandered the money, and
applied not a cent of it to the good of the State. They built
no railroads, they made no internal improvements. The poor
were not cared for, the innocent and blind lay in dungeons or
wandered in the fields. There was no government in North
Carolina, either. The course of the law was ended. The
sword, and not the sword of the military captain, either, but
the sword of the bandit and the cut-throat, stood chief magis-
strate in this State. The writ of habeas corpus was sus-
pended. Bands of armed men went up and down the State.
The authorities were powerless. It was worse than civil war.
They made this land a desolation and called it peace. There
was a veritable reign of terror. The sun of law and justice
was in total eclipse for two years. Political night had come,
and all manner of beasts of prey came forth to pillage and to
devour. These political hyenas and jackals ravaged this old
State of our fathers. These were the dark days in North
Carolina's history.
To the east of the city in which I live there is a little
mountain called Beaucatcher. It is called that from the fact
that from time immemorial the boys and girls have gone there
to loiter on its beautiful summit, and tell to each other that
old story that never grows old. I have stood on that mountain
in the early morning, and looked beyond the Blue Ridge
Mountains over the land where lie the ashes of my fathers.
I have seen the day break beyond the eternal hills; the
mountains give forth their forms from out the bosom of the
darkness; from the dewy branch little snowbirds here and
and there with deep warble salute the coming sun — "Stars
fade out and galaxies — street lamps of the City of God."
Clouds of the night storm are lifted up on sheens of fire and
rolled back in pillars of flame. When far overhead they are
caught up by the morning breeze and swept away, perfect day
is established, and there is peace. So did the morning come
to North Carolina in 1870, when a Democratic Legislature was
elected ; breaking into the splendors of the day in 1876, when
the cohorts of the unterrified came forth to redeem North
50 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Carolina, led by that lion of the tribe of Democracy, old Zeb.
Vance. Peace came to North Carolina, sweet as "day spring
to the shipwrecked in Nova Zembla." It came to the ex-
asperated hearts of our people like strains of music. The law
was restored, good government was administered. Great
Governors were in the Executive Mansion, and great and pure
men administered justice with an even hand alike to all, the
great and the small, the white and the black. In every dis-
trict a school house was opened, in every town a school house
was built for the white boys and girls. Though the Democrats
of North Carolina owned all the property and paid all the
taxes, they built a school house for the little negroes, too.
Asylums were built for the insane, the deaf, the dumb and
the blind, and every time we built an asylum for the unfor-
tunate of our race, when necessity demanded we built one for
the unfortunate of the colored race. It was generosity un-
equalled in history. It was good government unexampled in
the jurisprudence of the world. Twenty-five years passed
away. A generation passed away. We forgot the evil days
of 1867 and 1869. We not only forgot but we forgave. The
Republicans confessed their sins and said they would not do
so any more. Yes, we forgot. We must not forget any more.
"Lord, God of Hosts, te with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget."
But we did forget. We were like the old preacher said to
his congregation. He read in the Scriptures, "Abraham for-
got Isaac, and Isaac forgot Jacob, and Jacob forgot his twelve
sons." He said, "Brethren and sisters, they were a forgetful
people in those days." And we were a forgetful people. For
twenty-five years we had fought at every door and room and
hall in this house of rest to keep this gang out. At the end
of twenty-five years they broke in again, and here they were —
the same old crowd, the same old days of 1867 and 1869. A
little fellow was reading his Sunday School lesson to his
teacher. He came across the names Shadrach, Meshach and
Abed-nego. He could not pronounce them. The teacher asked
him why he didn't know his lesson. He didn't know why he
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 51
didn't know it, but he could not pronounce those names. The
teacher told them to him, and he went on. Pretty soon he
came to the names again, and hung fire the second time. The
teacher told him to go on. He could not go. The teacher
said, "Now that is Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, and if
you don't know those names the next time you come to them I
will thrash you like fury." The little fellow read on. After
awhile he came to them again. The teacher told him to go
on, and asked him what was the matter. The little fellow
broke out crying and said, "Here is them three scoundrels
again." And so here they were again, worse than they were
before. They turned this State over to the negroes, and the
allies of the negroes. They turned the fairest cities of the
East over to their control. The East swarmed with negro
office holders. In the County of New Hanover there were
forty negro magistrates, and in the city of Wilmington there
were seventeen negro policemen and deputy sheriffs. Negro
postmasters were in most of the leading cities of the East.
The white people could not and would not suffer it. Bloodshed
and riot prevailed wherever negro domination prevailed. The
Wilmington riot came. It will come every time in North
Carolina when the negro attempts to rule the white man, and
if he has the majority and is entitled to vote he is entitled to
rule. These men prostituted every institution in North Car-
olina save one to the greed of the office seeker. Our asylums
are the most sacred institutions in the State. Take the hos-
pital for the insane at Morganton. I stood the other day be-
neath the dome of that magnificent building of brick and stone
and marble, and as I stood there and saw floating from its
dome the ensign of our Commonwealth, I was proud that I was
a citizen of this great State, and belonged to the great party
that built it. The words of the great Judge came to my mind.
They say those words shall be spoken when the great Prince
of Peace and the King at the Day of Judgment shall sit upon
His throne of suns and stars and pronounce the final judgment
to all the sons of men. "I was afflicted and ye ministered unto
me," and when some shall ask when this was done, I think
that He will point to the poor, the insane, the deaf and dumb
52 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
and blind, and say to the people of North Carolina, "Inasmuch
as you did it to the least of these my little ones, you did it
unto me." There are little children in North Carolina that
never have seen the light of morning break over the hills;
they have never seen the beautiful tint of the rosebud. They
have never hunted for four leaf clovers. They have never
played with the little ones on the lawn. They have never
looked up and seen the ineffable love that beams on a mother's
face. They have never seen God's rainbow spanning earth and
heaven, like a chariot race for the angels to ascend and
descend. North Carolina built a heme for them. It employed
teachers, that they might move their fingers over the raised
letters and learn to be enlightened men and women.
In all ages of the world there have been places of sanctuary.
We read in the Bible that around the Holy City there were
cities called Cities of Refuge, and though a man had stained
his hand in the blood of his fellow man, if he fled fast enough
and got within the gates of a city of refuge he was safe,
because the avenger of blood could pursue no further. Victor
Hugo tells us a story of the dark ages. A beautiful young
girl named Esmeralda was tried for witchcraft in front of the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris. There on the judgment
seat sat the Inquisitor. Here was the beautiful girl. Around
her roared and raged the mob of Paris, howling for her blood.
She was asked what had she to say. In her innocence she
said, "I am not guilty." They bared her beautiful limb and
placed upon her knee the instrument of torture, and pressed
it. She shrieked in pain, but in her innocence she said, "I will
not confess. Have mercy." There was no mercy there. Again
they pressed the instrument of torture, and in her anguish
the poor, frail, tender nature broke down. She said, "I con-
fess, but oh, have mercy." There was no mercy there. They
bared her beautiful neck for the executioner's knife, and were
preparing for the bloody work. All this time Quasimodo,
the hunchback bell ringer of Notre Dame, was watching this
scene from one of the balconies above. He let down a rope,
and with the nimbleness of a cat slid down, and in the
twinkling of an eye grabbed Esmeralda in his arms and ran
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 53
along the balconies of Notre Dame, crying "Sanctuary, Sanc-
tuary." Before him the wild, infuriated mob of Paris stood
back. There was no bloodthirsty villain that dared violate
this Temple of the Sanctuary. But in 1895 and 1897 there
was no place of sanctuary in North Carolina. They attempted
to break into the asylums. They sent Jim Young, a negro,
into that temple which we had built for the deaf and dumb
and blind children of North Carolina. They engraved his
name in marble on the cornerstone as an everlasting monu-
ment to their infamy. The Democratic Legislature of 1899
took a chisel of cold steel and took out that name, but the
scar remains. This Amendment to our Constitution will for-
ever prevent the recurrence of such times of infamy and dis-
grace to the white people of this State.
It is no accident that every time the negroes get in control
we have bad government and anarchy and bloodshed. They
stand in a solid phalanx 120,000 strong, and have stood that
way for twenty-five years. If you wish to find the lowest
type of the human race, whether it be man or woman, go to
that quarter of the city where whites and negroes associate
together on terms of social equality. There you will find
humanity crawling in the filthiest slime of moral and social
degradation. If you wish to find the lowest type of a public
man, a man who aspires to place and power, it is the man
who associates on terms of political equality with the negroes,
who will go to their night meetings and appeal to their ignor-
ance and prejudice and race hatred. Here stands this body
of 120,000 voters. Unfortunately there are many white men
in North Carolina v/ho will be tempted by the emoluments and
power of public office to ally themselves with these negroes.
It is the only way that they can control them. With such
white leaders they are always a threat to the State, and when
the people become careless and inattentive they slip into
power. They must obey the dictates of their masters who
placed them there, and then we have negro rule, or what is
worse than negro rule, the rule of the renegade white man.
The people of North Carolina will not submit to such govern-
ment. If they should become indifferent and submit, it would
be worse than war and pestilence and famine. The scorching
54 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
winds and untimely frost may wither and blight your grain
fields, and kill the corn and wheat and fruitage, but God's rain
and sunshine will again clothe hill and mead in verdure, and
harvest fields will wave in golden splendor. The desolating
spirit of war may breathe upon this land as it has done, and
leave nothing in its wake but desolation and tears, and
mothers and sisters in mourning, but the olive branch of peace
will grow, battle flags will be furled ; on the fields of death, the
roses of summer will bloom in perennial beauty, and from the
soil consecrated by the blood of the brave a nobler race will
come. But over such degradation of the manhood and the
womanhood of this State as would come from negro domina-
tion and negro equality, there would come no rejuvenating
spring. The white people of North Carolina do not intend
that the negroes shall rule this State. If the negroes are
entitled to vote, in every locality, in every city where they
have a majority they are entitled to govern. If they are
entitled to vote they are entitled to govern Wilmington, New-
bern, and many of the fairest sections in North Carolina. We
know that this is a lie, a glaring lie, a lie that burns into the
heart of every white man in North Carolina, and they will not
endure it. When the armies of Louis XIV were marching
towards Holland, and it seemed as if the power of the great
king was invincible, William, Prince of Orange, called the
State's Generals together, and in solemn council they deter-
mined that sooner than the armies of their ancient enemy
should overrun their country, they would cut loose the dykes
and let the ocean roll in; that nothing should be seen above
the waves except the towers and steeples of the cities of
Holland. We too have come to the same unconquerable de-
termination that an alien race shall not overrun and rule this
State of our inheritance.
The negro was not born to govern. In the scale of hu-
manity he stands the lowest, the Anglo-Saxon the highest.
Consider the poor man, if you please, the one gallus fellow,
with no hat on, or his hair sticking through a hat with no top
to it. He may not know anything about books. He may be
careless, indifferent as to his condition, but that man has
flowing in his veins the blood of fifty generations of slave
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 55
governing ancestors. He has behind him two thousand years
of brave manhood and you rouse him, let a negro assert
superiority and the right to rule him, and that man is like a
devil turned loose. He will not submit to it. We read in
Tacitus that 2,000 years ago, on the banks of the Rhine, our
forefathers, a race of naked, half armed barbarians, died
before the legions of Caesar, but not a man surrendered. It
was this blood that thundered in the veins of Cromwell and
the soldiers of the Covenant, when on Marston Moor and
Naseby Field they drove in headlong, right to the arms of the
aliens. It was these men who stood like a granite wall at
Waterloo, against which the far glancing chivalry of France,
the Grand Army and the Old Guard of the Emperor, broke
like surges against a rock. It was our ancestors who re-
claimed this New World, who drove back the savage. Before
their pioneer axes primeval forests fell down. The eastern
marsh and the mountain wilderness were transformed into
wide seed fields and steepled cities. In all ages they have
gone forth, not as Rome sent forth her legions, to conquer,
rule and crush, but to civilize and Christianize, to lay the
foundation of great States and Empires and Republics, to
establish Constitutional Government and administer equity to
the weak.
And you men assembled here today bear testimony with
me. I say it in memory of the glorious traditions of the past.
I say it by the right arms of one hundred thousand Anglo-
Saxon men, by the prayers of one hundred thousand Anglo-
Saxon women. I swear it by the indominitable courage of
the men who met the peril at Gettysburg and Bull Run, by
the bones of our brothers, that are sleeping in the battle-
scarred bosom of old Virginia. I say it by warrant of Him
who ordains in Omnipotence the order of Dominion. I say that
North Carolina is the heritage of the white man, and shall
forever be ruled by the white race.
56 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
SPEECH ON RESOLUTION FOR THE
IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGES
NOTE: The account of the debate in the House, during the Gen-
eral Assembly of 1901, is taken from The News and Observer of Feb-
ruary 28, 1901, which also gives a vivid description of the scene that
day, as well as the speech of Mr. Craig.
The lightnings of a great excitement on Monday shot
athwart the sky of the North Carolina General Assembly and
the thunder thereof shook the very dome of the capitol.
It was the fourth and last day of the debate in the House
on the resolution for impeachment of two of the Supreme
Court Judges. It ended — as all had seen for days it must
end — in adoption of the resolution.
The vote was 62 to 33, and its announcement was greeted
with a roar of applause. The hands on the clock pointed to
2:15.
It was a history-making day, the like of which it is to be
hoped North Carolina will not see again. Realizing that to
witness such an event was the opportunity of a life-time, peo-
ple had gone to the House early. Women folk crowded the
galleries, their gay dresses making great splashes of color
against the white walls and pillars. In the lobbies men
elbowed each other and every available seat on the floor of
the House was called into use.
Argument on the resolution began at 10:00 and the vote
was to be taken at 2:00 o'clock. Of this time, the first two
and a half hours were allotted to the Republicans. They spoke
generally from manuscript or notes, and were plainly very
guarded in their utterances. Mr. Ebbs made the principal
argument; he was followed by Messrs. Owen, Mcintosh,
Petree and Blythe. This exhausted their two and a half hours.
The first speakers on the Democratic side were Messrs.
Alexander, White of Halifax, and Morphew, who consumed
five minutes each. Then Mr. Craig, introducer of the reso-
lution in the House, was recognized to make the concluding
argument.
When he arose, the hall was packed almost to suffocation,
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 57
but the stillness of death pervaded it, and every eye was
turned toward the speaker.
He began slowly, deliberately, telling of the gravity of
the question presented to the House and the awe with which
he approached it. Then he referred to the solemnity of an
impeachment proceeding, declared it the keynote of the Con-
stitution, not put there as a scarecrow but as a shield of the
law. Already the voice of the speaker had risen till he could
be heard in the farthest recesses of the hall, his eyes began
to gleam with the fire of enthusiasm and a roar of applause
swept over his audience when he declared that "today the
majesty of the people, exercised under forms handed down
from the fathers, speaking through their representatives will
remind the highest judges in this land that they too are
amenable to law and must answer for its violation at the bar
of the High Court of Impeachment."
Now the speaker's utterances became more rapid, and
self-consciousness had passed away, he had forgotten himself
in his subject. His words of denunciation went hissing across
the hall like hailstones in a storm : "And, gentlemen, I say if
there ever was a time when the extraordinary power of im-
peachment ought to be invoked it is now. Go search the
record of all judges from the time of Jeffries down to the
present and you'll find no example in which judges usurped
so much power as these."
People in the lobbies crowded closer and closer to the
speaker, but the stillness was unbroken and the speaker's
words rang out more clear and more scathing as he proceeded.
Old men who had gone through the terrors of war wept as he
told how men had sacrificed life and home and all for a con-
stitutional principle, and finally, as he pointed to the picture
of Vance, and appealed to "those dumb lips to speak and guide
aright the people that had so loved to honor him," a perfect
whirlwind of applause swept over the floor and gallery, last-
ing so long that Mr. Craig had to pause until he could be
heard.
It was a great speech, greatest of this memorable debate.
High in thought, broad in conception, convincing in argument
58 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
and terrible in denunciation, but above all eloquent. Men were
thrilled and swayed by it as only the true orator and the
thinker can thrill and sway them.
Mr. Craig spoke for an hour and five minutes and when
he ceased there was a wild scene of applause lasting many
seconds. Members rushed forward to congratulate him on
his superb effort.
Mr. Craig's Speech
"Gentlemen of the House: It is said by some that this
resolution ought to have been introduced in caucus, so that
our party friends might have there considered its advisability.
It is not a party matter and should not be decided upon a
question of politics. It should be considered on a higher plane
than that. Each member of this House should consider this
question according to the dictates of his own conscience and
not according to the dictates of any party caucus.
"I shall not discuss the gravity of this occasion. I believe
that every member of this House sits here in the full realiza-
tion of his solemn and momentous responsibility. These pro-
ceedings for the last few days, or as my friend from Martin
has termed it, this 'spectacle' has been witnessed with great
interest by the people. I hope its necessity has been wit-
nessed with great sorrow by all good people. It is no difficult
task to bring the smaller offender to the bar of justice — the
poor, the weak, the feeble — but today the majesty of the peo-
ple of. North Carolina, acting under the forms handed down
from days of the fathers of the Revolution, and speaking
through the voice of their chosen representatives, teach the
great truth so plainly that 'he who runs may read/ that the
highest judges are amenable to law and must answer for its
violation at the bar of the High Court of Impeachment. (Ap-
plause.) I rejoice that this is yet a land of law and constitu-
tional government. While there is none so low and so feeble
as to be beneath its reach, there is none so high and great and
powerful as to be above it. (Loud Applause.)
"The power of impeachment, as I understand it, is the
very keystone of the Constitution. It was not put there as a
scare-crow. It was not put there as dry bones to be rattled.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 59
It was not put there for the purpose of shooting fire crackers,
as the Chinese did when they attacked the legations at Pekin,
but it was put there as a vital force of the Constitution, as a
shield of the Constitution; not to protect the right of the
private citizen — the law of the State and the Constitution do
that, and if the right of any citizen be infringed he can go into
court and vindicate himself and claim his rights and have
these rights enforced. But this court of impeachment was
organized and established by our fathers to protect and main-
tain that law. Whenever we fail to exercise our duty as a
court of impeachment, sitting here with the power to impeach,
while we do not strike directly at the liberty and the rights
of the citizen, we are responsible for the destruction of the
law and the Constitution, the shield and protection of every
man.
"Gentlemen of the House : I say if there ever was a time
in human history, if there ever was a period in this Govern-
ment or any other Government when the high and extra-
ordinary power given to this high court of impeachment
should be invoked, it is here in the year 1901, and by the
General Assembly elected by the people of 1900. As I say,
you may search all history; you may read the history of all
the judges who presided over the courts of English-speaking
people — go search the bloody record of Jeffries, read the trial
of the seven Bishops, examine the records of all the judges
that have presided over the country from then until now, and
in all the history of jurisprudence, you will find that never
have judges been guilty of such usurpation to destroy a co-
ordinate branch of the Government. (Applause.)
"In 1898 a terrible state of affairs existed in North Car-
olina. It was a state of affairs that brought shame and
humiliation to every man and woman in the State who was
proud of our past record and gloried in our past history. That
serpent that had crept in secrecy and filth and slime for thirty
years in this Commonwealth, in 1897 and 1895 raised for the
first time its head in this capitol, and licked out its forked
tongue of fire and poison and ruin. (Prolonged Applause.)
The East was under its dominion and the West did not escape.
It polluted and disgraced every public institution of this State.
60 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
(Applause.) The people of North Carolina were aroused ; not
only the men but the women also. They were determined to
come to her defense and take possession of the State of our
fathers, and preserve the heritage which they bequeathed
to us.
"There was a great social and political revolution in North
Carolina. The General Assembly of North Carolina came to
this capitol in 1899 with a great mission. They came here
with the great command of the people; they came here, if
you please, to right this wrong ; to drive these rascals out and
keep them out. They came to clean out this Augean stable.
(Laughter and Applause.) They cleaned it out. I thank my
talented young friend from the County of Franklin for his
eulogy on that Legislature. They cleaned it out according to
the Constitution and according to the written law of this
land. (Applause.)
"I shuddered when my friend from Martin said that they
passed these laws in subversion of law and to over-ride the
law. I can see how the gentleman from Madison can say that,
or the gentleman from Stokes. I can remember how, on this
floor, he (Stubbs) stood here and voted for these laws, and
now says that the laws were intended to subvert the Consti-
tution. (Applause.) The Legislature of 1899, after perform-
ing its great and arduous duty, adjourned and left this capitol.
We left with forebodings of alarm. We left with feelings
that our work might be undone, because we knew the political
education and the feeling of the men who controlled another
co-ordinate branch of the Government. No sooner had we
adjourned and gone home than the Supreme Court of North
Carolina, in violation of the prerogative conferred on them by
the Constitution, began a systematic, continuous and deter-
mined attack upon the work of the General Assembly of '99.
My distinguished friend from Mecklenburg said, that when
the decision in the Day case was rendered, it shocked his moral
conscience. It shocked the moral conscience of every lawyer
and every man in North Carolina. (Applause.) It was an
admitted power of the General Assembly of North Carolina
to abolish an office. That was decided expressly in Hoke vs.
Henderson ; but when the Day case was decided by that court
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 61
it established the unheard of doctrine that no office could be
destroyed until the term was out. They held that Day was
not only entitled to the office, and to the emoluments thereof,
but that he was entitled to the duties of the office, and until
its duties ceased, the office could not be abolished. Of course
the duties cannot be abolished as long as the Government
stands. This is in the case of Hoke vs. Henderson. The Day
case was the first. Every man in the State who had tried to
keep back the social and political revolution; every man who
had stood in defiance of the will of the people, the great peo-
ple of this State, sent up a shout of triumph ; and from those
who had over-ridden North Carolina and ruined her and
brought her to degradation, there went up a shout of triumph
because they knew that this was the beginning of the work
of destruction, that these judges had the power and would
exercise that power flagrantly and defiantly.
"We effected the great reformation and went home.
Within six months there was scarcely an act of that great
body left; a few stock laws, some bills to protect fish in
Hanging Dog Creek (laughter), a few dispensary bills and
acts of incorporation. (Applause.) But the great reforms
which we promised the people to carry out and which we did
carry out were destroyed. What became of these? They
were trampled down and ignored amid the scoffs and jeers of
the men who had stood in the way of the social, moral and
political progress of this State. This court wiped out the law
and scoffed at the lawmaker. There was one great act that
was left standing. Yes, we went before our constituents and
promised these reforms to the people, and we complied with
our promise. (Applause.) But if the Supreme Court is right
we were wrong, and we came here under false pretenses, and
the Legislature of 1899 was a sham and a delusion and a fraud.
There was one law that they did not abolish; I believe there
was only one act of political import of the General Assembly
that was not abolished ; that was the Election Law. How did
we prevent that? Gentlemen of this House tell us that the
court did not intend to do wrong; that it did not intend to
abolish the law and ignore the General Assembly and trample
on the Constitution. There is not a man in North Carolina
62 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
that does not know better. We all know it ; we feel it in our
consciences. (Applause.)
"This one law was not abolished, and it was not abolished
because the Legislature did not adjourn. This General
Assembly was seated here in perpetual session, from the 10th
of March, when the regular session ended, yes, in perpetual
session to the 1st of August, 1900, sitting like the Constituent
Assembly of France in the throes of the Revolution. For
what ? Sitting here holding, as it were, a sword to protect us
from our own Supreme Court. That was the only way we
could protect our election law. (Applause.) Gentlemen, listen
to it: You who came here, yes, every Democrat came; I do
not care how poor he was ; and I know many of them left home
and took the last dollar out of their pockets to come here, and
paid their own expenses and stayed as long as it was necessary
to stay; came here when the capitol was in a state of terror!
Why? Good lawyers had been employed and were in con-
sultation with these men who were seeking to overthrow the
laws of the State. We found it necessary, gentlemen, to strike
from our books, so far as the election law was concerned, the
great writs of mandamus and injunction. That is how this
election law was protected by that General Assembly. I hated
to vote for the abolition of those writs. They were a part of
the great common law handed down to us from the men who
laid the foundation of the English Constitution. We voted for
the abolition of those writs to curb the power of this judicial
oligarchy, that was the willing instrument of the men who
wished to bring into contempt the Legislature of 1899 that
they might again assume control of this State, and bring back
to high places the minions of the black horde that had plun-
dered the State. Who does not fear these judges? Who does
not think they are dangerous?
"A great deal has been said about the court of impeach-
ment. The court of impeachment is not a court for the pun-
ishment of the offenders; not at all. We do not deal with
these judges as we deal with individuals, but we deal with
them in their official capacity. It matters not what they may
do, so far as this court is concerned. They may commit mur-
der, burglary, or violate the criminal laws of this State, but
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 63
the court of impeachment could not lay one finger upon a hair
of their head or one dollar of their property. Where is the
man that will say that they are not dangerous to the law of
this land? The General Assembly of 1899 adjourned and
went home with the earnest hope for peace. Yes, gentlemen,
let's adjourn and go home again with a prayer and with a
hope of peace. (Laughter.) A General Assembly that will
stay here from day to day in perpetual session and then be
destroyed can fulminate as much as it pleases. What will it
amount to ? It stands discredited in this State so far as these
judges can discredit it. Every single political decision that
was made was made in antagonism to and to destroy the
Legislature of '99, and that we all know. (Applause.)
"Gentlemen, I do not believe that these judges over-rode
the Constitution and destroyed our statute law for the sole
purpose of reinstating the fusion office-holders. There was a
greater purpose beyond. They were going to the destruction
of that which was permanent, that which guarantees that this
State and her future destiny shall be controlled by the moral
and intellectual manhood of North Carolina. They were
blazing the way.
"Finally they came to the case of White against the
Auditor. The gentleman from Forsyth was talking the other
day about mental gymnastics, but by some kind of judicial
gymnastics these judges leaped over all repealing statutes,
they got upon the stilts of 'In Paria Materia' and leaped over
the Constitution and the law and turned out Hill and the six
other commissioners. They went to the dusty archives and
searched up the old English doctrine of 'In Paria Materia.'
They gave to it a meaning which it never had. In order to
perform their duties, the law prescribed that these seven
Shell Fish Commissioners must be at their posts of duty in
seven different places at the same time. Although in the
case of the State's Prison vs. Day they have decided that the
duties of an officer could not be transferred to another, in
White vs. Hill they clothed White with duties that were never
given to him by any statute ; and in the opinion in Abbott vs.
Beddingfield they invested Abbott with the powers not only
of Railroad Commissioner, but a Bank Examiner and powers
64 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
therefore exercised by the State Treasurer and the State
Auditor. This was not only in violation of law and every
statute, but in violation of the doctrine laid down in State's
Prison vs. Day.
"Why did we pass Chapter 21, Laws of 1899 ? Why did we
pass it, gentlemen? We were afraid that the Supreme Court
would turn Hill and the other six commissioners out, were we
not ? And we did not intend that the court that turned them
out should usurp the powers of the Government by placing any
one else in, and we knew that White wanted the money that
was in it, and that was all that he cared for ; and so the statute
provides that he could not get his money. Would the judges
say that they did not know that was what the Legislature
meant? I read Chapter 21, Laws of '99.
"Now, gentlemen, I thought that was where the gentle-
man from Franklin got confused in his argument. The act
says, 'The State Treasurer shall not pay any person or per-
sons unless such person or persons be authorized' — authorized
by what? By the act of 1899. He is not forbidden to pay
any person unless he is performing the duties prescribed by
the Act of 1899 ; he is not forbidden to pay any persons unless
they are carrying out the objects of the Act of 1899, but he
is forbidden to pay any person unless that person is authorized
by the Act of 1899. He must go to the Treasurer clothed with
the authority of the Act of 1899. Hill and six other men are
the only ones authorized by the Act of 1899; White is not
authorized. Chapter 21 says in words as plain as can be
written that he should not be paid by the Treasurer. That is
the legislative mandamus. It estimates from the only power
that has the right to control the finances. The Legislature
had the right under the Constitution to say that he should
not. When the judges said that he should it was a plain and
unmistakable usurpation of power, and in defiance not only
of the statute, but of Article 4, Section 9, of the Constitution.
This law is so plain that no one can misunderstand it.
"What shall we do with these judges, gentlemen? That
is really the only question. It is almost unanimously admitted
by the Democrats of this House that they have wilfully vio-
lated the law and the Constitution ; that they are impeachable.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 65
The question is, what shall we do ? The gentleman from Wil-
son in his speech in their defense, said in substance that they
had violated the law and culminated in violating the law, and
that we ought to fulminate against them. What ? Fulminate
and fulminate and culminate in fulminating? (Laughter.)
Was there not a fulmination from this General Assembly in
June, 1900, and when every one of these opinions had been
handed down? Has there not been delivered a warning to
these judges in the shape of a dissenting opinion? Why shall
we fulminate? Has not the Chief Justice defiantly declared
that any threat of impeachment will not deter him. A ful-
mination such as the gentleman jf Wilson would have us
adopt, is nothing more nor less than a threat of impeachment.
The gentleman from Wilson properly says that if a threat
would not deter him he ought to be Impeached; if it would
not deter him it is futile. I do not mean to reflect upon the
gentleman from Wilson. He is one of the ablest men in this
State and one of the best beloved men, whose presence honors
this General Assembly. I certainly would not reflect on the
courage of men who favor the substitute, for men who can
walk up and face a proposition like that, could stand unterrified
before an army with banners.
"What shall we do ? The gentleman from Wilson says we
must not apply the heroic remedy. We have applied heroic
remedies in North Carolina. But for heroic action we would
not be here. I will ask the gentleman from Scotland how was
it that only two votes were cast against the Amendment in
his county if it were not on account of the heroism of the
men of Scotland? (Applause.) Why is the high-minded and
able son of Wilson here to serve his County and his State
except by heroic action of his constituents ? In the mountain
section of this State I have stood in the presence of armed
and enraged multitudes, where there were three Republicans
to one Democrat, and proclaimed the truth of Democracy.
The men that stood by me were heroes, every one of them.
(Applause.) They feared not death itself. They defied the
power of the enemies of this State. Yes, in defiance of the
Federal Judges and Federal Power, the people of this State
have dared to do their duty and enforce the law. (Renewed
66 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Applause.) That was heroic action. And, gentlemen, re-
membering those men, how they did their duty like heroes,
I propose to take heroic action here today.
"You (pointing to the gentleman from Scotland, amid ap-
plause), and you (pointing to the gentleman from Wilson),
have sat here and had it hurled in your face by the gentleman
from Madison that you were here by fraud and violation of
law. I have stood upon this floor and hurled back their
charges of slander upon the brave men of the East. (Pro-
longed Applause.) The 175,000 men that stand behind us are
heroes, and were willing to apply heroic remedy to save North
Carolina. Shall the heroism cease with them? The hour has
come when we must pull down from the high places the men
who would destroy the work that the people of North Car-
olina have accomplished. Yes, I for one, am willing to apply
the heroic remedy. (Loud Applause.)
"Talk about public sentiment: I do not know how public
sentiment is. It is not my greatest concern how it is. My
greatest concern is to know the right and do it. I think that
public sentiment is about all one way. I have heard from the
men of the mountains, and know that they are with me. In
the towns of the State there are some, I will admit, who are
afraid of what other people may think, and they are alarmed.
There is a public sentiment here against the impeachment, a
public sentiment manufactured by a powerful lobby. (Ap-
plause.) It is always thus, when you attack men in places of
power. The people have no lobby. They are at home attend-
ing to their daily occupations. We gentlemen are here to
represent them, that great constituency that has no lobby.
So far as I am concerned, I defy that lobby. (Loud and Pro-
longed Applause.) Members of this House can hardly walk
the streets without being button-holed off in corners, and even
the Senate itself — the court to try this case, has been ap-
proached.
"There was a public sentiment in this State when Holden
was impeached. Some people were frightened, and advised
against it. He, too, employed great lawyers to defend him.
There was one that he could not employ. Vance was offered
a fee of $5,000, and though he was poor, almost needing the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 67
necessities of life, he replied that no amount of money could
purchase his services against his people. He said he could
live and die in poverty, but there was not gold enough in their
coffers to buy him. (Applause.) You older men remember
those dark days of '68. There were great men in this State
that counselled submission to a victorious enemy. You re-
member how the great leader of the people stood upon the
portico of the National Hotel and hurled defiance at the
carpet-baggers and scalawags. (Applause.) His voice rang
like a trumpet note from the mountains to the sea. He saved
North Carolina. I wish that we had a Vance today. (Ap-
plause.) Would that (pointing to Vance's picture) that lion
heart could speak again; that from those lips of 'love and
melting pity and greatness and fiery wrath/ there could come
one bugle call. This public sentiment would vanish. He would
make it more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day
of judgment than for these men in North Carolina who are
trampling down our Constitution and destroying our State.
(Loud Applause.) Oh, that his spirit could descend upon
some of his beloved and talented followers today, and breathe
into them the spirit of the men of '68 and '70 and '76. There
would be none of this lobbying here.
"This is not the Constitution of '37 nor of '68 nor of '75.
It is the Constitution that has been building since the day
when William the Norman set his foot upon Britain. It is
Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Meck-
lenburg, the Declaration of Philadelphia, moulded into one
great organic law.
"The question is, shall we preserve this Constitution, this
heritage, from our fathers? The $825.00 is a small matter,
but if they violate the Constitution for that, then for a million
dollars — for the special tax bonds, they would destroy it and
leave not one stone upon another. It was for this Constitu-
tion that our fathers went to battle in 1861. (Applause.) It
was not for the preservation of slavery but for the preserva-
tion of their rights guaranteed by the organic law. It was
when the Constitution was violated that the drums began to
beat, armies set out, artillery rattled along, clouds of cavalry
68 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
galloped in the storm, and Stonewall Jackson, transfigured
into an arch angel of war, advanced amid the thunders of
battle with a united people at his back. (Loud Applause.)
It was not until the bodies of our brothers and fathers had
been crushed into the bloody earth by the heel of an invading
army that the Constitution was destroyed. The spirit of our
people was not broken; they hobbled home on crutches from
Appomattox ; with empty sleeves they came ; they had nothing
but the old Confederate uniform, but they vouchsafed to us
an undying devotion to Constitutional Government. In the
name of the men who died on Cemetery Hill, in the name of
the men who met the peril in the Wilderness and in trenches
around Richmond, in the spirit of those men we will defend
and preserve our Constitution today, I tell you it does require
heroic action. (Loud Applause.)
"It is a time of judicial usurpation. I wish I had time to
talk about it. One of the great political parties of this country
has felt it necessary to make a solemn declaration against
government by injunction. We have felt the power of a
Federal Judge from South Carolina. He enjoined the con-
stituted officers of this State from levying taxes on powerful
corporations. (Applause.) The usurpation of power by
judges must be stopped. It is more to be dreaded today than
the advances of an imperial army, (Loud Applause.)
"If this supreme oligarchy can flagrantly and imperiously
destroy the statutes of this State one after another, what has
become of the government by the people? Do these judges
expect that they can forever continue in their unprecedented
usurpations and never be stopped? Do they think that they
can tear down one after another every rule of law and every
statute that conflicts with their partisan will, and that one
will say to them, nay? They cannot forever shield them-
selves behind this veil of sanctity with which a false senti-
ment has protected the courts. (Applause.) The time has
come when the temple must be purified and the sacrilegious
priests must be driven out. If what we have seen during the
past two years is in accordance with the law and the Con-
stitution, then indeed is this Government, with its boasted
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 69
institutions and three co-ordinate independent branches come
to naught.
"It is a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the
stage, and then is seen no more.
"It is a tale by an idol, full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing
" 'And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in
its petty pace from day to day till the last syllable of recorded
time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to
dusty death.'
"We are here to protect our Constitution. That is our
first and highest duty. There are no politics in this proceeding.
We have not allowed politics to be dragged into it. The
official heads of the Republican Party have denounced this pro-
ceeding as wicked, and declared that it was instituted for the
purpose of packing the Supreme Court to consummate a
scheme of disfranchisement. In the name of every honest
man in this Legislature, in the name of our great constituency,
I denounce that as a vile slander. (Applause.) If the Supreme
Court, as Pritchard and Pearson and Linney have intimated,
intend to declare our amendment unconstitutional, that this
court has been packed for that purpose, it ought to be un-
packed. (Applause.) We adopted that great measure. After
thirty years of struggle we came up to it through tribulation
and tears and heroism. The people of this State ordained as
amid fire and trumpet voices that it should be a law unto us
and to our children, that it should bring peace and good gov-
ernment and a feeling of security and when Pritchard and
Pearson throw that down before this House as guage of battle
we pick it up, we will defend it, we will maintain it at all
hazards. We will strip from the shoulders of unworthy
judges the ermine that was worn by Gaston and Battle and
Merrimon, and Smith and Ruff in, the great judges and chan-
cellors whose learning and virtues have adorned the judicial
history of the English-speaking people. (Loud Applause.)
"We may build monuments to the great men of the past;
we can best honor our fathers by preserving the institutions
which they have left us. In stern condemnation of this crime
70 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
against our law, in dutiful respect of our fathers whose tra-
ditions have been ignobly thwarted, in the name of the Con-
stitution which has been outraged — of the laws trampled
down — of peace destroyed, of the will of the people crushed
to earth, and in the name of the Heavenly Father whose ser-
vice is perfect justice, I demand that David M. Furches, Chief
Justice of North Carolina, and Robert M. Douglas, Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, be impeached
of high crimes and misdemeanors in office." (Loud and Pro-
longed Applause.)
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 71
JOINT DEBATE WITH SENATOR
PRITCHARD
(Charlotte, October 9th, 1902)
NOTE: Mr. Craig said he always felt that he got the best of
Senator Pritchard, but that nobody else seemed to agree with him.
The fact was that a large majority of Democrats at that time were
not for him for Senator, neither were any of the Republicans, so that
when he faced Senator Pritchard in debate, he faced the solid oppo-
sition of the Republicans, and the opposition of the friends of all the
other Democratic candidates, leaving his boosters in the minority.
Nevertheless, the Democrats were loyal and enthusiastic for him at
all of the joint debates.
Vast audiences greeted the two everywhere, and by the close of
the campaign, which was in Asheville, Mr. Craig had begun to feel
the strain, and well wishing friends had prepared for him, instead of
the customary glass of water on the rostrum table, a glass of crystal
"Mountain Dew," properly diluted and sweetened! Mr. Craig spoke
first, and did not feel the need of this stimulant, but he was followed
by Senator Pritchard, who after speaking some time, saw what ap-
peared to him to be a glass of clear spring water, and drank the whole
contents, much to the amusement of those who knew, as it was a well
known fact that the Senator was a teetotler. However, he seemed to
enjoy the refreshment, and was afterwards frequently known to com-
ment on the excellence of Asheville water!
Mr. Craig and Senator Pritchard (afterwards Judge Pritchard of
the United States Court of Appeals) were always the best of friends
during and after this debate. Their friendship felt no reaction in spite
of the heated strife often reached between their respective adherents.
After the death of Judge Pritchard, a few years ago, Ex-Governor
Craig, at the invitation of the family, pronounced a eulogy on the late
Judge and Senator, at the memorial services before the United States
Circuit of Appeals, in which he spoke most feelingly of his friendship
for Judge Pritchard, paying a high tribute to his personal character
as a citizen, a statesman, and a judge. Among other things he said:
"Judge Pritchard came from East Tennessee — a blue-eyed, curley-
headed boy, without money or influence, to work out his own fortune
and destiny. The primitive, unharnessed men of the mountains knew
then that the heir-apparent to the throne of their allegiance had ap-
peared. Ever afterwards they followed and trusted him as their friend
and leader."
SPEECH OF HON. LOCKE CRAIG
Delivered At Charlotte In Joint Debate With Senator
Pritchard On October 9th, 1902.
(Mr. Craig spoke one hour and fifteen minutes. Mr. Pritchard
replied in a speech of one hour and twenty minutes, and Mr. Craig had
a rejoinder of fifteen minutes. Mr. Craig's opening speech is given
below.)
To address an audience like this on questions of great
moment is to assume a serious responsibility. Charlotte is
not only a centre of southern industry but it is a thought-
72 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
germinating centre as well. When I look upon this assembly
of intellectual men and women I realize that today, as in the
important epochs of the past, the people of Mecklenburg are
a potential factor in the building of the State and in the
making of her laws.
"Equal rights to all; special privilege to none," is the
axiom of just government and the corner stone of Democratic
faith. While the truth of this aphorism is universally ad-
mitted as a theory, its practical application in matters of
government has been and is strenuously denied.
The present condition of business and industry is forcing
again upon the American people the question of tariff tax-
ation. The Republican Party stands today for the theory of
protection in the extreme. The Democratic Party advocates,
as it always has, a tariff for revenue to meet the expenses of
the Government honestly and economically administered. The
Republican Party believes that the way to promote the wel-
fare and happiness of the people is to legislate for the benefit
of the privileged classes, and that if certain privileges be con-
ferred upon the upper classes so as to promote their welfare
the prosperity resulting will leak down and finally reach the
people. The Democratic Party believes that the way to pro-
mote the welfare of all the people, is to do justice to all peo-
ple, to grant equal rights to all and special privileges to none.
The policy of the protective tariff cannot be defended upon
the principles of justice. The Government has a right to levy
taxes upon its citizens to meet the expenses of the Govern-
ment, but if it go one step further and levy taxes for the
benefit of any individual or any class it does what it has no
right to do. This protective policy always has and always
will be exercised in the interest of the wealthy and powerful,
and against the interest of the great body of the people. It
is by this policy that certain sections of the Union have grown
rich and that the South has been kept poor.
North Carolina is mostly an agricultural State. The pro-
duction of cotton, corn and wheat is her principal industry.
These articles cannot be protected as their price is determined,
not in the home protected market, but in the markets of the
world. No amount of tariff on corn, wheat or cotton can pos-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 73
sibly do North Carolina any good, because the market value
of these articles is fixed, not at home, but abroad. So it is
with all the staple products of the South. Nearly all of that
which the South sells, she sells in the open free trade market ;
and most of the articles she buys she is forced to buy in the
protected market of monopoly. To demonstrate that the Re-
publican policy of protection has not added to the value of
the staple crops of the South, I cite the fact that in 1898,
under the high tariff of the Dingley Bill, corn, wheat and
cotton reached their lowest value. Corn was 28 cents a bushel,
wheat 58 cents, hay $6.00 a ton, cotton 4V& cents a pound.
Senator Pritchard talks about an imaginary trade that
Senator Simmons made with a New England manufacturer
whereby Senator Simmons promised to put lumber on the
free list for the benefit of the New Englander in consideration
of the New Englander's voting the Democratic ticket. That
is all in Senator Pritchard's imagination. But what trade
has been actually made by Senator Pritchard and his party?
The people of North Carolina buy their clothing, their farm-
ing utensils, and nearly all of their manufactured articles
from the Middle and New England States. The price of these
is increased from 25 to 100 per cent by the Dingley Bill. For
these articles we pay these northern manufacturers the full
market price plus a bonus of millions of dollars every year
and they buy from us the products of our farms at a price
fixed in the open market.
The Senator and his party have given them protection on
all of the valuable necessities of life and in return he boasts
of the protection on scrap mica and chicken roosters. The
Senator claims that the Dingley Bill has increased the price
of our lumber, but his argument on this proves too much. The
tariff on lumber is $2.00 per thousand and since 1894 the price
of lumber has increased many times that amount per thousand.
The tariff of $2.00 could only raise the price $2.00 for as soon
as the price rises above $2.00 it floats over the tariff wall and
mingles and competes with the price in the outside world. But
lumber is like most of the other southern products. Its value
is fixed in the markets abroad and its price is regulated by
the demand. All of our valuable lumber is exported and com-
74 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
petes with the lumber of the world in the markets of London
and Berlin. I admit that the tariff does have a tendency to
raise the price of mica, but I submit that the whole govern-
ment policy ought not to be based upon the workings of a few
little mica mines in Mitchell County. I would like to see these
miners prosper but I am not willing for the Southern people
to pay millions of dollars on account of the tariff to the nor-
thern manufacturers and in return get a few hundred dollars
benefit on account of the tariff on mica.
The future development of North Carolina is dependent
largely upon cotton growing and cotton spinning. In 1900 the
cotton crop of North Carolina was worth more than twenty
million dollars and there are 250 cotton mills in North Car-
olina that cost $33,632,080. In the manufacture of cotton
this State is advancing more rapidly than any State in the
Union. This is the pride of North Carolina and Charlotte is
the nucleus of this great and growing industry. This after-
noon I rode along the east of your city and looked upon this
metropolis of enterprise. Here and there were the tall smoke
stacks of the cotton mills, the mainspring of the commercial
life of this city and section. Surely the builders of these cot-
ton mills ought to be encouraged. They give employment to
people and capital; they benefit the farmer by increasing the
price of his cotton; they add wealth and population to the
State; they are building our cities; they have changed Char-
lotte from a provincial town to the leading commercial and
industrial city of the State. The party or law that throws an
obstacle in the way of the development of our cotton mill in-
dustry is a public enemy. The men whose capital and whose
energy are building these mills are the benefactors of the
State. They ought to be encouraged and this great southern
industry now fairly beginning is entitled to consideration.
The Republican Party by its tariff schedule has done all that
it could to cripple this industry. Seventy-five per cent of the
cost of a cotton mill is for machinery; of a two hundred
thousand dollar mill one hundred and fifty thousand dollars is
for machinery. On this machinery there is a tariff tax of
from forty to forty-five per cent — sixty thousand dollars ap-
proximately. Before our enterprising man can build a factory
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 75
and turn a wheel in Charlotte he must pay sixty thousand
dollars to some northern syndicate for the privilege. Sixty
thousand dollars taken from the industry of this section and
given as a bonus to some syndicate in Pennsylvania or New
England !
The County of Mecklenburg in this way has lost more
than a million dollars — more than a million dollars earned by
the industry and energy of her people gone forever and with-
out any compensation. In this way, on cotton mill machinery
alone North Carolina has been forced to pay more than ten
million dollars as a bonus to northern syndicates. This ten
million dollars our people have earned and others have gotten
it by unjust laws without consideration, and yet the Repub-
lican Party pretends to be the friend of enterprise in the
South. Whenever we build a new cotton mill or buy a new
machine this process of extortion goes on. It is not strange
that the mill business is not in a flourishing condition. The
wonder is that it has done as well as it has. While this great
wrong is perpetrated on the people of the South we may ex-
pect mills to close down as they have done. It is not strange
that "progress halts on palsied feet."
The tariff affects agriculture as it has the manufacture
of cotton. On all the farming utensils and on most of the
necessities of life that the farmer has to buy he must pay a
bonus from 25 to 100 per cent. As the great body of our peo-
ple are engaged in agriculture the bounty that the farmers
pay to the protected interest of the North amounts to im-
measurably more than the cotton mill men pay. It is this
policy that for thirty-five years has impoverished the South
while the North has made millions by keeping the farmer
poor. It is a policy that will always be enforced as long as
the Republican Party controls the Government. That party
was born to hatred of the South and its whole policy has been
to the ruin of the South. The only hope that the southern
farmer and the southern manufacturer has is the restoration
to power of the Democratic Party, the party of the people
and of the whole Union; the special friend of no section and
no class, but the party that would administer even handed
76 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
justice and righteous laws to all the people in every section
of the Union.
Senator Pritchard and the Republican Party claim that
the Republican administration and Republican laws have
brought to us prosperity. They say that in 1892 times were
good, that during the Democratic administration under Cleve-
land times were hard and that prosperity came again with
the restoration to power of the Republican Party. The basic
assumption of their argument is that times were good in 1892
and '93. This is not a fact. In 1892 our financial system was
in unsound condition and industry was demoralized. As an
evidence of this fact Cleveland's administration borrowed six
hunderd and sixty-two millions of dollars, but borrowed this
money by selling bonds printed upon plates prepared by Fos-
ter, Secretary of the Treasury under President Harrison.
Senator Pritchard says that Foster knew that the Democrats
were going to borrow money and that he had the plates pre-
pared because he was a political prophet. It does not take
any political prophet to know that it is and always will be
necessary for the Democrats to borrow money after the Re-
publicans have had a chance at the treasury; it does not take
a prophet nor the son of a prophet to know that when they
have their hands on the public funds either State or National
and are driven out of office they take all with them and leave
nothing behind. It was necessary to borrow this money be-
cause of the unsound condition of our finances, a condition
created by thirty years of Republican profligacy and misrule.
As a further evidence of the fact that times were hard in
1892 we must remember that it was then the Populist Party
was organized. This was a protest, though an unwise protest,
against the unjust laws that then bore heavily on the farm-
ing people. We were entering the panic which reached the
crisis in 1893. Baring Bros., of London, failed in 1890, which
was the beginning of this era of financial depression; in 1893
and 1894 we were suffering from the disease with which the
body politic was afflicted long before the election of Cleveland.
From 1893 and after the passage of the Wilson Tariff Bill
times began to improve. The condition of the people got
better. These are facts of history even now fresh in the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 77
memory of everyone and it is small politics to assume the
contrary.
I have already attempted to show how the Dingley Bill
cannot bring prosperity to us. To take from a man or an
industry from 25 to 100 per cent of his just earnings certainly
does not tend to make him prosperous. The Republicans can-
not claim with any show of reason that the Dingley Bill
brought prosperity to this country for the same prosperity
we have is world wide. They are enjoying it in England,
Germany, France and Japan. Senator Pritchard would hardly
claim that the tariff on mica has brought prosperity to the
empires of the world. His argument is based upon the old
fallacy, "post hoc ergo procter hoc." Whatever prosperity we
have has come in spite of the Dingley Bill. Whatever pros-
perity our people have had comes to them by unremitting
toil and by hard work of muscle and brain. If our farmers
have prosperity it is because they have gone out in the early
morning and worked hard all day and dug it out of the ground ;
it has not come to them by the Dingley Bill. At half past four
in the morning at my home in Asheville I hear the long, loud,
hoarse whistle of the cotton mill, and when I inquire why it
blows so long and so loud they tell me that little children
must be awakened out of their beds that they may go to the
mill while it is yet dark and work for weary, weary hours
until it is dark again. They do this to accumulate a little
money to buy clothes and school books when school opens.
It is by work like this that the poor people make a living for
themselves and their families.
Man has not only worked with his muscle but he has
worked with his brain. He has looked into the recesses of
nature and there discovered her mysterious forces. He has
harnessed the steam to his trains and drives them across the
country with a speed faster than that of the fastest race
horse. He looked into the clouds and saw the lightning and
bridled it and harnessed it and drives it like a docile animal,
and when it springs from the dynamo instead of the rattle of
the terrifying thunder we hear the song of a thousand looms
and the music of ten thousand spindles. Steam and electricity
have taken the place of brute force and the machine performs
78 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
all the delicate functions of human hands. Man by his work
and genius has created wealth and in thousand fold abundance.
Yes, I will admit that prosperity has come — I will admit that
it has come to the men to whom the city of Charlotte has
paid more than a million dollars in bounty. I will admit that
it has come to the syndicates and trust magnates of the
world; it has come to those who "toil not, neither do they
spin," but it has not come to the people as it ought to have
come.
The American people are the most industrious people of
the world and the smartest people. We have in America a
conservative, hardworking citizenship. They do not owe the
Republican Party for what they have earned by their muscle
and by their brain, and yet they tell us that if the working-
man can start out early in the morning with a bucket full of
coarse food and work hard all day and every day that he may
make an humble living for his family, he must come back
home at night and fall upon his knees and thank Mark Hanna
and the Dingley Bill for the great prosperity that he enjoys.
Perhaps you have heard the story of the little fellow who
carried his father's corn to the mill for the first time. He
didn't know anything about the management of the mill and
pretty soon he saw the miller come and dip his toll dish deep
into the sack and pour his toll into the bin. Then he poured
the corn into the hopper, shaking out every grain. The little
fellow was looking on in wide-eyed astonishment and when
the miller dropped the sack the little fellow grabbed it and
bolted out of the door, he ran home as fast as he could, the
miller after him. The little fellow was fleet of foot and outran
the miller and got home and fell exhausted into the arms of
his father, who inquired what on earth was the matter. The
little fellow replied that the miller had stolen the last grain
of corn and given him a devil of a race for the sack but he
had managed to save that.
The working people of the country make all the corn and
carry it to the mill ; they build all the palaces and all the rail-
roads ; they make and spin all of the cotton and if they have
even a sack left Senator Pritchard tells them they ought to
be thankful for that; that this is prosperity and that they
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 79
are enjoying this prosperity because he had the tariff put on
mica and chicken roosters.
The Republican Party stands for the policies that prevent
an industrial upbuilding of the South as a section, and the
deserved prosperity of the people, and it also stands against
the great body of her people. It stands for monopoly and the
trusts. Any man or corporation engaged in legitimate enter-
prise should have the protection and encouragement of the
laws and receive just treatment. An individual or corporation,
rich or poor, great or small, weak or powerful, should be con-
sidered as a vital part of the body politic and should receive
encouragement. Corporations are agents of industry and
great corporations are necessary to carry on gigantic enter-
prise and for the full realization of the possibilities of this
progressive age. They are creatures of state and should be
the agents of progress, but when a corporation has grown to
such proportions that it will not tolerate competition, when
it is no longer a legitimate enterprise, when it has for its
aim the destruction of all enterprise and the paralysis of in-
dustry that it may for its own advantages arbitrarily fix the
price of the necessities of life, when in the enjoyment of crim-
inal monopoly it extortions upon the helpless, the defenseless
and the poor to satisfy its greed, the Government should inter-
fere. Such an organization as I have described is the modern
"trust." These criminals are protected by the Republican
Party. There are about 280 of them in the United States.
As shown by the testimony before the Industrial Committee
they control about 75 per cent of the manufactured product
of the country. In their interest the Republican Party man-
ages this Government.
Senator Pritchard has defined the trust as a cancer and
says this American cancer cannot be removed from the body
politic without causing death. This is a humiliating admis-
sion for the Republican Party to make. After controlling the
Government for thirty-five years they admit that we are
affliced with an incurable cancer that is eating away our life.
Senator Pritchard calls himself a cancer doctor but he is not.
He refuses to apply the knife to the cancer. To show his
attitude and the attitude of his party on the question of trusts,
80 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
I read the following resolution introduced in Congress by Mr.
Richardson, of Tennessee:
"That when it is shown to the satisfaction of the Presi-
dent and Secretary of the Treasury that articles and com-
modities are manufactured and controlled or produced in the
United States by a trust or trusts, the importation of such
articles and commodities from foreign countries shall be free
of duty until, in the opinion of the President and Secretary
of the Treasury, such manufacture, control, or production
shall have ceased."
This resolution could not possibly affect any legitimate
industry in this country. It would do nothing but take the
production away from the criminal. The Republicans, of
course, refused to consider it. Senator Pritchard says he
would not vote for it to save Mr. Richardson's life. Senator
Pritchard may be willing to see Mr. Richardson die for apply-
ing to his party such a severe test that exposes their hy-
pocrisy; but the object is not to save Mr. Richardson's life
but to stop the extortions of these criminal organizations.
When this test is applied the Republican Senator from North
Carolina sent there to represent the people, the honest hard-
working people of this State, when he is forced to take a
stand, at the dictation of his party he stands by the million-
aire combines and against his own people whose interest he
should protect. We will repudiate the party and the senator
that repudiate us in this hour of trial and we want a Senator
who will stand by the people and not by the criminal trusts.
To demonstrate the iniquity of the trusts I call your at-
tention to the fact that they sell the necessities of life and
articles of industry, such as agricultural implements, cotton
mill machinery and the like, cheaper to the foreigner than
they sell the same class of implements to the home people.
They have two sets of customers and two sets of prices. One
set of customers the people of the United States, the people
of Mecklenburg County; the other the foreigners that the
Republican Party has always pretended to protect us against.
Yet the trust under the protection of the Dingley Bill charges
the American farmer and the American mill man from 25 to
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 81
100 per cent more for the same class of articles than it charges
the foreigner.
The Democrats in Congress propose to stop that. Here is
another resolution introduced and supported by the Demo-
crats.
"That when it is shown to the satisfaction of the Presi-
dent and Secretary of the Treasury that any article or com-
modity which is manufactured in the United States is sold in
a foreign country more cheaply than the price at which the
same article or commodity is sold in the United States, the
rate of duty on such article or commodity shall be reduced
by the President and Secretary of the Treasury 50 per cent
of the present rate, or to such extent as to prevent the con-
tinuance of such irregularity and injustice, and remove the
indirect tariff bounty which promotes the same."
The Republicans refuse not only to protect the American
people but refuse to allow anyone else to withhold the hand
of the sandbaggar and the robber. They would not allow this
resolution which appeals to the justice and fairness of every
man to become the law. This protection of the trusts by the
law is so notoriously wrong that the Republican Convention
in the great Agricultural State of Iowa has declared against
it and for the Democratic position. Mr. Babcock, the Chair-
man of the Republican Congressional Committee, has declared
that this protection of the trusts cannot be defended. Sec-
retary Shaw admits that it is wrong and the Rough Rider
who charged with waving sword up the bloody, storm-swept
heights of San Juan could not face the storm of opposition to
this policy that is rising in the great Northwest. He started
to the State of Iowa and the Northwest but hurt his leg and
had to come back. He now says that the tariff ought to be
readjusted. The people say so but Senator Pritchard says
not an "i" shall be dotted nor a "t" crossed in this Tariff
Bill. He is like the boy who "stood on the burning deck
whence all but him had fled." Brave Senator.
The tariff policy of the Republican Party discriminates
against the Southern people and in favor of trusts and syn-
dicates at home and tends to prevent the legitimate expansion
82 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
of our trade abroad. If we prohibit foreign nations from
trading with us, they will be more inclined to prohibit our
trade from entering their ports, if we refuse to neighbor with
them, they will not feel as friendly to us. Our trade with
other nations cannot continue to increase unless we exchange
with them. It is upon this foreign trade that the price of
our manufactured cotton goods depends and this trade must
be procured by peace — not by war.
The Philippine War is the most stupendous blunder of the
ages. Manila is not the gateway to the Orient, it is five
hundred miles out of the current of trans-oceanic commerce.
Nor is it necessary to own a country in order to trade with it,
that was the medieval idea, but not the custom of modern
civilization. In the attempt to conquer these islands we have
already expended, according to Senator Hoar, the greatest
living Republican statesman, and according to Edward Atkin-
son, the great statistician, more than six hundred million dol-
lars. Our trade with the Philippine Islands will never be
worth the interest on this vast sum of money. Ten thousand
American boys have been sacrificed, the life of each one is
worth more than all that trade. A mother in Asheville re-
ceived a telegram announcing the death of her child, after
this came letters day after day from the dead boy written
while he was in the full enjoyment of life — voices from the
grave. You cannot justify this war, you cannot defend its
cruelties. In the language of Senator Hoar:
"We repealed the Declaration of Independence. We
changed the Monroe Doctrine from a doctrine of eternal
righteousness and justice, resting on the consent of the gov-
erned, to a doctrine of brutal selfishness, looking only to our
own advantage. We crushed the only republic in Asia. We
made war on the only Christian people in the East. We con-
verted a war of glory to a war of shame. We vulgarized the
American flag. We introduced perfidy into the practice of
war. We inflicted torture on unarmed men to extort con-
fession. We put children to death. We established recon-
centrado camps. We devastated provinces. We baffled the
aspirations of a people for liberty."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 83
And yet there is no peace. Let this Government proclaim
that we will treat these islands as we did Cuba and peace will
come at once, and it will not come until then. We, today, con-
trol only so much of that territory as is held by the Army of
Occupation. You may establish your law by the policy you
are pursuing, but it will be the law of Torquemada in Aragon,
the rule that the Duke of Alva established in the Netherlands.
You may make that land a desolation and call it peace, but it
will be "the peace that reigned in Warsaw."
We believe in the expansion of trade, we need the trade
of China and Japan and of all the nations of the earth. Give
the expansive energy of the American people an opportunity
and it will establish the empire of our commerce all over the
world. The flag of the Republic should float on every sea as
an emblem of universal emancipation, the ensign of a world
power whose supremacy in arts and commerce is acknowledged
by all the nations. The policy of the Democratic Party would
stop this inglorious war and bring peace with honor and ex-
panding commerce. Everywhere else on the earth has the
sound of war died away. I say Amen to the prayer of the
great old Roman Pontiff when he asked that his eyes might
Close on worldwide peace. "Oh, let the bugles sound the truce
of God to the whole world forever." Let the iron band of
selfishness and force and war with which Republicanism has
bound the earth give place to the golden Cestus of peace that
shall encircle the world and enlighten and bless the children
of men.
In North Carolina we are in the morning of, I trust, a
brighter and a grander day, a day of liberty of thought and
speech — full of hope. This is so because two years ago over
all opposition our Anglo-Saxon manhood declared it as a part
of our Constitution, wrote it there as an everlasting covenant,
an immutable decree that never again should this great State
be cursed with the damnation of negro domination. Yes, the
people are free to think as they please and vote as they please,
84 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
but who brought about this freedom and who exhausted all
their energy to hold us in bondage?
The Amendment has been adopted; it is now the law, and
not a single native-born white man has been disfranchised.
You say that some have been disfranchised by failure to pay
the poll tax; not so. Some have failed to qualify themselves
to vote at the next election, but they are not permanently dis-
franchised. If an able-bodied man under fifty years of age
will not willingly contribute two dollars toward the expense
of this great Government, whose protection and privileges he
enjoys to the full extent, he ought not to expect to participate
in the making and administering of the laws. Senator
Pritchard says there are thirty thousand of these men. Thirty
thousand able-bodied men in North Carolina unable to raise
two dollars after two years' notice! Thirty thousand able-
bodied paupers in this State ! In this era of great prosperity !
Senator Pritchard ought to repudiate this statement or hush
his prosperity argument.
But now he tells us that the boys who come of age after
1908 will be disfranchised; this might be the case were the
Republicans to control the State. Dr. Curry said that in 1895
and 1897 they set back the cause of education twenty-five
years in North Carolina. In 1868 and 1869 we had a large
school fund, it could not be used as it was collected, for the
boys were in the army; it had been accumulated there under
the honest administration of our great War Governor. When
the Republicans came into power they laid their unholy hands
upon this sacred fund and stole and squandered it. By this
great crime many a good man in North Carolina is now with-
out an education — we will never trust them again. The Demo-
cratic Party will guarantee to every boy in North Carolina
the opportunities of an education.
For two years the Democratic Party has been in power;
the Republicans say that we have spent too much money. How
have we spent it? Three hundred thousand dollars for debts
created by their profligacy and theft, one of the thieves is
now in the penitentiary. Yes, we spent more money, but taxes
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 85
have not been increased. They complain that we raised the
Governor's salary a thousand dollars a year, Governor Russell
recommended that, but if we could trade off Governor Russell
every day for a chivalrous, high-minded Aycock, the friend of
the people, the apostle of education, we would have a pros-
perity greater than that of the Dingley Bill. Yes, we spent
more money, and two hundred thousand dollars went to edu-
cate the children of the State. They complain that we spent
the money, yet they are ashamed to complain of the manner
in which we have spent it. We regard not their complaints.
The people of North Carolina endorsed the appropriation of
this money. Yes, we spent more money, two hundred thousand
dollars went to pension the Confederate soldiers. We will
take care of these old veterans, we owe them a debt of grati-
tude. In the wreck and ruin of war we were rich in the
priceless heritage of their memory.
"They were men whom death could not terrify, whom de-
feat could not dishonor." They glorified the fallen cause by
the simple manhood of their lives and by the heroism of their
death. They have cast over the South the glamour of an
immortal chivalry and consecrated the cause of Dixie with the
blood of an immortal sacrifice. It was devotion like this that
made the South, though torn and bleeding, beautiful and
splendid in her desolation, and in her woe. For forty years
they have been the builders of the New South and the pro-
jectors of her larger destiny. The Federal Government pro-
vides for the soldiers that followed its flag. That is right.
We will provide for the soldiers of the armies of the "storm-
cradled nation that fell." When Senator Pritchard was a
member of the Legislature in 1895 he and his party voted
against giving one cent of pension to the needy heroes that
had hobbled home on crutches from Appomatox.
There is one class of men whom we do not believe in pen-
sioning — the deserter. There are men here who remember the
last two years of the war. The world was against us. Armies
were crashing down upon us like a ring of fire. Sherman was
marching to the sea and leaving behind him ashes and deso-
lation. In that time there were men whose courage never
86 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
faltered. Ragged and hungry and bleeding they stood in the
trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. They stood with
an unfailing devotion, though sometimes they knew that their
wives and little ones at home were living on the corn they
picked up from the wagon ruts of the invading armies. They
died remembering Dixie like the Greeks remembering Argos —
in the language of the old song: "While one kissed a ringlet
of thin gray hair and one kissed a lock of brown."
But there were some who did not stand. Traitors and de-
serters they were. They turned their backs upon the only
home and country that they ever had. They sneaked through
the lines. They threw away the old gray uniform and put on
the blue. They came back to shoot and kill, to rob the de-
fenseless wives and mothers of their comrades who were fight-
ing and dying at the front ; to burn their homes and to mur-
der the innocent. To these men Senator Pritchard has given
a royal pension. He said to the hero of the Confederacy that
he might starve, but with the money of the honest people he
feeds and clothes the deserter. Yes, I denounce this in the
name of the forty thousand sons of North Carolina who sleep
tonight beneath the sod in the battle-scarred bosom of old
Virginia. I denounce it in the name of the men who rushed
defiant of death through the storm of Chickamauga and
Gettysburg. In the name of every Confederate soldier I de-
nounce it. In memory of the women who were robbed and
the men who were murdered I denounce it. In the name of
all brave men who love courage and despise cowardice, who
believe in fidelity to comrades and in love for home and in
loyalty to a great cause, I denounce this infamous act. I do
not stand alone. Here is the resolution of the last Reunion of
Confederate Veterans of North Carolina:
"Resolved, That we condemn and denounce the Act of Con-
gress which rewards treachery and perfidy by giving pensions
to Confederate deserters for fighting against their former flag
and comrades."
That resolution was unanimously and enthusiastically
adopted. Senator Pritchard has eulogized General Carr as a
Confederate soldier. The resolution is what he said for he
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 87
was there in command. He has eulogized Cy Watson as a
Confederate soldier. Cy Watson said at Henderson that he
hoped that the last man who wore the gray would die and be
buried and be forgotten before the South forgave the men who
rewarded the traitors and deserters of the lost cause. The
judgment of the South is that the party that starves the sol-
dier and pensions the deserter should be accursed forever.
We provided for the institutions of charity. The humanity
of the people demands this, although the Republican Party
objected. We provided for the necessities of the University
and the State Schools. The Republicans would take from the
soldier his pension, withhold the blessed gifts of charity from
the unfortunate, and cripple our institutions of learning. The
Democrats have appropriated this money honestly, and, I be-
lieve, wisely. We defy them to show where a single dollar
has been dishonestly applied. The present Democratic admin-
istration, as all preceding ones, is honest and above reproach,
while every Republican administration has brought shame
upon the State and left every Department of the Government
reeking with scandal.
Turn over this State to the crowd that has polluted it, that
has humiliated our people? Never again in this generation!
We read in the Good Book that in olden times the Children of
Israel were in the house of bondage and toiling under the lash
of Egyptian task masters. And Moses came to them and
spoke to them and told them to gird their loins and get away
from this land of Egypt and out of this house of bondage, and
to go to their own land and take it. The Children of Israel
heard him, and though the Great Sea intervened and a wil-
derness of storm and pestilence and earthquake, they obeyed
the voice of Moses and started for Canaan. Ever and anon
where dangers and difficulties beset them there were those
who persuaded them to go back, but under the leadership of
Moses they pressed onward. Moses did not enter the promised
land, but saw it from afar. The Children of Israel did enter.
We have not journeyed for forty years through the wilderness,
but near about it. In 1868, we, too, were in the house of
bondage, and Zeb. Vance came to us and spoke to us and told
88 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
us to gird our loins and get away from Republicanism and
negro domination, and take this land for it was ours and the
land of our fathers. For thirty-five years we journeyed in
the wilderness, though federal bayonets opposed us, though
one hundred and twenty thousand negroes in solid phalanx
opposed us, though they put upon us a Civil Rights Bill and
tried to intimidate us with Force Bills, though they threatened
us with Federal Courts and federal power, and though every
Republican fought against the deliverance of his country, yet
under the leadership of Vance we pressed onward.
The great old Senator passed away, but in his spirit and
under the leadership of Senator Simmons and Governor Ay-
cock and their fellows, we pressed onward. We crossed the
river, we passed into the land of Liberty and Enlightenment,
and we brought Senator Pritchard over with us, though we
had to tie him hand and foot. We always liked him. He
didn't want to come. When he got into the new land he
thanked God that he had gotten there, and as soon as he got
up off his knees he said he wanted to be a ruler in Israel right
at once.
The child has not yet been born in North Carolina that will
see the day when the party that has degraded our people, that
has attempted to perpetuate the political equality of the negro
race, will be restored to power. The new day has dawned, but
the judgment has been pronounced against this Republican
Party.
Democracy, united, enthusiastic and steadfast in its pur-
pose to guard the welfare of all the people, to protect North
Carolina from the hand of the despoiler, to promote the up-
building of this great State, marches forward with victorious
assurances.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 89
THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
(Greensboro, June, 1906)
NOTE: This speech, made at the opening 1 of the State Democratic
Convention at Greensboro, was two years before Locke Craig was a
candidate for the nomination of Governor of North Carolina.
It is a high honor for me, Mr. Chairman, at your invita-
tion, to preside temporarily over this Convention. The men
that compose this assembly represent the intellectuality, the
virtue and the patriotism of North Carolina. They stand for
the policies that embody the highest conceptions of justice
and that conduce to the attainments of the loftiest aspira-
tions of our people. Never, in all our history, did a conven-
tion meet under more auspicious circumstance. Our people
are at peace. The political status of the races has been de-
termined to the satisfaction of all. The honest administra-
tion of just laws guarantees protection to every citizen and
every interest. An efficient public school has been opened to
every child in the State. The State Institutions of Learning
are thronged with eager students and rank with the very best
in the Union. The denominational colleges are flourishing as
never before. Universal education is the necessary result of
this great awakening. The unfortunates have been remem-
bered in mercy; hundreds of thousands of dollars have been
expended to provide homes for the insane and schools for the
blind and the deaf and dumb. The aged and afflicted veterans
of the Confederacy have not been forgotten. Their deeds in
victory and in defeat are a glory to the race and the priceless
heritage of the South.
Temperance reform has steadily and surely progressed.
The sale and manufacture of liquor in most of the towns and
in the country districts have been abolished. The settlement
of this vexatious question has been put upon a sound and
practicable basis. But our people must remember that it is
difficult, if not impossible, to enforce prohibitory laws in the
larger towns and cities unless they be the expression of the
will of the majority, and unless their enforcement be de-
90 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
manded by the substantial moral sentiment of the community.
This reform, like all others, to be effective and permanent,
must be the work of these municipalities.
Every Department of the State Government has been
ably and honestly administered. No scandal has disgraced
our annals since the Republicans were driven from power.
Even the State Prison, which for years was an incubus and a
burden, is above reproach, and is yielding a handsome profit.
In every section there are evidences of progress. Our
county roads have been improved and the increasing demands
of commerce have necessitated the construction of railroads.
Diversified industries are springing up. Above the roar of the
cataract and the bass voice of the steam engine there rises
the song of multiplex wheel and spindle. The farms are cul-
tivated and improved by scientific industry. Our towns are
growing into cities. I believe that in intellectual and ma-
terial advancement, in the brawn and sinew of moral man-
hood, North Carolina is the greatest of the Southern States.
In the retrospect of the last decade the good citizenship,
without regard to politics, must rejoice that the party that
cursed and blighted the State was overthrown; that the pol-
icies of the Democratic Party were enacted into statutes and
written into the Constitution; that the era of shame and
bitterness has been followed by the era of security and ad-
vancement.
To maintain their power our opponents stood for the per-
petuation of negro suffrage. They championed the cause of
whiskey. Bar-rooms and still-houses were their allies. Today
they stand before us routed, disgraced, demoralized, with pub-
lic plunder for aspiration and Marion Butler for leader.
Verily, the man and the occasion have met.
Democracy, with an unsullied record, with an unalterable
determination that its future shall be worthy of its past, with
plighted faith to the highest upbuilding of the State, and
with an exalted conception of her destiny, enters with vic-
torious assurance the campaign of 1906.
The South is entering upon an era of unprecedented de-
velopment and prosperity. The increase of population is mul-
tiplying the demand for the products of her mines, her forests
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 91
and her fields. No land but Dixie can profitably produce cot-
ton, the most valuable of all the staples of agriculture. Our
trade in the East is just beginning. As yet it has but skirted
the seaboard of the Orient. The raiment most adaptable to
the needs of the Mongolian race comes from the cotton fields
of the South. When by ingenuity and energy of our people
and by the cultivation of peaceful relations the products of
our mills shall be carried to the unnumbered millions of those
vast empires, we may realize that Minister Wu knew what
he was talking about when he said that two inches added to
the length of a Chinaman's shirt would double the price of
cotton. With cotton at ten cents a pound, and all indications
are that the natural demand will keep it above that figure,
the South is the most favored land of all the earth, and will
be the richest agricultural country of the world.
The settlement of one problem is but the evolution of an-
other. Having grappled with the race problem; having ad-
justed the situation as near as we can to the eternal law that
will eventually work out its solution; remembering our obli-
gation to the weaker race, as the vast amount of money de-
voted to the education of the negro will testify ; realizing that
the responsibility for the just and humane settlement of this
problem is ours; that we are accountable for the result to
ourselves and to our posterity and not to others; the re-
juvenated South is now doing and will do a foremost part in
the solution of the social and economic questions of the age.
These questions are necessitated by our great industrial de-
velopment.
This is the age of material progress. Man's intellect and
energies are now devoted to this, and for this he has sum-
moned to his service the Genii in whose keeping are the
treasures of the earth, and the limitless forces of immensity.
This is peculiarly the industrial age. As other epochs
have been conspicuous for attainments in war or religion or
politics, so ours is the era of industrial accomplishment. The
spirit of victorious enterprise is everywhere. The men of
power are not the captains of armies, or the oracles of sen-
ates, but the captains and organizers of industry. They are
the potent factors of modern life and create conditions that
92 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
determine the status of people, individually and collectively.
It is the age of industry and the age of co-operative industry.
In the evolution of progress we have passed from the in-
definite, unorganized and homogeneous state to the definite,
organized state, in which each department of industry has
been segregated and performs its separate functions in this
great modern social organism. Co-operation is today the rule
and law of commerce and production. There is not a single
great enterprise operated in antagonism to or competition
with another such enterprise. In defiance of the common and
statutory law, both State and Federal, the competitive system
has been destroyed, and the other built upon its ruins. Under
the old order there developed an attractive civilization, an
individuality, strong and comprehensive. In the Old South
each plantation was a community within itself. It was
equipped with all necessary appliances. The planter produced
his own corn and meat. He had his carpenter shop ; his black-
smith shop ; his gin house ; his spinning wheels and his looms.
He was cultivated, intellectual and knightly. He was broad-
minded and understood the policies of government and the
duties of citizenship. He was the finest type of manhood.
But in that state of society the gigantic forces of modern
life would never develop and materialize. The saying that
"Competition is the life of trade" does not now apply. Com-
petition sharpened men. It made them shrewd and resource-
ful. But it is not the law of man's higher life, either in
morals or commerce. Co-operation in its high and legitimate
sense is the law of our highest life, and it is the law of
progress.
The concentration and control of vast resources is essen-
tial to any of our great modern industrial institutions and
every such institution has inevitably come to be a monopoly.
Some contend that monopoly is the result of a progressive
business evolution, and is the necessary agency to the cheapen-
ing of production and to the realization of the possibilities of
modern development. Others contend that it is a public
enemy — the monstrous offspring of unrighteous law and un-
fair advantage. In both of these contentions there is an ele-
ment of truth. But monopoly is here. It is a reality, and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 93
the one great vital absorbing question of modern life is,
"What shall we do with it?" It is the question which the
Sphinx of Destiny asks of our time. The answer constitutes
the fundamental difference between the Democratic and the
Republican Party. Democracy means that these monopolies
shall serve and not rule; Republicanism that they shall rule
and not serve. I am speaking of the real meaning of the two
political organizations, and not their professions of faith. To
be more accurate, the Democratic Party is that agency
through which the people may expect to control monopoly.
The Republican Party is that agency by which monopoly ex-
pects to exploit the people.
Theodore Roosevelt is, perhaps, the most popular Presi-
dent that the country ever had, and all of his popularity is
due to the fact that he has advocated policies to which his
own party is deadly opposed, which were originated by the
Democratic Party, and clearly announced in our national
platforms. I would not detract from the President's laurels.
As Democrats we honor him for the fact that by the irre-
sistible force of public opinion he coerced the stubborn
leaders of his party into the support of Democratic measures.
Since the passage of the Railroad Rate Bill, I assume that
it is universally admitted that the Government should super-
vise and control the public service corporations. But why
should such control be limited to these monopolies ? The con-
cern that has and exercises an undisputed monopoly in the
production of a necessity of life, is as essentially in the ser-
vice of the public, and a public necessity, as is a railway or
telegraph company. I am speaking now of those great truths
and combinations which have crushed or absorbed all oppo-
sition and competition, in whose power the individual is help-
less, whose operations are interstate and international, and
whose supremacy no rival can dispute.
Meat and sugar, and oil and coal, are as necessarily and
universally used as freight cars and railroad tickets. The
actual character and nature of the business and not its char-
tered privilege, determine the right and duty of Government
to interfere and control.
Under the old system, competition was the regulator. Com-
94 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
petition having been destroyed, there must be another solu-
tion to the situation. You can with impunity trust neither
men nor corporations with arbitrary power. It does not ap-
pease the appetite nor relieve the public nausea to be told
that Packing Houses are not quasi-public corporations, nor
does it sweeten the coffee or alleviate extortion to be told
that the Sugar Trust has not the right of Eminent Domain.
The President of the Louisville & Nashville Railway Com-
pany denned the position of all monopolies when he said that
the public could pay the charges demanded by the railroads
or "it can walk," while the business creed of the people is
expressed in the saying, "live and let live."
The evil of monopoly is not in its vast powers for produc-
tion. Not in the fact that it can produce enough for all, Not
in the fact that it has no competition. Certainly not in its
power and capacity to cheapen production. The evil is in the
fact that it exercises its power for rapacity and oppression.
You cannot destroy these great industrial enterprises —
these monopolies. They are integral elements of our civiliza-
tion itself. They have been built up in accordance with the
law of association and co-operation. This is the source of
their vigor, the generative force of their growth. I would
not destroy them. I would not disturb the equilibrium of
business. I would not impede the march of progress. I would
not mar a single note in the grand symphony of the music of
industry. But I would lay the all-controlling hand of the
sovereign power of the people upon every monopoly with the
command that it must conform to the law of simple justice
to all.
The present tariff for the protection of trusts enables them
to more easily "hold up" the American people. No ingenious
sophistry can make a plausible defense for such "protection"
by which the American Trust sells to the foreigner necessary
commodities, after paying the freight across the seas, for one-
half the price exacted from the American citizen. This
iniquitous policy is, and forever will be, condemned by the
Democratic Party. But I do not believe that the abolition of
the tariff would destroy the trusts. If the tariff should be
adjusted according to the Democratic idea, instead of a na-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 95
tional, we would have international trusts, as was effected by
the combination of the American Tobacco Company and the
Imperial Tobacco Company.
The right to destroy includes the right to regulate. If the
power to oppress and to rob be essential to the existence of
any institution, that institution ought to be destroyed. Con-
cede that it is the duty of Government to forbid agreements
for the artificial and arbitrary fixing of prices, it follows that
Government should prohibit the act, be it accomplished by a
monopoly or by agreement. It is the act and not the agree-
ment that works the mischief.
Government control has been necessitated by our indus-
trial development. How shall it be effectuated? It should, of
course, be done with consideration and in the spirit of con-
servatism. Not in the spirit of retaliation or retribution, but
it must be done efficiently, it must be done in reality and not
as a "sop to Cerberus." It must be done by the friends of
the people, not by the friends of the trusts. If rightly done
it will be by the Democratic Party, certainly not by the Re-
publican Party.
The public utilities of this State exercise and enjoy ex-
clusive privileges by grant from the people. A fair return
to invested capital and just compensation for business ability
is theirs by right, and will be conceded by all. But the Gov-
ernment would be false to its trust to permit them, by the
exercise of these special and exclusive privileges, to charge
the people unreasonable rates for the payment of enormous
dividends and the booming of watered stock.
This governmental control should be entrusted to the im-
mediate representatives of the people. Our State Corporation
Commission and the National Commission should be clothed
with powers sufficient to correct and prevent the abuses of
monopoly. These powers rest upon the broad basis that the
power of Government for correction is co-extensive with the
power of monopoly for abuse.
The States can regulate commerce within their boundaries,
but the great bulk of our commerce is interstate. Transpor-
tation facilities and modern progress have done more to con-
solidate the nation than sentiment, or sword or Constitutional
96 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Amendment. The railroads have bound the country together
with bands of iron. Every section is dependent upon every
other section for the every-day needs of life. Greensboro is
commercially closer to San Francisco today than it was to
Raleigh when the Union was established. Then the States
were independent of each other. Now they are dependent.
Commerce between the States is of momentous interest to
every citizen, and as to this, the States are powerless to pro-
tect themselves against the charges of transportation com-
panies, no matter how unjust the demand or how grievous
the wrong. This power to regulate interstate commerce must
be exercised by the general Government.
There are those who pretend to be alarmed at the sug-
gestion of popular interference. I resent the imputation that
property is secure and that enterprise is protected only when
the disciples of Wall Street are on guard. When, by all man-
ner of fraudulent practices and undue advantage, millions and
billions have been drained from the earnings of toil without
a protest from a long-suffering people, you are estopped to
say that they are unjust.
The enlightened judgment of the people has always been
righteous. Its purpose is necessarily to produce the greatest
good for the greatest number. The people are now awakening
to the importance of this great question. They have deter-
mined to assert their sovereignty. You cannot avoid it if you
would. They will not stop until their will has found expres-
sion in the law of the land. The avalanche has begun to
move. It will crush whomsoever would trifle with it, and
grind to powder him that would block its way.
That law that is based upon the universal conscience, that
results from the collective will may not be a perfect law, but
it is the nearest practicable approach to the ideal law of per-
fect liberty and perfect justice.
In these latter days some are prone to forget the source
of sovereign power. In the debate on the Rate Bill it was
contended by the leaders of the Republican Party that a court
created by statute became, by virtue of its creation, invested
with inherent power — such as the power to issue injunction —
which could not be prescribed by its creator, the law-making
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 97
body. This led to the conclusion that the great interstate
monopolies were beyond the supervision and control of legis-
lative authority, and were amenable only to the decrees of the
Federal Judiciary.
When United States Senators, the leaders of the Repub-
lican Party, boldly contend that there is any power beyond
and above the people, it is high time that we should take our
bearings from the landmarks of the fathers. If the Legis-
lature be powerless to limit the power of a statutory court,
the people in convention assembled are powerless to limit the
power of a constitutional court. Such a conclusion has for its
own postulate the "Divine Right of Judges." The opinion is
growing that the Federal Courts were created and constituted
as the guardians of corporate interests. Oliver Cromwell once
walked unceremoniously with covered head and stick in hand
into the Court, and shaking his fist at the Lord Chancellor,
asked him where he got his meat and bread. I would not com-
mend this act of the rugged old Protector, but some of the
judges should be reminded that they were appointed as ser-
vants of the people to protect and enforce the rights of men,
as well as the rights of property. That, in theory at least,
they are not the servants of a corporation and not the fellow-
servants of its employees. To the Supreme Court of the
United States the people can always look with confidence and
security. Since the formation of the Republic it has stood as
the incorruptible oracle of the law and the bulwark against
the encroachments of sectional hate and corporate power. The
people of North Carolina too should remember the Circuit
Judge who in emulation of the example of George W. Brooks
issued his writ for the protection of the liberty of the press
and the right of a North Carolina editor.
The Constitution has been invoked. It has always been
invoked to perpetuate the special privilege of the powerful
and has been distorted for the protection of vested wrong.
But this defense was abandoned by the "technical lawyers"
of the United States Senate who always look to the interests
of corporations.
No commission can be infallible; neither are the courts
98 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
infallible. What is needed is a tribunal of justness and fair-
ness before which wrongs can be righted without the inter-
midable delay and abuses of the right to litigate in the courts.
In the dawn of civilization the tribes of kindred races were
implacable enemies and robbed and slaughtered each other in
a state of chronic warfare. As they become more enlightened
and civilized the law of justice is evolved. It takes the place
of violence and rapine and regulates their relations to their
mutual advantage. They are united into a nation and enter
upon a higher and a larger destiny. If we apply to our so-
ciety, to all hostile classes and conflicting interests the simple
law of justice, modern civilization, throbbing with the pulsa-
tions of infinite forces, will enter upon its career of greatest
achievements.
The events of the last few years have astonished the
world. The little nation of the Orient has by a succession of
brilliant victories demonstrated a heroism and a magic
prowess in war. In Russia a benighted, sluggish people, agi-
tated by the aspirations of liberty and enlightenment, are
threatening the overthrow of despotism by revolution and
anarchy. In England the Liberals have been restored to
power by overwhelming majorities, and mechanics, the repre-
sentatives of Labor Unions, sit as influential members in the
British Parliament.
But the policies significant with the destiny of man will
be determined not in Great Britain, not by the Japanese, not
at St. Petersburg or by the bomb-throwers of Moscow, but
necessarily by the most progressive nation of the earth, the
American people — "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost
files of time."
The logic of events is vindicating the wisdom of the pol-
icies of the Democratic Party. Time and time again has the
policy of special privilege triumphed by the organized power
of predatory wealth, but the American people are too honest,
too strong, too intelligent, to be humbugged beyond the day
of redemption.
The manipulators of finance in recent campaigns have been
horrified. They made "broad their phylacteries." They em-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 99
bezzled the trust funds of the people to corrupt the electorate
for the preservation of the national honor. The Democratic
holders of insurance policies all over the Union have been con-
tributing money to buy votes for Republican candidates.
They say that ours is a time of greed and graft, but
wherever the fight has been made with vigor and earnestness
against corruption, whether in St. Louis or New York or
Philadelphia or Washington, the people have driven the rascals
out. The exiled Dynasty of High Ideals will be restored.
The forces are gathering for the next great national con-
test. Party alignments may be somewhat disturbed, but the
Democratic hosts are united and determined. The grand old
party, thrown to earth, rises with unconquerable vigor. Her
principles were born with human freedom and human progress.
They were enunciated in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights.
One hundred and thirty years ago they were proclaimed in
the grandest declaration of the rights of man. She hails
today as her leader a worthy successor of Thomas Jefferson
and Andrew Jackson. In the prime of magnificent powers he
is the idol of the American people. More than any other man
he stands for them. He is the embodiment of the highest
ideals of American politics. He has the earnestness, the
courage, the masterful energy of conviction. He has the
mental poise and the unselfish patriotism of George Wash-
ington and the sublime faith in the wisdom and righteousness
of the common people of Thomas Jefferson.
Another chapter of world history is beginning, and Bryan
is the leader of the people of the great nation.
100 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
THE ENERGY OF DEMOCRACY
Outline of speech delivered by Locke Craig at the annual banquet
of the New England Society, of Detroit, Michigan, on the evening of
December 19, 1907.
Plymouth Rock is a cornerstone in history. The landing
of the Mayflower was a dayspring in human destiny. An un-
eventful day in its actual occurrences, but its inner meaning,
how vast, how significant, with the destiny of the world ! In
its horoscope there is Concord, Bunker Hill, Lexington, and
Yorktown; the birth of the Republic; a people with indomi-
table energy and unfaltering faith, pushing their way through
difficulties and dangers across the continent, transforming by
their victorious industry the plain and the wilderness into
wide golden seed fields and steepled cities ; heavens lurid with
tempests of war; battle banners unfurled; armies marching;
clouds of cavalry galloping in the storm. All this is in the
horoscope of that day, and beyond the unfolding, illimitable
opportunities and responsibilities of the great nation of the
great age.
The early settlers of America came from the loins of the
mother country when the English intellect was in the zenith
of its splendor and the English character in the prime of its
power. It was the age of Bacon and Shakespeare, of John
Milton and Cromwell; an age of stern realities, militant for
convictions; an age when men had a faith that was worth
dying for. We might call it the heroic age of the English
race. Our ancestors were the robust offspring of that great
epoch. They came to the New World with no greed for gold.
They came to build a State where Justice was the law, where
the individual mind and character might have scope for
growth and development.
The Puritans, the Cavaliers and the Pilgrims were of the
same race, the same lineage, the same blood, the same re-
ligion. In dress and the cut of the hair, in the verbiage of
the ritual and in the ceremonial they did not agree. They
quarreled about intonations and genuflections. But their dif-
ferences were superficial. In bone and fibre they were homo-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 101
geneous. These Puritans burned witches; they removed the
Indians; they talked through their noses, but with all they
preached by deed and word the gospel of Manhood and Justice.
And the sound of their axes and rifles reverberating there
in the forests and bleak hills of New England, and their songs
in the log meeting houses "already reach like a great elegy,
like a stern prophecy," like a triumphant battle hymn, to the
ends of the world.
If I could express your conception of New England it
would be sublimer than Mount Washington, grander than
Daniel Webster, and more beautiful than the serene loveliness
of Priscilla. And if I could express the ideal of the South it
would be more inspiring than the dome of the Appalachians,
more exalted than her noblest man, more lovely than the re-
splendent beauty of her fairest daughter.
Every great people has a distinct meaning, and the spirit
of such a people is greater than that of any individual. Such
a people is the interpreter of a sublime thought, the embodi-
ment of a moral force.
New England and the South have created the opposing cur-
rents of American life, and determined the opposite poles of
American thought. The one glowing with earnestness, like
the roaring furnace filled with coal — with anthracite coal —
determined and uncompromising, standing for universal eman-
cipation, setting at naught the ancient formulas; forged the
thoughts that found expression in the tramp of embattled
hosts, the rattle of musketry, and the thunders of field ar-
tillery. The other standing for the natural supremacy of the
imperial race, the ideals of the fathers, the sovereignty of the
States, the Republic of the Constitution, blazed forth in tem-
pests of war, yielded up her bravest and noblest to die for the
cause of "the storm-cradled nation that fell."
The Civil War is a part of the history of the heroic past.
Its hatreds have been forgotten. Its glories will live forever.
No sane man today cherishes any real sectional animosity.
The denizens of the remote places are not so benighted, not
so provincial as that.
The whole fabric of our society has changed. The com-
102 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
munity of interest today is not determined by geographical
lines. Our ante-bellum civilization was one of individualism,
one of sectionalism, but the civilization of today is one of vast
co-operation and organization. The welfare of every section
is dependent upon every other section. Our interests are
interdependent and interwoven. In the evolution of progress
we have passed from the homogeneous, unorganized state to
the definite organized society in which each department of
industry has been defined and segregated, and performs its
separate function in the great modern social organism. Under
the old order there developed an attractive civilization, an
individuality strong and comprehensive. In the old South
each plantation was a community within itself. It was
equipped with all necessary appliances. The planter produced
his own corn and meat. He had his own carpenter shop and
blacksmith shop, his gin house, his spinning wheels and his
looms. He was cultivated, intellectual and knightly. He was
broadminded and understood the policies of Government and
the duties of citizenship. He was of the finest type of man-
hood, but he was sectional. His environment made him sec-
tional.
In those days there were no telegraphs and no railroads.
Commercially each State was to a large extent separate and
independent. This fact necessarily affected its political re-
lations. Why should New England have a voice in the legis-
lation that affected the South when New England and the
South were distinct communities, with distinct and separate
interests? Facilities of transportation and communication
have changed all this. Greensboro is today closer to Chicago
or New York than it was to Raleigh fifty years ago. Each
section is now an individual part of every other section. Your
cattle are now grazing on the plains of Texas. Your butcher-
man is in Chicago. Your looms, that used to be in New Eng-
land, are now at White Oak and Proximity, and in Dixie you
will hear the songs of the plantation and see the black women
and the pickaninnies picking the cotton for all the people of
the world.
The interests of all in the same department of industry
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 103
are identical, regardless of locality. Sympathy and co-
operation born of this identity are not bounded by State lines.
The manufacturers and the railroads are affected alike by any
general law, whether they exist in Michigan or North Car-
olina. Their affiliations are not determined by sectional con-
siderations. The same conditions and principles apply to all
departments of our industrial life. Facilities for rapid trans-
portation have developed this interdependence. The tele-
graph and daily newspaper cause every one with a common
purpose to throb with the pulsations of the same thought.
We glory in the courage of men who will in the last extremity
fight for their rights, but interests based upon rights are no
longer sectional. The contest cannot be sectional. The evo-
lution of modern progress has consolidated the nation as
neither sword nor sentiment nor constitutional amendment
could do.
The railroads have bound the country together with bands
of iron, the telegraph has united each interest by the electric
current of the same thought.
For the old soldiers to shake hands across the imaginary
bloody chasm is noble and pathetic. To be magnanimous in
victory is grand, to be magnanimous in defeat is sublime. But
there is no chasm. If there were it could not be closed by
handshaking any more than it could in the '50s. Progress has
obliterated the chasm. The great currents of commerce and
the common sense of mankind make any sectional chasm im-
possible. Progress proclaims the unity of the race. Hostile
promoters cannot withstand modern development. The sym-
pathies and the allegiance of every American are necessarily
co-extensive with the borders of the Union. The limitations
and opportunities of American enterprise are determined by
the orbit of the world.
But to an advancing people the solution of one problem is
the presentation of another, more complicated, demanding
greater wisdom and courage. Progress involves the respon-
sibility of grappling with perplexing questions of vital sig-
nificance. We have no conflicting sections, but we do have
various classes, and gigantic organizations, whose operations
104 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
ramify into every section and affect the welfare of every
section.
The situation demands for its consideration the wisdom
and courage of the American people. In one form or another
it has been the rock upon which preceding civilizations have
been wrecked. As we pass down the tide of time the Sphinx
of Destiny has asked us, too, a question. Our answer will de-
termine whether we shall turn backward or go forward to a
larger destiny.
Time and occasion would not permit a particular discussion
of this question, but its answer may be found in the utterance
of the Sage of Monticello, "Equal rights to all and special
privilege to none." And in this the guarantee of equal rights
is with the same emphasis as the denial of special privilege.
The same agencies that have welded together the sections
have segregated the people into conflicting classes. These
agencies have also enlightened and quickened the conscience
of the people. The high court of last resort to which all
citizens and all interests must appeal is the people. The judg-
ment of all the people is wiser than that of any man or class.
The voice of the people is the unified expression of all the
governing forces of humanity. This is the Sovereign whose
will is the law. It is not the perfect law, but it is the nearest
approach to the ideal law of perfect justice. We know that
the prosperity of every legitimate enterprise means the wel-
fare of the whole country. This strife will cease when it can
be realized that the Sovereign will guarantee to all justice —
that each shall have his own and shall not take another's.
Organized society must respond to new conditions to provide
for the consideration of the rights of all and to guarantee
with reasonable security, justice to all classes and orders.
If there be one thing which the American people love more
than another, that which they will stand for, which they will
contend for, which they will fight for, it is Justice. This is
the strength of the Republic, and this is the energy of our
Democracy. "It is grander than benevolence, something more
august than charity." It is the law of all progress — the life
of all civilization. It shed its light upon ancient Greece,
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 105
"marble grew to shapes of ideal beauty," and men ascended
to the realms of Wisdom and Philosophy. Its spirit was
breathed into a people toiling under the lash of Egyptian task-
maskers, and they went forth a race of conquerors from the
house of bondage. To their prophets and poets was revealed
the unity of God in the highest exaltation of thought. It was
this that glinted from the shields of our ancestors when
they died before the legions of Caesar. It made the
men of the Mayflower greater than conquerors. It planted
here the seed of a mighty tree. If guided by this same Puritan
courage, this same justice that our fathers loved, we adjust
our institutions to the new conditions and the illimitable
forces, who can see the possibilities of American attainment,
and who can measure the opportunities of the American man ?
In the achievements of this mighty people the South will
do her part, politically, morally and industrially. The ancient
doctrine of States Sovereignty for which she always contended
has come again to be a cardinal tenet of our political faith,
and is recognized as a vital force in our Government.
She is coming to the realization of her vast resources and
magnificent possibilities. Her cotton crop of 1907, consisting
of 11,700,000 bales, is worth in cash $700,000,000. The fact
that this great staple must command for this country the
money of the world was a powerful factor to relieve our finan-
cial distress. Agriculture is not her only industry as in for-
mer years. She is manufacturing her timber into furniture,
and spinning and weaving her cotton. Above the bass voice
of the steam engine, and the roar of the cataract, there rises
the manifold song of multiplex wheel and spindle. The South
is a part and a great part of this mighty industrial organi-
zation.
We are loyal to the Union. We love the flag. But Dixie
consecrated by the blood of our fathers will forever be re-
membered in tears of pathos and immortal love. On that
altar was laid the fairest and the bravest of the world. Their
heroism in war and in peace is the priceless heritage of the
race and the imperishable glory of the South. I have faith
that the men of the New South are worthy sons of the men
106 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
of the Old South, that, inspired by the fire, the courage, the
devotion of their fathers, they will strive for the accomplish-
ment of the ever-increasing purpose of the ages.
In perfect fellowship and brotherhood, as one mighty peo-
ple, we work together for the realization of the ideal that is
higher than the ideal of the South, of New England or the
West — the ideal of the unified Republic — the Hope of the
World.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 107
ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO THE
TRAVELERS' PROTECTIVE
ASSOCIATION
(Asheville, 1908)
NOTE: Hon Locke Craig represented Hon. John A. Campbell, the
Mayor of Asheville, and delivered the address of welcome on behalf
of the City.
(Stenographic Report)
Mr. Craig spoke as follows: The Governor has so well
and so completely covered the whole ground that there is
nothing left for me to say. What I shall attempt to say I
fear will fit the reply that an old deacon made to the young
minister when asked how he liked the sermon. "Well, Father
Brown, how did you like my sermon yesterday?" asked the
young preacher. "You see, parson," was the reply, "I haven't
a fair chance at them sermons of yourn. I am an old man
now 'n' have to set purty well back by the stove, 'n' there is
old Miss Smith 'n' widow Taft, 'n' Mrs. Rylan's daughters 'n'
Nabby Birt 'n' all the rest setting in front of me, with their
mouths wide open, a-swallowing down all the best of the ser-
mon — 'n' what gets down to me is purty poor stuff, parson —
purty poor stuff." (Laughter.)
But I will say now, if there is anyone that thinks that he
can do any better than I can, let him come forward and he is
welcome to the job. (Laughter.)
I very highly appreciate, however, the honor that it is to
welcome to our little city this great convention. These dele-
gates have come from all sections of the Republic, from the
cities of the northern lakes, and from the seaports sustained
by the trade winds of tropical seas, from the valley of the
Mississippi, from the Atlantic slope, and from the declivities
of the Sierra Nevadas. It comprises within its jurisdiction
the greatest commercial empire of all the earth and all the
centuries, extending, as it does, in one unbroken domain from
the emporiums of the Atlantic liners, that carry the trade of
Europe, to the harbors that welcome the tramps of the Pacific
carrying the wealth of Asia and the islands of the sea.
108 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
By authority of John A. Campbell, Mayor of Asheville, and
the best and most popular mayor that Asheville ever had, I
extend to you a most cordial welcome. This Queen City of
the Appalachian Hills and all her people — her noble, generous
men, her women, finer than the sculptured marble of Carrara,
her merchants, her hotels, her boarding houses, her res-
taurants (laughter) her livery stables (laughter) her soft
drink places and other drink places (laughter) her cigar
stands (laughter) her soda fountains (laughter) her boot-
blacks, and every electric light, and every flaunting banner and
waving flag, with universal acclaim shout "Howdy do and all-
hail to the T.P.A." (Applause.)
We hope that your pilgrimage here may be one of delight
"waited on by the choral muses and the rosy hours." We are
poor compared with our desire for your pleasure, but abundant
in the wealth of the hospitality of the heart. You have met
in greater cities of vaster wealth and more magnificent struc-
tures. You have met in cities where there were more places
of spirituous conviviality (laughter) but you have never met
in a place that had purer air and finer water or any more of
it. (Laughter.) And this city is rich in the traditions of the
heroic past, and richer in the hope and inspiration of a greater
future. We cannot point you to the snow-clad altitudes of the
Rockies, but from the Battery Park Hotel you can look upon
a vast undulating table land as beautiful as Switzerland, and
upon mountain peaks where the gods of Olympus would have
sat in council had they only known about them. (Laughter
and Applause.) We have here the music of crystal waters
and fragrance of wild flowers. But the finest music is that
which the mountain boy feels when he looks into the depths
of the eyes of a mountain girl, and doubts whether he sees
there the reflections of the heavenly stars or gleams from the
regions of nether fire. (Laughter and Applause.)
While considering this phase of the question I was re-
minded of the wonderful evolution in the form and fashions
of society. In the year 1670, in the reign of Charles II, the
following law was solemnly enacted by the Parliament of
Great Britain : "That all women of whatever age, rank, pro-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 109
fession or degree, whether virgins, maids or widows, that
shall from and after the passage of this Act impose upon and
betray into matrimony any of His Majesty's male subjects by
scents, paints (laughter) cosmetics, washes, artificial teeth
(laughter) false hair (great laughter and cries of "rats")
Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes or bolstered
hips (great laughter) shall incur the penalties of the laws
now in force against witchcraft, sorcery and such like mis-
demeanors, and that the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand
null and void." (Laughter and Applause.) When I look upon
this vast audience and the women of the Twentieth Century
I see how far we have advanced beyond the necessity for any
such statute. No living man has ever seen any such resorts
of witchcraft, and a conviction under the statute would now
be impossible. For if any man would give testimony that he
had ever seen the like it would be more tolerable for Sodom
and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for him.
(Laughter and Applause.)
We live in the age of material development — a commercial
age. There was an age of war, an age of chivalry, an age of
religious fervor. This is the age of commerce. You, as a
gentleman remarked while Governor Kitchin was speaking,
are her evangels. The men who are today controlling the
destinies of the world are not the captains of armies nor the
oracles of senates, but the captains of industry and commerce.
We entertain today the men who are directing and driving the
commerce of the world. We do not build today cathedrals but
railroad stations, faster than the Temple of Ephesus and in-
numerable.
Factory chimneys more costly than sacred high spires,
and from them ever stream columns of smoke from the altars
of industry. They tell us that Orpheus by the music of his
lyre built the walls and the temples of Thebes. Have you
ever heard in the morning the awakening of a Lowell or a
Pittsburgh or a Birmingham ? — sounding like the boom of the
Atlantic breaking upon the everlasting rocks. Ten thousand
whistles blowing, ten thousand engines throbbing, generating
a power greater than that of all the beasts of the earth com-
HO MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
bined, ten thousand steam hammers ringing, shaping the
mammoth guns of battleships and mighty shafts. We too are
building by the vast music of this great modern industry.
And this modern commerce has done more to cement the
Union than sword or sentiment or Constitutional Amendment.
(Loud Applause and Cheers.) The telegraph and the railroad
have united us. The electric pulsations of the same life throb
today in every State of the Union. The country is bound to-
gether by bands of iron. The men of commerce have made
each section of the country dependent upon every other sec-
tion. This is an indissoluble union of indestructible States
from the fact that each State is essential to the welfare of
every other State. (Applause.) My smoke-house is in Chi-
cago. New England must wear the cotton that is grown in
the South. My cattle graze upon the plains of Texas. We
love the memories of the heroic past, but there is not a man
in Dixie who would not die for the honor and glory of the flag.
(Applause.)
We must remember, however, that commerce and com-
mercial supremacy are not the ultimate end of a nation's
destiny.
"For heathen heart) that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard."
You may talk of armies and navies and protection to
American industry, but give American manhood and American
energy a fair chance and they will conquer the world. (Ap-
plause.) The Standard Oil Company — and I am not discuss-
ing the political or social status of this great concern — this is
not the forum for that — the Standard Oil Company invested
$500,000, I believe, in lamps and lamp chimneys. They were
not dealing in lamps. They bought these lamps, filled them
with oil, sent them to China to create a demand for oil among
the hundreds of millions of the Mongolian race. Today the
tank ships of this company are riding upon the waves of both
the oceans, and the Russian serf is reading American theories
of government by the light of the oil that is taken from the
center of the American Continent. This is the energy and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 111
the enterprise that cannot be resisted. The American drum-
mer has gone to the weary Pilgrim sitting among the ruins of
Babylon and sold him a "Uneeda Biscuit." (Laughter.) He
has gone to the sage who sat under the palm trees of Tad-
mor contemplating the problems of eternity and immensity,
and convinced him that the one thing needful was a sack of
Bull Durham Tobacco. (Laughter and Applause.) He has
gone to the Hyperborean, standing upon the cliffs of the upper-
most North, listening to the peaceful gurgle of the slow-
heaving Polar Ocean, and sold him a sealskin grown in the
cotton fields of the South and woven in the looms of New
England. (Laughter and Applause.) This is the drummer
boy that never has and never will beat a retreat. (Applause.)
The incarnation of American grit and determination and
energy and intelligence and enterprise is the American drum-
mer. He is energized by the spirit that was manifest in the
young volunteer that went from North Carolina in '62. His
father was in the Army of Northern Virginia. And when the
boy heard of battles and sieges he was determined to go. His
mother begged him to stay at home. He was her only stay
and comfort, but he must go. Clad in his bright new uniform,
the young volunteer went to the front. He wanted to get into
a battle, and it was not long before he was satisfied. They
were fighting the Battle of Fredericksburg. There was a bat-
tery on a hill that was playing havoc with the Confederate
forces. The General ordered a charge upon this battery, and
up the hill the Division went. There was
"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
And cannon in front of them."
Their ranks were swept by grape and canister. They fell
like ripe wheat before the sickle. They marched on over the
dead bodies of their comrades who had fallen in front, "but
their's not to reason why," for the iron lips of Stonewall
Jackson himself had said "forward." But the General saw,
or thought he saw, that the battery could not be taken. He
commanded the trumpeter to sound the retreat. And above
112 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
the storm of battle the shrill note sounded. The veterans
knew what it meant. They fell back and fell back at once,
but this young volunteer in the front rank did not know what
it meant. He thought it meant to go faster, and up the hill
alone he went. Both armies stopped and looked at him. He
rushed to the breastworks, rammed his new cap in the mouth
of a cannon, leaped over, grabbed a Yankee by the nap of the
neck, and came tumbling down the hill with him. (Applause.)
His bewildered comrades exclaimed, "Where did you get that
man?" "Why," said he, "I got him up on top of the hill
there, and there are plenty more of them up there. Why
haven't you got one?" (Laughter and Applause.)
This is the unconquerable spirit of American manhood
that today makes that flag the greatest flag of all the nations
and this people the greatest people of the earth. (Loud Ap-
plause.)
I deliver to you the key of our city, but it is unnecessary,
for our doors are all open and the latch-string hangs upon the
outside. (Presenting Key to the President of the T.P.A.)
(Prolonged Applause.)
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 113
CARLYLE
Delivered Before The Pen & Plate Club At
Asheville In 1910.
English Literature has had two periods of magnificent
flower. The one in the reign of Elizabeth, and the other in
the reign of Victoria. One grew from Feudalism and Roman
Catholicism, the other from Democracy and Protestantism.
Shakespeare was the splendor of the former; the grandeur of
the latter was Thomas Carlyle.
In the Valley of Parnassus there was a fissure in the
earth from which issued sulphurous vapors. A goat-herd was
tempted to lean over this hole to solve, if he could, the mys-
teries of this place. Immediately a shivering ran through
his body; his hair stood on end; his eyes blazed with light.
He spoke strange things. Some said that he spoke the jargon
of delirium; others believed that his words were those of an
oracle, and here was built the Temple of the Delphic Apollo,
to which the ancients came to seek wisdom. Somewhat
analogous was Thomas Carlyle, and the judgment pronounced
upon him by modern criticism. He was the son of a Scotch
Peasant. With the eye of wonder he looked upon the Uni-
verse: the Hebrew Bible, the thoughts of the masters of
English and German Literature were his inspiration. When
he published his first books, many wagged their heads and
pronounced his utterances incoherent, extravagant, the pro-
duct of a disordered mind, but already the wise men and
seekers for truth from all the nations have come as pilgrims
to this oracle.
The Scotch in many respects bear a strong resemblance to
the ancient Hebrews. Strength, earnestness, reverence, an
immovable faith that makes martyrs ; that exalted conception
of God whose decrees are righteous and terrible, are char-
acteristic of both these peoples. This resemblance was especi-
ally manifest during the era of religious strife inaugurated
by the Diet of Worms and stimulated by the School of Geneva.
The stern and relentless decrees of the Hebrew Bible ap-
114 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
pealed to the innermost natures of men like John Knox and
the Lords of the Congregation, and it was inevitable that they
should establish an ecclesiastical state modeled after the
Theocracy of Moses and the Prophets. Carlyle was a Scotch-
man; he possessed the typical characteristics of his race; he
was cast in the heroic mould of the Covenanter; he inherited
their religion and their creed; the latter he discarded; the
spirit of their religion was the basis and the inspiration of
his life. An heir of the Covenant, nurtured in the sublime
and awful teachings of the Prophets ; imbued with the trans-
cendentalism of the Literature of Germany; unfettered of all
dogmas and formulas — a Titan of the Nineteenth Century —
such was Thomas Carlyle.
From his appearance you could tell his country and his
lineage. His body was not robust ; his face was rugged. The
description of Teufelsdrockh would fit him: "Under those
thick locks of his — long and lank — overlapping roofwise the
gravest face you ever saw, there dwelt a volcanic brain. In
his eyes, too, under their deep shaggy brows looking out so
still and dreamy, you would see the gleam of an etherial or
else a diabolic fire and could fancy that their stillness was but
the rest of infinite motion — the sleep of a spinning top."
He graduated at the University of Edinborough ; his school
days and college life were uneventful. He was the beloved
son of his mother. Though unable to read until she was
grown, by a mother's intuition she knew that she too had
borne a mighty man. She set her heart in seeing him in the
Scotch pulpit, a minister of the Presbyterian Church; to her
all eminence and distinctions were low and to be despised
compared with this. But this son of hers could not be a sec-
tarian. He would not accept the dogmas of the Presbyterian
Church nor of any other church. Though not a minister or-
dained by the church he knew that he had a message to de-
liver, and finally decided to make literature his profession.
He left Edinborough and went to Craigenputtock to begin
in earnest his life and his literary work. He was thirty-two
years old. Froude says of Craigenputtock that it "is the
dreariest spot in all the British Dominion." But it was not
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 115
an uninteresting place. There were wide billowy straths of
grass around it ; the silence was broken by the lowing of herds
and the bleating of sheep ; the rolling hills were covered with
firs and heather; here could be seen the hill where Agricola
built a camp; where Galgarcus at the head of the Northern
Barbarians — the race that never crouched in bondage — made
his last death defiant stand against the crushing destiny of
the Roman power. It was here, according to Tacitus, that
this savage hurled at the Romans the words equal to those of
Napoleon at the Pyramids, and which live in the oratory of
our day : "They make the land a desolation and call it peace."
Craigenputtock was indeed a remote place — a solitude — no
human habitation within a mile and no doctor within fifteen
miles. In all our mountain country there is not a home as
remote as was this place where Carlyle spent the great years
of his young manhood.
Having refused to accept the faith of his fathers, intensely
religious, consumed with a desire to know and to speak the
truth, it was well that he, like the Prophets and John the
Baptist, should go to the solitude for his life wrestle and to
bring order out of the chaos of his own thoughts. The stars,
young and clear, sang to him as they did to the shepherds
twenty centuries ago upon the plains of Shinar. This is how
he looked at the sunrise in his summer walks over the hills:
"Right ahead the great Northeast sends up evermore his
gray-brindled dawn. From the dewey branch birds here and
there with short deep warble salute the coming sun. Stars
fade out and galaxes — street lamps of the City of God. The
Universe flings wide his portals for the levee of the Great
High King."
His first book, Sartor Resartus, or the philosophy of
clothes, was written while he lived at Craigenputtock. This
book is his message to the world. The many books that he
afterwards wrote are the logical emenation from this his first
and greatest work.
One might think that he named this book in a spirit of
drollery. But this is how he defines his theme : "In this one
pregnant subject of clothes, rightly understood, is included
116 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
all that men have thought, dreamed, done and been. The
whole external universe and what it holds is but clothing;
and the essence of all science lies in the Philosophy of Clothes."
He uses the term to signify the emblem, the visible mani-
festation of the invisible force. Whatsoever represents the
spiritual he designates as clothes — a suit of raiment put on
for a season and to be laid off.
Dogmas, creeds, institutions, he calls clothes. Man him-
self is clothed with a body. With Carlyle God is the Eternal
from everlasting to everlasting; the visible universe is His
garment "For was it not written, The Heavens and the Earth
shall fade away like a Vesture, which indeed they are, the
Time Vesture of the Eternal."
This book is the struggle of a soul with temptations and
doubt, a warfare against the powers of evil, and a seeking for
the truth. It is an allegory and it has a power and a grandeur
not found in that beautiful and simple classic, Pilgrims'
Progress.
He tells us of an idyllic childhood that we have all experi-
enced when he says "time is no fast hurrying stream, but a
sportful sun-lit ocean, and we sleep danced around by sweetest
dreams," and we now have what is ever after denied us "the
balm of rest." Yet among the rainbow colors that glowed on
the horizon was the dark ring of care that ever grew broader
and broader. He learned then the meaning of Death, and we
have the following fine passage :
"The dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under our feet, had
yawned open; the pale Kingdoms of Death, with all their in-
numerable silent nations and generations stood before me;
the inexorable word, Never! now first showed its meaning.
My mother wept, and her sorrow got vent; but in my heart
there lay a whole lake of tears, pent up in silent desolation.
Nevertheless, the unworn Spirit is strong; Life is so healthful
that it even finds nourishment in Death; these stern experi-
ences, planted down by memory in my imagination, rose there
to a whole cypress-forest, sad but beautiful ; waving, with not
unmelodious sighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine,
through long years of youth ; as in manhood also it does, and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 117
will do ; for I have now pitched my tent under a cypress tree ;
the Tomb is now my inexpugnable fortress, ever close by the
gate of which I look upon the hostile armaments, and pains
and penalties, of tyrannous Life placidly enough, and listen
to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. Oh, ye loved
ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom
in life I could only weep for and never help ; and ye, who wide-
scattered still toil lonely in the monster-bearing Desert, dye-
ing the flinty earth with your blood — yet a little while, and
we shall all meet there, and our Mother's bosom shall screen
us all; and oppressions harness, and Sorrow's fire-whip, and
all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed
time, cannot thenceforth harm us any more."
Teufelsdrockh, the philosopher whose sayings and reflec-
tions make the book, is thought by many to be modeled after
Jean Paul Frederick Richter. He is close akin to Faust, too.
He was imbued with the Book of Job. He is not unlike Tenny-
son in Locksley Hall, Maud, Sir Gallahad and the Idyls of the
King.
Life to him had been but disappointment and bitterness.
His cup of sorrow had run over "and hissed over in a deluge
of foam." But in the wild solitude of gorge and mountain
peak he feels the throb of nature's heart. There in the twi-
light he looked, as he expresses it, upon "a hundred and a
hundred savage peaks in the last light of day; all glowing of
gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the wilderness." "And
as the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and
the Sun had now departed, a murmur of Eternity and Im-
mensity, of Death and of Life, stole through his soul ; and he
felt as if Death and Life were one, as if the Earth were not
dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in that
splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding com-
munion."
But as yet this philosopher had no lode star of faith; no
pillar of cloud by day nor pillar of fire by night to guide him
in the wilderness of doubt and temptation. There was no
life-warmth to heal the stab of false Friendship and of false
Love. "Well might he exclaim in his wild way Ts there no
118 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
God then, but at best an absentee God, sitting idle ever since
the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and seeing
it go?'"
According to Carlyle, in this book, the Religion and poli-
tics of his day had all been figured up in a ledger of profit and
loss. The pharasaical happiness of an approving conscience
and residence in the Celestial City were now the rewards of
duty. The Devil said to him, too, "Behold thou art fatherless,
outcast, and the Universe is mine." To which he replied, "I
am not thine, but free, and forever hate thee."
And then he was possessed of strength and all shams and
pretenses, and hypocricies, and cant, and lies and commands
to conform thereto, he despised and condemned and defied.
He wandered over the earth to learn wisdom and to solve the
mysteries of life. He moistened his bread in the clear lakelet
of the Pine Chasms of Vaucluse. He sat under the palm trees
of Tadmor; he smoked his pipe among the ruins of Babylon;
he saw Napoleon's Armies and heard "the tramp of embattled
hosts and the sounds of falling cities"; he stood upon the
cliffs of the uttermost North, and listening to "the peaceable
gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean," saw the sun at mid-
night in his "cloud couch wrought of crimson and cloth of
gold." He heard kings speak to Parliaments, and, disguised
as a tavern waiter, stood behind the chairs of the wise men
and heard things that he did not forget. "Fool," exclaims he,
"why journeyest thou to gaze on the stone pyramids of
Geezer or the clay ones of Saccahara? * * * " I will open
my Hebrew Bible.
In looking at the Universe he realized the littleness of
man. But he heard the God-given mandate, "Work thou in
well doing." This command comes to every one. It is mys-
teriously written in prophetic characters in every heart. If
heard you must be carried of the spirit into grim solitudes,
there to do grimmest battle with the Tempter. But, as he
says, "Our wilderness is the wide world in an atheistic cen-
tury." "Yes," says he, "to me also * * * it was given
after weariest wandering to work out my way into the higher
sunlit slopes of that mountain which has no summit or whose
summit is in Heaven only."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 119
This he maintains comes from the sacrifice and the anni-
hilation of self. It is the renunciation taught by Goethe, and
a greater than Goethe said, "he that loseth his life for my
sake shall find it." The conclusion is that there is in man
something higher than happiness. It is Blessedness and to
preach this Higher, "sages and martyrs, the poet and the
priests in all time have spoken and suffered, bearing testimony
through life and through death, of the God-like that is in
man.
To Carlyle the creed was the temporal manifestation, the
imperfect expression of the Eternal, the Spiritual. The old
church clothes, the old symbols of faith to him had worn out ;
the life had gone out of them. The authentic church cate-
chism of the present century had not appeared. These sym-
bols of religion and faith are ever changing and evolving into
higher and finer forms. The forms and ceremonies are not
divine, and all the dogmatic declarations of ecumenical coun-
cils can not make them so. He rejected the dogmas of the
past like Him who preached the simple and universal and
eternal gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well and told
her that His worship was confined to no temple and defined
by no creed.
As the old vesture wears out and fades the new is weav-
ing with finer fibre. Says he, "In that whirlwind, creation and
destruction proceed together. Ever as the ashes of the old
are mysteriously blown about do organic filaments of the new
mysteriously spin themselves. Tones of the melodious death
song are but tones of a more melodious birth song." "The
Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, filling
earth with her music ; or, as now, she sinks and with spheral
swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may soar the
higher and sing the clearer."
If I have given a glimpse of this book, it is all that I could
hope for. It did not meet with favor. It was something new.
The English intellect did not readily grasp its meaning. At
first it was unnoticed. Then it provoked opposition and ridi-
cule. America furnished its first disciple, Emerson. Years
afterwards when the thinkers of the world were bowing to
120 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
the genius of Carlyle, he esteemed Ralph Waldo the finest and
purest of them all.
Sartor Resartus brought its author but little money.
Though distressingly poor he went to London and began his
history of the French Revolution. The wild tornado in which
the French Monarchy had perished was to him an illustration
of the Universal Law. He looked at this mighty phenomenon
in the light of the Old Testament as he had heard it read and
interpreted from the Presbyterian pulpit. He had ceased to
believe in miracles according to their accepted significance,
and had cast off the form of his creed, but the lesson of his
youth was never forgot. It was the germ of his philosophy.
He believed that all nations lived under one dispensation ; that
God dealt with all peoples as He did with the Children of
Israel; that His Law is ever divinely beautiful and divinely
terrible ; delivered from Sinai or from any other mountain or
place it must be obeyed. The people that puts the greed of
gain or the pleasure of iniquity above the Law of Right-
eousness will be punished. Of modern nations, France was
the greatest sinner. The rich lived in idleness and luxury,
while the poor toiled and suffered. French society was based
on the lie of the inheritance of rights and privileges without
the corresponding sacrifice and fulfillment of duty. The
Eternal Law was forgotten. The Papal nuncio esteemed it an
honor to get upon his knees and tie the slipper on the foot of
a harlot, and Majesty itself waited obsequeously on her glance.
France was guilty. Judgment was pronounced "in a horror
of great darkness and shakings of the world and a cup of
trembling which all nations must drink." In the punishment
of iniquity the Revolution was inexorably just. But its theory
of Equality was false. The Contract Social a humbug. The
guilty had been punished but the new order of things must
necessarily result in anarchy. Napoleon or another despot,
was inevitable. Carlyle was not a democrat; he did not be-
lieve that the people could govern themselves, but that they
must be governed. To enthrone the ablest man was with him
the ideal of all social procedure, but he did not believe that a
man could be made a king by putting a crown on his head.
He believed in the aristocracy of worth, but as between the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 121
dissolute aristocracy of France and the sans-culotte he was a
sans-culotte. Consider this passage: When Camille De-
mouslins is about to be executed and Foquier asked the formal
questions, What is your name, age, and the like?" Camille
makes answer: " * * * My age is that of the bon sans-
culotte Jesus; an age fatal to Revolutionists. O Camille, Ca-
mille! And yet in that Divine Transaction, let us say, there
did lie, among other things, the fatalest reproof ever uttered
here below to Worldly Right — honorableness."
I would not call his a history of the French Revolution.
It is a reproduction of the principal scenes of the Revolution,
a mighty moving picture, with the voice of life. We see the
horrors of the death bed of Louis XV; we hear the rush of
courtiers across the (Eil-de-Bcef to hail the dauphin and
dauphiness King and Queen. It is the doomed young Louis
XVI and the Imperial Marie Antoinette. They fall on their
knees and exclaim, "Oh, God, guide us; protect us. We are
too young to reign." Amid wild shouting multitudes we look
upon the procession of the State's General from the Church
of St. Louis to Notre Dame. We recognize the faces of men
and women who will live long in history. We hear the voice
of Mirabeau, the world compeller, rise into "far-sounding
melodies of strength" as he mounts the Tribune and shakes
his lion mane. We see France girt with fire and sword. The
armies of the Imperial allies are marching upon Paris. Dan-
ton descends from the Mountain like a lava flood. He rears
his huge stature, with clenched fist, his voice reverberating
from the domes, with a defiance that startles the world and
terrifies kings, he exclaims: "The coalesced kings threaten
us. We hurl at their feet as gage of battle the head of a
king."
All France is electrified. We see the banner, "Patre est
en denger," flying from all the steeples. A mother leads
proudly her first born son by the hand and goes away weep-
ing when told that he is too young to be enrolled as a soldier
of the Republic. Traitors within and foes without. France
blazes up, fired by this wild energy of Danton. In the travail
of Revolution unconquerable armies leap from her womb.
Thus we see the Revolution in all the details of reality— in
122 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
fire and storm and horror. Orgies and massacres and guillo-
tines, insurrection and the crashing of ancient institutions
pass in our view. In 1836 he wrote to Mrs. Carlyle : "It all
stands pretty fair in my head, nor do I mean to investigate
much more about it, but to splash down what I know in large
masses of color, that it may look like a smoke-and-flame con-
flagration in the distance, which it is."
When this book was published its triumph was complete.
Dickens carried it in his pocket as if it were his Bible. Tenny-
son sought the company of its author. Arnold, of Rugby,
commended it. Thackeray reviewed it in the highest terms,
and Macaulay bore testimony to its genius. The pulpit still
criticised, from the hedges of obscurity, some reviewers threw
stones, but the primacy of Carlyle was established by the
decree of the "Conscript Fathers."
All the books that Carlyle wrote are fine; you might say
the finest. His great books are Sartor Resartus, French Revo-
lution, Past and Present, Oliver Cromwell, Frederick the
Great; and you might name among these Heroes and Hero
Worship. Each one, not only sustained, but added to his
reputation. He spoke and wrote the truth as he saw it. He
despised the prejudices of his age and spoke with authority
to rulers and law-givers. For long years he struggled —
crushing years. But in his own lifetime he triumphed. His
books were translated into all the languages of the civilized
nations. He was acknowledged to be the first writer of the
age.
Carlyle's style was new. Many thought that it was af-
fected. He was not a phrase-maker. He had no art for
giving graceful expression to current opinions. His thoughts
burned within him, and without regard to form or the rules
of rhetoric he attempted to speak to others. His words are
full of meaning; his sentences rugged, glowing with reality.
They come sometimes like stars from the white iron wrought
upon the anvil, and he is a Titan and wields the hammer of
Thor.
Carlyle and Herbert Spencer are the potential forces of
this epoch. The one was a seer; the other a logician. Car-
lyle's "method is not in any case that of common school Logic,
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 123
where the truths all stand in a row, each holding by the
skirts of the other ; but at best that of practical Reason, pro-
ceeding by large intuition over whole systematic groups and
kingdoms."
Spencer, all comprehensive, taught by synthesis the ever-
lasting evolution of all things. Carlyle by the generalization
of genius taught the evolution of man's institutions, political
and ecclesiastical, civil and ritualistic. The vast diffusion of
Force — the law and will of the Universe — was named by
Spencer the Unknown ; by Carlyle, God. He contended for no
dogmas; he taught no creed. He called men back to the
eternal verities. Confessions of faith and civil institutions
are essential, but they wear out. The Vedas, the Korans, the
Zend Avestas had once taught men the way of life. The old
myths were once true, the old allegories had a meaning, but
in the evolution of life the old forms must pass, for old bottles
will burst with new wine. Buddah, Odin, Mahomet, were to
him not imposters ; they were great and earnest teachers ; the
supreme manifestation of the Divine was in Him, of Nasa-
reth, the music of whose life has appealed for nineteen
hundred years to the hearts of men. He was a Puritan with-
out a creed. He was not a Levite, but a priest after the order
of Melchizedek. He was a seer who beheld the apocalypse of
Nature. He knew that Might is the Right that must prevail,
that a lie can not live, that Truth and Justice are as powerful
as the Almighty. He sang the epic of man's battlings and his
triumphs. Sometimes he rings the Angelus Bells; and then
in the twilight, over peaceful meadow and golden field, we
hear the tones of everlasting love and forgiveness ; sometimes
he sounds the blast of the trumpet of the Day of Judgment,
and in the tempest, amid the tumult of the thunders, from
blackness the wrath of God is poured out in fire.
In 1854 a number of the students of Glasgow had urged
Carlyle as Rector of that University, but he was scornfully
rejected on account of his religious views. In 1855 a like
attempt was made by the students of the University of Edin-
burgh, with like result.
After the publication of Frederick the Great, in 1865, he
was triumphantly elected Rector of the University of Edin-
124 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
burgh, in opposition to Mr. Disraeli. He had changed none of
his opinions, had modified none of his views, but now the
leaders of sects were proclaiming him as the champion of
their faith. Carlyle accepted this honor from his alma mater,
and in 1868 delivered the inaugural address. He was the
same Carlyle whom they had denounced as an infidel. He
preached the same doctrine, but now with universal acclaim
he was recognized as the intellectual and moral force of the
century and as the prophet of the living faith. His thoughts
and his teaching are now proclaimed by the greatest preachers
from orthodox pulpits.
The masters in painting and sculpture vied with one an-
other to preserve for future generations his form and the
features of that rugged sorrowful face, and the great of the
world "with burnt offerings" acknowledged him a teacher
who spoke with authority. But he was yet the plain and
simple son of the Peasant of Ecclefechan.
Disraeli offered him a baronetcy or to confer upon him
the highest distinction for merit within the gift of the Crown
— the Grand Cross of the Bath. The great Prime Minister at
the same time insisted that he should accept a royal pension.
With courtesy and with delicate appreciation Carlyle declined
both. A royal bounty and titles of nobility were out of keep-
ing with the meaning of his life, for he had preached a gospel
to the poor and denied with all his vehemence the claims of
princes and dukes and lords. To his brother he wrote: "You
would have been surprised, all of you, to have found un-
expectedly your poor old brother converted into 'Sir Tom';
but, alas ! there was no danger at any moment of such a catas-
trophe." He said to his friend: "The Grand Cross would be
like a cap and bells to me."
He was steadfast to the reality and simplicity of that
plain Scotch home. He never forgot the Sundays in the old
days "with mother, father and the rest getting dressed for
the meeting house."
When his genius had commanded the admiration of wise
men and princes, when nations were his pupils and his
praisers, he wrote in his private Journal: "0 pious Mother!
kind, good, brave and truthful soul as I have ever found, and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 125
more than I have elsewhere found in this world. Your poor
Tom, long out of his schooldays now, has fallen very lonely,
very lame and broken in this pilgrimage of his ; and you can-
not help him or cheer him * * * any more. From your
grave in Ecclefechan yonder you bid him trust in God; and
that also he will try if he can understand and do."
He has been criticized for many minor faults, but in the
weightier matters of the law he was without a blemish. His
life was frugal and pure. When in old age his books had
earned him an abundance of money he enjoyed no luxury but
charity.
Dean Stanley requested that he be buried at Westminster
Abbey. Carlyle had anticipated this and by his direction his
body was carried to the rural churchyard at Ecclefechan,
there to lie with his humble kin, who slept "under their white
memorial stones in hope of a happy resurrection." With no
pomp nor ceremonial the greatest born of Scotland was laid
to rest in her bosom.
His heart was of melting pity, and fiery wrath and all
embracing love. And his voice, too, fashioned there in that
home of faith and earnestness already reaches "like a great
elegy, like a stern prophecy," like a triumphant battle-hymn
to the ends of the world.
126 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
ACCEPTING DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
FOR GOVERNOR
(Raleigh, N. C., June 6th, 1912)
NOTE: The Convention of 1908 was held in Charlotte. Locke
Craig and W. W. Kitchin were candidates for Governor. Special trains
were run from all over Western North Carolina, bearing enthusiastic
Craig supporters. The east, however, held that Governor Glenn, of
Winston-Salem, was a representative of the west, and they were en-
titled to the nominee. By a close vote, W. W. Kitchin, of Scotland
Neck, received the nomination. This caused the keenest disappoint-
ment among the western delegates, especially the Tenth District, from
which there had been no Governor since Vance. When the convention
subsided, after the result of the vote was declared, there were calls
everywhere for Locke Craig, the "Little Giant of the Mountains." It
is to be regretted that no report can be found of his speech, but those
who heard him said it was the finest of his career. He showed no
pique in the hour of his defeat, but with an unselfish and patriotic
spirit, swept all bitterness among his adherents aside, and with a
voice ringing clear for party unity, he called upon the west to give to
the Democratic nominee the full strength of their support. And from
that time on until the final victory in November, when William Walton
Kitchin was elected Governor of North Carolina, Locke Craig advo-
cated his candidacy in speeches all over the State.
Four years later, in June, 1912, Locke Craig was nominated Gov-
ernor by acclamation in one of the most enthusiastic and harmonious
Conventions the Democratic Party ever held in North Carolina.
The following extracts, clipped from The News and Observer, of
Raleigh, June 6, 1912, give an idea of the enthusiasm which pre-
vailed :
When the State Democratic Convention caught a breath
at midnight and looked back upon its first twelve hours of
work, it had seen Locke Craig chosen as its nominee for Gov-
ernor in one of the most remarkable testimonials of affection,
and his running mate, E. L. Daughtridge, as Lieutenant-
Governor, after five of the warmest ballots of many conven-
tion years.
It had seen more. It had watched every reference to
Charles Brantley Aycock made in the most reverential way
and hundreds give their pledge that if he had lived, he would
have claimed their homage in life as he has done in death.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 127
But one other time has there been a nomination tendered
a great public servant upon terms of such affection as this
prize went to the gallant man of the west. And then it went
to the eloquent man of the east, Charles B. Aycock, the be-
loved dead, whose memory was tenderly and sweetly brought
to the convention in a score of speeches and records yesterday.
That was twelve years ago in Raleigh, and yesterday was the
return of the party to the unity which marked its choice of
Aycock on the eve of the new century in 1900.
That was a mighty assemblage that clamored for room
yesterday at noon. It was made up of the sum and crown of
North Carolina citizenship. Ladies of Raleigh and elsewhere
occupied the right wing of the upper gallery and the delegates
who came to make their choice were from among the flower
of North Carolina manhood. The politicians did not have the
convention. Business men in every line of commercial energy
were there. They occupied the floor as delegates and cast the
votes that made law. They were there in great numbers.
They came from all sections and in large numbers. They
stopped big business to get here, but they came to select, not
partisan leaders, but to write patriotic measures into party
principles.
The excessive good nature of the body did not mean that
it came there to enjoy the stupid peace that smacks of chloro-
form. There were fierce divisions. The sharpest definitions
between men and measures were drawn. But there was no
viciousness of attack. Four years ago Charles W. Tillett, de-
scribing the great Charlotte Convention, likened it unto a
storm at sea, the waves rolling high, but the deep waters
below indicative of the real patriotism that lies unseen in
every breast.
It didn't look like this was to be said of the body yesterday.
It threatened to be a dead calm until the Lieutenant-Governor's
nomination was put to the convention and it took just three
and a half hours to make its will known.
There was some cheering when the name of Judge Winston
was proposed as Permanent Chairman, but greater excuse for
128 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
joy was given when the further recommendation was made
that there be no speeches of nomination for offices not con-
tested, barring the Governor's, of course.
This sweeping attack on convention oratory robbed a dozen
men of the glory of being howled down. It included a long
list of men of State.
Governor Glenn presented the Permanent Chairman, pay-
ing fine tribute to him as an aid in the administration of which
Glenn was the head and Winston the Lieutenant-Governor.
Governor Winston made a hundred-word speech, the clos-
ing words of which were a shout for action, "What is the fur-
ther pleasure of this great, representative, North Carolina
Democratic assemblage ?"
And as he sat down, Governor Glenn arose and said: "I
move that the convention proceed to the nomination of the
next Governor of North Carolina." The convention met the
motion with a tremendous shout as the response.
"The chair recognizes the gentleman from Jackson, the
Hon. Felix E. Alley," Judge Winston said, "and the conven-
tion will hear him place in nomination the Hon. Locke Craig."
Again the convention came to its feet and cheered while
Mr. Alley was making his way to the stand. The speaker
began almost inaudibly, the convention hearing him with great
difficulty. But he warmed nicely to it.
The warmest rebuke that was given was administered by
Chairman Winston as Mr. Alley entered the closing para-
graphs. He had tried to protest. He was too mild.
"Gentlemen of the Convention, I am not delivering to you
a curtain lecture," he said with a fire of the eye that bade no
patience with the unseemly impatience.
"But the man who is now speaking is naming the next
Governor of two million people, and you owe it to them and
to your own sense of decency to hear him patiently through."
What an effect that lecture had ! There was no more noise
through that speech and the mighty approval of the silent
many arose to rebuke the noisy few. The speech was heard
through.
Governor Glenn then moved that a committee be sent out
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 129
to escort Governor Craig into the hall. On it were named by
the Chairman : Governor Glenn ; S. L. Rogers, State Simmons
Manager; Frank R. McNinch, State Kitchin Manager; Walter
Clark, Jr., State Clark Manager, and Edward E. Britton, of
The News and Observer.
Then the band raised the battle hymn, while Glenn and
Craig marched in to martial music. The Tenth District arose
to greet its favored and happy son. Every throat sounded its
tribute. Louder and mightier it grew until Craig, boyish,
small, humble, in the magnitude of his glory, stood before his
people. And he didn't even smile. Did any of you see him
four years ago when he stood before the State hosts in Char-
lotte? He came up to acknowledge his gratitude in the hour
of defeat. He was just as happy, smiled more satisfiedly and
pledged his energies more triumphantly to the great cause
than he did yesterday. Craig in defeat and Craig in victory
are a pair of noble brothers. And the convention four years
ago swore that it would name him this year. It never was so
happy in its pledge as it was yesterday when it redeemed
itself without one discordant voice.
Governor Glenn, in presenting Mr. Craig, said. "I have
the honor to conduct to this platform one of the purest,
noblest, manliest patriots in North Carolina, your next Gov-
ernor, Hon. Locke Craig."
MR. CRAIG'S SPEECH
I am profoundly grateful to the Democracy of North Car-
olina. By this nomination for the office of Governor you have
conferred upon me an eminent distinction. It comes, not to
my deserts, but from your generosity. Only once before has
this nomination been made by acclamation. In the year 1900
— a time of storm and revolution — the State with one voice
demanded the leadership of Charles B. Aycock. With the
zeal of a crusader he devoted his intellect and soul to the task
we laid upon him. He comprehended its difficulties and its
grandeur. In its accomplishment he was sublime. For the
first time in more than thirty years this convention meets
13 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
without the guidance of his strength and wisdom. We hear
not the eloquence that thrilled and moved us to higher places.
There is sorrow and bereavement to all the people, to those
who were his neighbors, and to those who dwell in the far
mountains and by the far sea. He gave us a hope that we
did not know. His work and his life is a legacy priceless and
imperishable.
I wish that I were worthy of this exalted honor and quali-
fied for the responsibilities of the great hour. I shall forever
cherish this manifestation of your confidence and esteem.
I welcome the opportunity for service that quickens and calls
for all my strength and more. If elected I shall be the exe-
cutive of all the people regardless of race, or creed or politics.
I shall stand for the policies that I have professed, steadfast
to the principles of Democracy. I shall devote myself to the
State and to the welfare of all her citizens. I know that all
honor must eventually lie in the earnest and fearless and
conscientious discharge of duty.
By placing in my hands at this eventful time the standard
of Democracy, you have invested me with a trust, of the im-
portance of which I am conscious. I do promise to fulfill this
obligation to the limit of my ability, confident in the right-
eousness of our cause, and with an unfaltering faith that the
cause and the principles for which we have long contended
will triumph in the conflict that is now beginning.
Ours is an epoch significant with human destiny. If we
would realize the magnificent possibilities of the future, we
must adjust our laws and institutions to the conditions and
forces of modern progress. This is the mission of our party —
the striving of this fierce, militant, progressive Democracy.
The crisis is upon us.
The problem has been evolved and emphasized by this era
of industrial accomplishment, unprecedented and undreamed
of. Like the dervish in the Arabian tale, man has gotten hold
of the casket with the mysterious juice that reveals to him
the hidden treasures. The genii, in whose keeping are the
streaming forces of the universe, have whispered to him their
secrets. He has tamed and harnessed the steam and the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 131
lightning, and in obedience to his will they exert for him a
power greater than that of all the beasts of burden on the
earth combined. The world is pulsing with the currents of
newly discovered energy. All the necessities of life, and all
that can gratify the luxurious desires of men are created in
manifold abundance as with a magician's wand. Riches have
been piled up beyond conception. The gifts from Heaven to
the Israelites in the Wilderness were niggardly compared with
the bounty bestowed upon us.
This material development has not been accompanied by
a corresponding intellectual and moral development. Condi-
tions have been wrong. Has the burden been lifted from the
shoulders of those who toil? Has the curse that man should
eat bread by the sweat of his brow been lessened one jot or
one tittle? Has there come to all the opportunity and the
encouragement for the cultivation of nobler impulses and a
purer life? Has the moral status of the individual been im-
proved and society lifted to a higher plane, or do the "fruits
of the tree of knowledge turn as we grasp them to apples of
Sodom that crumble at the touch?"
"Ye build, ye build, but ye enter not in,
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin."
The consciousness that there is something wrong, some-
thing grievously unjust, is deep and universal. It is gather-
ing strength; it will find expression; it will seek a remedy
somewhere, somehow. John Ruskin says to England, and to
us, too: "Shall the Parthenon be in ruins on its rock, and
Bolton priory in its meadow, but these mills of yours be the
consummation of the buildings of the earth, and their wheels
be as the wheels of eternity? Think you that 'men may come
and men may go,' but — mills — go on forever? Not so, out
of these better or worse shall come; and it is for you to
choose which." Let us look in earnestness. We have failed
to adjust the law of equity to new conditions. The law itself
has been the bondservant of unlimited extortion and insatiable
greed.
It is not surprising that the equilibrium should have been
132 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
disturbed; for this modern progress has with such rapidity-
reconstructed the whole fabric of our social organization. The
transformation has been wrought within the memory of men
still living. Until our time there had been no essential change
in the methods of industry, since the time when Abraham
looked upon the Pyramids. The American and the European
tilled their fields, manufactured their wares and transported
their merchandise as did the people of Tyre and Babylon. The
law that was adapted to the simplicity and individualism of
the old order is not sufficient for the complex organization of
the new order. Under the old order, competition regulated
trade. The modern organization of industry has destroyed
competition.
The law of the spinning wheel and the stage coach does
not fit the vast mill, and the locomotive. In the old bottles
the new wine is fermenting, and the new cloth is rending the
old garment. The individual citizen cannot protect himself
against the organized forces of modern life. He cannot pro-
tect himself against monopoly. It is the essential function of
government to protect him.
By natural processes dictated by the spirit of enterprise,
unrestrained by law, stimulated by avarice, these gigantic
combinations have been evolved in natural order. They con-
trol every department of industry. They have arbitrary
power. They take thought what we shall eat and what we
shall drink and wherewithal shall we be clothed. They deter-
mine the cost of meat and bread, the cambric needle, the loco-
motive, the plow, the wagon, the automobile, the Parisian
gown, the calico dress, the swallowtail coat, the overall. The
price which we must pay for the necessities of life is arbi-
trarily fixed by this despotism of monopoly.
Our fathers would not tolerate a king because without
right he levied a tax on tea. The citizen as an individual is
powerless. We have seen these great concerns organized and
existing in defiance of statute law and common right. In the
broad light of day we have seen one conspiracy after another
gather in the earnings of labor. The Government has not
protected the citizen against this extortion; it has protected
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 133
extortion. The law does not restrain the extortioner, it guards
every port of entry; the merchant vessels that would lessen
his illegitimate profits have been excluded as public enemies.
It has not withheld the hand of the extortioner, and by its
statutes it has declared that no one else shall interfere.
The fixed policy of the Republican Party has been protec-
tion, protection for the trusts, or rather the fixed policy of
the trusts has been protection for the Republican Party, the
agency by which they exploit the people. This wall of pro-
tection has been raised higher and higher, not for the purpose
of revenue, but for the purpose of conferring upon these con-
cerns the power to levy extortion greater and greater. This
is the only purpose, the only plausible pretense for our present
tariff.
This license to plunder has been exercised to the limit.
The people of this country are the most industrious, the most
intelligent, the most creative people of the earth. Yet the
great body of our workers receive as compensation for their
work a smaller proportion of what they produce than any
other people with whose condition we are acquainted. They
may have more, but they produce much more. They submit
to more injustice. The exactions of war levied upon the
countries overrun by the armies of Ghengis Khan; the vast
revenue that was gathered from all the conquered provinces
of the Roman Empire when there went forth a decree from
Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed; or that
collected from the kingdoms of Europe in obedience to the
imperial edicts of Charles V ; the riches rung from the ancient
princes and people by the rapacity of Warren Hastings, the
proconsul of India; or the tax money paid by any people
under any despotism, is insignificant compared with the in-
conceivable wealth taken from the industry and genius of the
90,000,000 American people — not for the purpose of govern-
ment, but by the extortion of monopoly to swell the private
fortunes of the privileged few. This goes on under laws and
constitutions that ordain freedom and equality. In our vast
complicated social organism we do not realize the subtle pro-
cess, but we see the monstrous result.
134 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
We would go to war rather than yield a penny contrary to
the accepted formula of our democracy. We would rise in
insurrection if any man among us should claim to be Sir John
or Lord Andrew. On every Fourth of July we march and blow
horns and orate, and fling fireworks, for on that day it was
declared that there should be no tax on tea or horseshoe
nails. The tax paid to monopoly on the tin horns and the
flags and the firecrackers is greater and more unjust than the
tax that our fathers went to war about.
The burden of this injustice has fallen heaviest upon the
agricultural sections, upon the men that plow the fields of
the South and the Northwest. But, it is levied upon the earn-
ings of men everywhere; upon the miner that digs in the
darkness under the ground by the light of the candle on his
cap; upon the women that stand by the looms in Massa-
chusetts and North Carolina. It devours widows' houses and
spares not the puny infant that suckles the dry breast.
They who profit by this wrong, and the financiers who
stand behind the Republican Party cry out that business is
threatened whenever this wrong is attacked. They have in-
timidated the country to a long-suffering submission, and
would now intimidate the country by the threat to demoralize
all industry and precipitate universal disaster if we elect for
President a man that would stop this.
The effect of this legalized graft on economic conditions
is co-existent with the more serious effect upon moral con-
ditions. Opportunity and the encouragement for develop-
ment is taken away. In this age of genius and plenty it has
condemned men to material and to moral penury; it has com-
mercialized our people and their ideals; it is corrupting our
citizenship, and has made money and money-getting the con-
suming madness of the age. It sends greed and avarice and
evil passions ravenous through society as a hard winter drives
the wolves to the abodes of men. It has been proclaimed and
maintained in the name of the men who toil, in the name of
prosperity and patriotism; it has been embellished with all
plausibility and sophristy, but like the whitened supulchre it
is full of rottenness and dead men's bones.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 135
The hour of awakening has come. The enlightened con-
science of the people has at last been aroused. By half a cen-
tury of unrighteous Republican rule the land was sowed with
dragon teeth. The fierce contending factions have sprung up.
The Republican Party is torn by internecine war — a field of
Armageddon, where Gog and Magog, Taft and Roosevelt, are
contending in their exposure of the crimes of Republican ad-
ministrations. Each is boasting of his nearness to democratic
teachings and denouncing the other for his proximity to Re-
publican rascality. The Republican tariff policy is as dis-
credited today as is the Force Bill and Reconstruction. They
promised the people; they promised the trusts; the day of
exposure and condemnation has come.
This country is today humiliated in the eyes of all the
civilized nations by the fact that a man who was for seven
years President of the United States is denouncing to shout-
ing multitudes the now President of the United States as a
timeserver, a crook, a liar, a man of dishonor, a weakling, the
tool of bad men who use him to plunder the people. President
Taft is the man whom Roosevelt after a long and intimate
acquaintance named as his successor. The Republican Party
in many States and in North Carolina has endorsed this char-
acterization of the Republican President, and his adminis-
tration.
At the outset of the campaign Roosevelt announced that
he would accept the nomination if tendered. Now he intends
to take it by violence. He will run for President if he has to
destroy the Republican Party, upset the Government, and
bankrupt the "good trusts" that are supporting him, the Har-
vester Trust and the Steel Trust. The Trust that will not
stand in with this "practical statesman" he denounces as a
"bad trust," "a malefactor of great wealth."
No man that is honestly supporting Roosevelt and the
policies for which he stands can honestly support Taft and the
policies for which he stands. Roosevelt, reckless, violent, il-
logical, irresponsible, represents the lawless insurrection in
the Republican Party against Republicanism ; a man of power
and daring and inordinate egotism he would overthrow con-
136 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
stitutional government, the laws of the institutions which
are the guarantee of the liberty of the English race, and
which have been built by a thousand years of wisdom and
sacrifice. By the impassioned utterance of revolutionary doc-
trines he is winning the plaudist and the votes of a large class
who regard not our institutions and ideals. What, they ask,
has the Government done for them? As they have seen it
and felt it, favoritism, not to them but to the few, has been
the law; equal rights to all and special privilege to none a
Fourth of July mockery. This is the result of Republican
rule.
If we would cultivate a spirit of patriotism and loyalty to
our institutions we must see that the law is made and ad-
ministered in justice to all men alike, that this Republic is
worthy of the highest devotion and fealty. Is it any wonder
that thousands of toilers prefer the daring rough rider who
promises, law or no law, to "turn more of their earnings into
the pay envelope?"
By fifty years of misrule, growing worse; by the plunder
of all the people for the benefit of the few, the Republican
Party has brought the country to this appalling crisis. It
presents to us on the one side President Taft, the representa-
tive of the same old system of injustice and rottenness now
repudiated, and against which the people have risen in con-
demnation and universal revolt ; on the other side, Roosevelt.
He too is responsible for present conditions. During his ad-
ministration nearly all the trusts in the United States were
organized. He forbade them not. They financed his cam-
paign. He is a "practical man," with the mask of the people
and the money of Wall Street, the "cestui qui" trust of the
trusts. He stands for personal despotism. His election would
be the end of the Republic and the breaking up of laws.
In this time of confusion and injustice and threatened
revolution the American people must turn for hope and safety
to the Democratic Party ; the party that is the logical, earnest
exponent of constitutional government, and the progressive
thought of the age. It is the party that stands for the liber-
ation and for the protection of the people and all legitimate
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 137
enterprise from the men and the organizations that prey upon
the public; it stands for the punishment of the criminal,
whether he shouts under the red flag of anarchy, or whether
in treason at the directors' board he conspires against the
general good; it stands for the security of property and for
the rights of labor, for that prosperity which comes by the
guarantee of equal and exact justice and for that progress
which comes when the honest hope and opportunity to the
high and to the low are not denied ; it stands for the govern-
ment of law and for the restoration of the union to the high
and holy purpose of human welfare.
Though the minority party it has been the author of the
constructive policies that have prevailed. It stood for the
restoration of the South, and it was done. It stood for the
settlement of the race policy, and it was done. It stood for
the control of public service corporations, and it was done.
It stood and stands for the reform of the tariff, and against
the tyranny of the trusts. It stands against Taft and it
stands against Roosevelt.
The ardent dream of the Democrat of yesterday is today
"the vociferate voice of public opinion" and tomorrow the
Charter of the Nation. Democracy is everywhere advancing,
united, determined, as never before. The victory of 1910 was
the promise of the triumph of 1912.
In this crisis of the nation's life the Democratic Party has
the greatest responsibility of its history. If the Republic is
to be saved, the Democratic Party must save it. Roosevelt
and the Rough Riders are crossing the Rubicon. If we are
to have a Caesar, let us have one that at least can represent
the grandeur of the American people. The Romans had
Julius, the English had Cromwell, the French had Napoleon.
Do "we want Teddy ?" Not yet. Not yet will we forsake the
ideals of Washington and Jefferson for Roosevelt. Let him
run. The descendants of the men of Lexington and Kings
Mountain will teach mankind another lesson in Democracy.
When in calmness we review our history all good people
must rejoice that in recent years the Democratic Party has
controlled this State. This feeling must come to all, regardless
of politics.
138 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
In 1900, the era of bitterness and strife and shame was
succeeded by the era of security and prosperity and peace.
The State entered upon a career of material and moral and
intellectual development unprecedented in her history. She
was free. She rejoiced in her freedom. Agriculture was in-
vigorated. The towns grew to cities. The wasting energies
of her streams have been transformed to currents of electric
power. Mills for the manufacture of the product of forest
and farm have been built, the blast of the locomotive has
waked the echoes in the remotest sections. In spite of the
restraint of unjust national law, and unjust transportation
discrimination, wealth has been multiplied, for enterprise has
felt the security of the wise and honest administration of the
State Government. Never before has there been such a
moral awakening, such an intellectual revival. An efficient
public school has been opened to every child in the State. The
State institutions of learning are thronged with eager stu-
dents and rank with the very best in the Union. The de-
nominational colleges are flourishing as never before. The
dream of universal education is about to be realized.
The unfortunate have been remembered in mercy. Mag-
nificent homes have been provided for the insane, and schools
for the blind and deaf and dumb. The aged and afflicted
veterans of the Confederacy have not been forgotten. Their
deeds in victory and in defeat are a glory to the race, and the
priceless heritage of the South. The Democratic Party has
provided and will provide for the necessities of their declining
years.
"When we remember that the Democratic Party was the
Guardian Angel of the South in her darkest hours; that it
was the Democratic Party that took the South by the hand
in the hour of desolation and lifted her up and set her again
in the house of her fathers — when we remember these forty
years — well may we paraphrase the adjuration of the faithful
Hebrew: 'If I forgot thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand
forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth!' * * * The South will be faithful to the De-
mocracy !"
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 139
We will never again turn the State over to the party that
has the record of 186S, and 1869, and the blacker record of
1895 and 1897.
Compare these two periods of shame and disaster to the
unsullied record of every Democratic administration since the
war. We remember with thanksgiving the glorious adminis-
tration of Aycock when the State rose like the Phoenix from
the ashes of her humiliation, hailed the coming of the morn-
ing, and poised herself for the light of a grander day. We
remember with pride the administration of Governor Glenn,
notable for the settlement of the temperance question ; notable
too for the courage and determination with which he met the
issue between the State and the railroads. Then more was
done toward the control of the public service corporations
than Roosevelt with all his bluster and big stick has ever
done. We contemplate with satisfaction and congratulations
the present administration of Governor Kitchin, when the
government of the State and all of her institutions have been
administered with economy and wisdom and honesty above
reproach. In the Lower House of Congress we have ten
Representatives who have been among the foremost in the
great fight that has been made against special privileges, and
in the Upper House we have Senator Simmons and Senator
Overman who stand with fidelity to the interests of their State
and their party, and who have been put forward by their
associates as the ablest leaders and exponents of Democracy.
I believe that North Carolina is beginning the era of her
highest development. We have 2,500,000 people of pure Eng-
lish and Scotch-Irish blood. We have no large cities. Ours
is a rural population, good, strong, farmer folks. We value
the men that have built our towns and cities, the men who
had the ability and the enterprise to make the Old North
State one of the foremost in manufacture and commerce, but
North Carolina is essentially a Farmer State, and the farm
is beginning to reveal the hope for her finest life. Only a few
years ago the home on the farm was isolated and the cultiva-
tion of the fields grudgingly yielded a meager support for the
family. There was no encouragement for the farmer, and
no opportunity, on the farm, for the farmer's children.
140 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
These conditions have changed. The increase of urban
population throughout the civilized world, and the extending
of the markets have enlarged the demand and increased the
value of the great staples. The improvement in transporta-
tion has not only added to the profits of the standard crops,
such as corn and cotton, but it has enabled the farmer to use
his land for the production of the crop to which it is best
adapted. His vegetables, his strawberries, his apples, his
cantaloupes, are no longer limited to home consumption, but
are carried by the lightning express to the metropolitan cities,
and served on the costly tables of those who can afford the
luxury of North Carolina products. The telephone puts the
farmer's home in immediate communication with his neigh-
bors, and with his town, and with the markets of the world.
The old country road of monotonous mud, diversified with
gulleys and boulders, has been replaced by the modern high-
way. The old road wasted untold energy and cost uncounted
money. It was a barrier to prosperity and culture. It is no
longer to be tolerated. The modern highway is one of the
greatest modern instrumentalities of opportunity. It enriches
the soil, multiplies the ears of corn, paints the church, puts
music in the home, inspires the boy with ambition, clothes the
maiden in better taste, and puts a finer bloom upon her cheek.
The time has come for the State to adopt a policy for the
building and improvement of the public roads that will insure
a system of modern highways to the State and to every com-
munity in the State. The old southern home of chivalry and
culture is coming back with the multiplied opportunities of
modern progress. The fertile, well-tilled farm, generous in
its returns, adorned by the home of culture and independence,
is the highest hope of a nation's life, and the safe-reliance in
the time of danger. Relieve the farmer of unjust burdens
and the South is the most favored land of all the earth. Give
the expansive energy of the American people a fair chance
and their supremacy in arts and commerce will be acknow-
ledged by all the nations.
Just government is essential to all real progress. If one
sow and another reap, the curse is upon him that sows as
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 141
well as him that reaps. "Thou shalt not steal" is not limited
to petty larceny of the statute. There was no discrimination
by the Law-Giver of Sinai between the footpad and the mil-
lionaire. The pillage of the night is nothing to the plunder in
the face of day.
If North Carolina would fulfill her obligations as a Sov-
ereign State she must guarantee to all her people, and to all
her industries that opportunity which comes with justice —
justice that is "grander than benevolence, more august than
charity." Let her statutes be the law of righteousness for
the protection of the weak, and for the encouragement of every
enterprise of field and steepled city. Let her unalterable
judgment be that property shall be safe; that the rights of
those who toil shall be sacred; that no monopoly wherever
organized shall exist within her borders to strangle her legi-
timate business, and to despoil her children ; that her material
development and her moral and intellectual development shall
proceed together.
The mighty contest is opening, great as any that was ever
"proclaimed by the trumpet or pleaded by the sword"; the
elemental forces are gathering for the strife. The squadrons
are marching.
North Carolina has a past that is glorified and sanctified
by heroism and martyrdom. We are the heirs of this in-
heritance, and are for a time the custodians of her destiny.
We lift up the banner of equal justice. We will write De-
mocracy not only upon the leaves of her statutes, but in the
lives of her people. We appeal to all men who love the tradi-
tions of the past, and revere the constitution of the fathers ;
to the young men especially, with the noble ardor and courage
of youth, to all who hate unjust privilege, who believe in equal
opportunity to men.
"And he who will hear to him the clarions
of battle call."
PART II
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
OF
LOCKE CRAIG
INCLUDING A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF HIS
INAUGURATION AT THE STATE
CAPITAL, JAN. 15TH, 1913
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 146
THE WIDOW'S SON
"Let Her Works Praise Her In The Gates"
(In Memory of the Mother of Locke Craig on his Inauguration
As Governor of North Carolina)
The husband of her life forever gone,
Her fortune wrecked in war; herself alone
Two tender sons to rear — O every day
Her heart must crush with fear and dark dismay !
She faltered not, nor sat disconsolate ;
Her sons each side she clasped, full facing fate,
And guided straight to Wisdom's Door; where youth
By teachers true are fired with zeal for truth,
Where eyes undimmed gaze up the steepest height,
Where soul enkindles soul to loftiest flight.
O spirit pure, look down today on earth!
Men shout the name of Craig, whom thou gav'st birth ;
He whom thou taught'st to face and conquer fate,
The widow's son, doth rule a mighty State.
—GEORGE TAYLOE WINSTON.
Asheville, N. C, Jan. 14, 1913.
NOTE: This beautiful poem appeared in The Raleigh News and
Observer, Wednesday morning, January 15th, the day of the inaugura-
tion of Locke Craig as Governor of North Carolina. The writer, Dr.
George T. Winston, has been a life-long friend of the Craig family,
and was a boyhood friend of the Governor's. He knew well and greatly
admired the mother of Locke Craig.
146 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
THE INAUGURATION
NOTE: Wednesday, January 15, 1913, Locke Craig was inaugu-
rated Governor, the oath of office being taken about noon, in the Audi-
torium at Raleigh. The ceremonies incident, began at about eleven
o'clock, when the Governor-Elect and his escort left the Yarborough
House, then Raleigh's principal hotel, accompanied by a magnificent
military escort, civic authorities, local and state committees, etc. The
newspaper accounts of the ceremony are well worth preserving, and
give a graphic description of the events leading up to and including
the inauguration, which is always an impressive one in North Carolina,
but on this occasion, owing to the good feeling that prevailed among
all classes of our citizenship, from the fact that the new Governor was
the unanimius choice of the whole State, this inauguration was un-
usually impressive. Therefore the following clippings are given below
as souvenirs worth preserving, as well as fitting preliminaries, leading
up to that greatest of all the Governor's speeches. — his Inaugural Ad-
dress.
The Inaugural Events
(The Raleigh News and Observer, Jan. 15, 1913)
10:15 to 10:45 A.M. — Escort, Mayors and Press Committees assemble
at Yarborough Hotel.
10:30 A.M. — Receptios Committee meets in New Municipal Building.
10:50 A.M. — Committees call on Governor-Elect Craig.
11:00 A.M. — State Officers assemble at Yarborough Hotel.
10:45 A.M. — Military and other Organizations form at Nash Square.
11:15 A.M. — Parade Moves.
11:40 A.M. — Parade passes Governor's Mansion.
12:00 M. — Inaugural in Auditorium.
1:30 P.M. — Review of Parade.
2:30 P.M. — Luncheon to Governor Craig and Party.
7:30 P.M. — Public Reception at Mansion.
9:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M. — Inaugural Ball in Auditorium.
In The Raleigh Auditorium
1. Dixie Third Regiment Band
2. Prayer Rev. Dr. R. T. Vann
3. America Raleigh Choral Society
4. Administration of Oath of Office to State Officers by the Associate
Justices of the Supreme Court? of North Carolina.
5. Administration of Oath of Office to Hon. Locke Craig, by the Chief
Justice.
6. Old North State Raleigh Choral Society
7. Presentation of His Excellency the Governor, by Hon. W. W. Kitchin.
8. Address Governor Locke Craig
9. Star Spangled Banner Raleigh Choral Society
Governor-Elect Locke Craig is in the city. With his party
from Asheville he arrived last night, the military of that city
and many citizens coming as an escort. Today at noon he will
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 147
be sworn in as Governor of the State amidst impressive cere-
monies in the Auditorium.
For this great four-yearly event in the history of the State
of North Carolina, Raleigh is ready to give welcome to all of
the visitors. In fact, it has welcomed them in great numbers
already, for in ever growing numbers they arrived in the city
yesterday and during the night. Today they will come by the
thousands, and with the splendid weather plus the many at-
tractive features of the inaugural exercises, there will be any-
where from 20,000 to 25,000 here to take part in the events
which surround the inauguration of Locke Craig.
The City is decorated in a most beautiful manner along the
line of the parade over the principal streets. Great arches, in
United States and State flags and parti-colored bannerets span
the streets, and pennants on the "side lines" add to the decor-
ative features. Many thousands of people will be on the
streets during the parade, and with the moving of the mili-
tary, the music of the bands, the rush of the automibiles, the
dash of the horses, and the other features of the big inaugural
parade, the moving scene will be one that will impress itself
on the memory of all.
The beginning of today's events properly began last even-
ing at 7:30 when on a special train Governor-Elect Craig and
Mrs. Craig, Democratic State Chairman Charles A. Webb and
Mrs. Webb, and the guests who accompanied them arrived in
the city. The train left Asheville at 9:00 o'clock yesterday
morning with the Asheville delegation and the Asheville Mili-
tary Company aboard. At all points along the route there
were accessions, and at Greensboro the Legislative Inaugural
Committee met the Governor-Elect, while at Durham a large
delegation of the citizens, Reception and Escort Committees
gave indications of the warm welcome to be extended by
Raleigh.
The arriving party last night told of ovations given to
Governor-Elect Craig all along the route. Time after time he
was called to the platform and from the train to shake hands
with delegations of citizens. There were demonstrations of
this kind at Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Old Fort, Marion,
148 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Hickory, Newton, Statesville, Salisbury, Lexington, Thomas-
ville, High Point, Greensboro and Durham. Wearing badges
showing they were members of the committee to escort him
to Raleigh there entered the train at nearly every stopping
point many North Carolina citizens. It was proof of the
State-wide interest in the inauguration of Locke Craig.
Charles Aycock saw the ultimate reward of Craig. Stand-
ing before a convention in Charlotte four years ago and ask-
ing it to nominate Craig, he called attention to the fact that
North Carolina had rewarded him and Robert B. Glenn, Cleve-
land electors, by making each District Attorney and later lay-
ing the choicest chance for service before them, the governor-
ship. "Shall the Cleveland electors be rewarded while the
Bryan electors" — but he never finished the sentence. The
crowd cheered fifteen minutes. Of course everybody knew the
antithesis. And again when Aycock described his own love
for Eastern North Carolina, its broad fields and its seas, he
burst into another beautiful piece of patriotism : "But I love
the east too much to see it forever the debtor of the west."
And again the assembly cheered like mad.
The west today comes into its own. The first time since
Vance was given to the Commonwealth does a Governor come
from the heart of the great hills. Buncombe, which gave a
new word to the language, today gives a new Vance and a new
Aycock to the State. This is the feeling everywhere.
It is published on the streets, but better, it is written in
the hearts of men. Never was such preparation made for a
Chief Executive in North Carolina. All over the city pennants,
streamers, flags and "Welcome to Craig" are floating in the
glorious breezes without an equal in all the atmosphere.
"What does it mean?" asked a man yesterday, who had never
voted for Craig until November. "There never was any such
business as this before," he declared. And he was asked if
he didn't have the feeling. He said he did.
Locke Craig is made Governor today. It is twelve years
to the day since Charles B. Aycock took the oath of office. He
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 149
went in Tuesday, January 15, 1901. Locke Craig comes in
Wednesday, January 15, 1913. Aycock's administration be-
gan with a new State Constitution, a change of political party,
a new century and a new duty, that of educating all the peo-
ple. Locke Craig comes in with a change of party in the
nation, a new policy, and with growing sentiment for changes
in both the State and the National Constitutions. He faces a
new and a great duty, that of putting all North Carolina
places in calling distance of each other by a system of good
roads.
Even the weather promises to duplicate its performance of
twelve years ago. A finer day above and below, was never
seen. In that connection it is well to call to mind the error of
Sunday which said that Aycock's administration began with
his inaugural in the Academy of Music. It didn't. It took
place in the open and the whole city stood up and heard him.
This afternoon Governor Craig speaks in the Auditorium an
inclosed indoors almost as large as the great outdoors of his
great predecessor. So faithful has been the similarity of their
careers that the weather promises not to spoil the final effect
of the ceremonial. * * *
(The Asheville Citizen, January 16, 1913)
The progress of the "Craig Special" which left Asheville
at 9:10 yesterday morning had been in the nature of a tri-
umphant advance from the time that the Governor-Elect and
warm friends and admirers left the mountain metropolis, but
it was eclipsed by the scenes enacted on the streets of Raleigh
when the inauguration parade left the Governor's Mansion
for the Auditorium, where the crowning feature of the cere-
mony with which Asheville is so prominently identified, made
her illustrious citizen the Governor of the State. It is con-
servatively estimated that fully 20,000 people lined the streets
when the first carriage containing the Governor-Elect, Gov-
ernor Kitchin, Chairman Weaver, of the Inaugural Com-
mittee, and Chairman Bunn, of the House Inaugural Com-
mittee, moved away from the Mansion. Other carriages to
the number of thirty or more followed, moving through two
150 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
files of militia companies drawn up at "attention" on both
sides of the streets leading to the Auditorium. The Third
Regiment was represented by Company B, of Raleigh; Com-
pany C, Henderson; Company D, Louisburg; Company F,
Franklinton; Company H, Warrenton; and Company M, Dur-
ham.
The Second Regiment sent Company E, Goldsboro; Com-
pany F, Fayetteville ; and Company H, Clinton. The First
Regiment sent sections of three companies and the recently
formed Cavalry Troop from Asheville. The Third Regiment
was also represented by the Coast Artillery, of Greensboro,
and the Ambulance Corps.
The parade advanced slowly up Fayetteville Street across
Capitol Square around West and North Streets to Wilmington
Street, thence back to the Square through Edenton, Salisbury
and Morgan Streets into Fayetteville Street, reaching the
Auditorium shortly after 11:00 o'clock.
A mighty cheer rang from stage to roof of the great
building when Governor Craig, accompanied by Governor
Kitchin and the inaugural party, advanced into the hall. The
great audience rose to its feet, mounted chairs, and cheered
for more than ten minutes. Many of the lavish decorations
in the building, including the national colors and tri-colored
streamers, were torn from their fastenings and waved aloft.
The galleries, not to be outdone by those on the main floor,
laid violent hands on the festoons of evergreens that hung
from the giant girders within reach and waved them as they
cheered. Above the tumult of the cheering could be heard
insistent cries of "Craig! Craig! Give us Craig, the Good
Roads Governor!"
One old veteran who was close to the stage stretched his
hands toward the Governor and with tears streaming down
his cheeks was heard to say: "God bless you, Locke. You
were always the soldier's friend."
Governor Craig repeatedly bowed his acknowledgement as
the ovation continued and now and then he smiled in pleased
recognition of his friends from the mountain section who ap-
peared to be bent on making the most noise. When quiet was
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 151
finally restored, the impressive moment of the inauguration,
the administration of the oath of office, was at hand. In a
clear, firm voice audible in all parts of the hall, Governor
Craig vowed fealty to his great trust. Intense silence pre-
vailed as the Governor took the oath and then there was re-
newed outburst of cheering. Following the Chief Executive,
the other State Officers, as named above, were sworn in, and
at 12:30 Governor Craig began his inaugural address.
At its conclusion the military parade was re-formed and
reviewed by Governor Craig and his party from the balcony
of the Yarborough Hotel. The soldier boys made a brave
showing and were received with repeated ovations from the
assembled thousands. The marchers dipped colors and "pre-
sented arms" as they passed the reviewing stand.
The boys from the A. & M. College, numbering 500, re-
ceived the greatest ovation as they marched past the Gov-
ernor and his staff. They wore their regulation gray uni-
forms and all the officers were mounted.
The Naval Brigade from Wilmington and the Boy Scouts
of Raleigh also received much recognition from the crowds.
The troops dispersed in front of the Capitol and the Governor
and his staff were taken to the Executive Mansion for lun-
cheon, to which about 200 guests had been invited.
The inaugural ball which began at 10:30 o'clock tonight
at the Auditorium was a brilliant affair. The grand march
was led by Governor and Mrs. Craig with the Governor's
Staff in full uniform and the new State Officers following. All
the civilian dancers were in evening dress and the brilliant
uniforms of National Guard officers formed a picturesque con-
trast. Dancing was continued until after midnight.
It is stated on the best authority that all records for at-
tendance at gubernatorial inaugurations were broken today.
Some estimates place the number of strangers in the city at
30,000 but previously stated, conservative estimates range
from 20,000 to 25,000.
The largest crowds on record up to this time were those
which attended the inauguration of Governor Vance, when
almost the entire State poured into the capitol to celebrate the
152 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
redemption of North Carolina from the bonds of reconstruc-
tion. It is worthy of note that in this instance, too, Asheville
furnished the central figure of the inauguration exercises.
(News and Observer, Raleigh, January 16, 1913)
********
The applause that met Governor W. W. Kitchin as he was
introduced by J. W. Bunn, of Wake, lasted fifty-five seconds.
Mr. Kitchin stood and waited until the people were quiet.
Then he uttered this very tasteful sentence: "Honorable
Members of the General Assembly, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I take pleasure in presenting the Hon. Locke Craig, Governor-
Elect, who before making his inaugural address will qualify
by taking the prescribed oath of office, administered by the
Chief Justice, Walter Clark." The Choral Society sang the
Old North State.
Mr. Craig advanced to the speaker's stand which was dec-
orated in the gorgeous ensigns of the State and the Republic.
The whole assembly arose and gave the new Governor a greet-
ing as vigorous as it was deep. Sectional pride may have
moved many, but Buncombe did not beat Brunswick and Bertie
was not more voluble than Burke. It was the uprising of all
the counties for Craig.
The new Governor stood and smilingly waved the people
to silence. It was his turn to talk and theirs to hear. The
odds were against him for a moment, but he warmed quickly
to concert pitch. Once from out the moving throng, so many
of whom came for the pyrotechnics, there rang out the un-
known and irrepressible quantity, "Louder." The sharp re-
buke of a woman who wanted to know, "Why do the foolish
people all stand up? They can see just as well sitting down,"
reminded one of the woman who assured the rising congrega-
tion as it stood to worship in song, that it "needn't get up
for me ; I can find a seat." This censorship of inaugural man-
ners touched many ladies.
With the moving stilled, Governor Craig had little diffi-
culty in reaching everybody. For each person who came not to
hear the message and retired, there were three who pushed
for a seat, this momentary demoralization kept the speaker's
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 153
first words from the great bulk. The first manifestation of
applause was the climax to his Biblical picture of the leaven-
ing loaf. "In this time of difficulty and hope the nation turns
for guidance to the Democratic Party," was the sentiment that
spread widely.
Again, when Craig quoted the dictum of Vance, that it
ought to be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the
Day of Judgment than for the exploiters of the people, the
audience burst into terrific applause.
Governor Craig read his paper, but passionate and spon-
taneous oratory never sounded to better effect. One removed
from sight would never have thought he had manuscript. His
beautiful voice thundered when it was necessary; it pleaded
at his slightest behest.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
Gentlemen of the General Assembly and My Fellow
Citizens: Democracy gives to the people the pledge of pro-
gress. The thought of the age has created a nobler purpose
in government. The Democratic Party intends to effectuate
this purpose by legislation in recognition of the equal rights
of man, and for the progressive welfare of all the ranks of
life.
In our material prosperity, privilege has been substituted
for justice. The vast wealth of modern industry, the products
of labor and genius have not been divided in equity, but have
been gathered into the enormous fortunes of the few.
We have not realized the moral benefits that should have
resulted from modern progress. Avarice has been stimulated ;
hope and opportunity have been denied; antagonism and re-
sentments have been generated. All classes have suffered.
We realize the conditions; the injustice has been uncovered.
It can not stand in the clear, calm and resolute gaze of the
American people. They are determined that our law shall be
based upon a higher conception of social obligation and that
our civilization shall mean a higher social life. They have
put their hands to the plow and will not look back.
154 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
A new era has dawned ; the last election marks the begin-
ning of an epoch in our Government. The Republican Party-
had the prestige of victory and tradition ; it had the power of
place and of organized wealth; but it stood for privilege — it
took from the Republic its highest meaning, that equal justice
is the inalienable heritage of men ; it stood for that prosperity
which is not the handmaid of moral and intellectual growth;
it stood in the path of the progressive thought of the age;
with all its power and prestige it was crushed. Like the
leaven which the woman hid in three measures of meal, the
leaven of Democracy has been at work.
In this time of difficulty and hope the country turns for
guidance to the Democratic Party.
The spirit of progress pervades the Union and the people
demand legislation responsive to the impulse of the age.
North Carolina will not continue to march in the rear of
the procession of States. She is impatient for the advance.
Throbbing with energy, potential with accomplishment, she
looks expectant to this administration and to this General
Assembly. I believe that you Senators and Representatives
will perform your task with wisdom and courage and that
your work will be for the welfare of this generation and of
our posterity. The responsibility is ours, the opportunity is
ours.
Constitutional government and the ideals of the fathers
have ever been sacred to the Democratic Party; but these
ideals must be vital for practical accomplishment and militant
for justice. It was said of the celebrated opinion of Chief
Justice Taney, that "it gave the law to the North and the
nigger to the South." We are not content with the forms and
ceremonies of the law. The ideals of our Government must
be applied to present conditions.
The first duty of the State is to protect the citizen in the
enjoyment of his rights, to protect the weak from the oppres-
sion of the strong. This is what the men were doing at
Runnymede.
The discrimination which the railroads have made against
North Carolina in freight rates is the injustice of arbitrary
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 155
power. It has already worked irreparable injury; it has al-
ready cost our people millions of dollars and driven from our
territory industries the value of which we can not estimate.
These corporations have the protection of our laws, they
operate by our license, they enjoy privileges, and exercise the
sovereign power of eminent domain granted by the State.
They collect excessive rates from our people that cheaper
rates may be granted to the people of adjoining States.
I feel no antagonism to railroads. I know that our welfare,
to a large extent, is dependent upon their efficient operation,
which can only result from just remuneration. I know that
their prosperity is co-existent with our prosperity. Besides,
for no consideration can the State afford to be unjust. I in-
tend, as the Chief Executive of this State, to administer her
laws with impartiality and with even-handed justice to cor-
poration and to individual, to the great and to the lowly. But
when any corporation or any person shall persistently and
defiantly by arbitrary wrong cripple the industries of this
State and despoil her people, such person or corporation may
expect relentless resistance and resentment.
Vance said of those who were exploiting the State in 1876,
that it ought to be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
in the Day of Judgment than for such in North Carolina. The
spirit of Vance and 1876 lives today.
The city of High Point is to be congratulated that in the
shipment of its furniture to the West it will have the same
freight rate as rival cities of Virginia. The same rule must
apply to all our cities and to all our commerce.
This administration is ready to put into operation the exe-
cutive power of the State to prevent the continuation of this
wrong. I feel sure that this General Assembly is ready to
exercise any constitutional power to compel justice.
Is it possible that any person or any industry within our
territory shall not be accorded by common carriers the same
rights that are enjoyed by the people of other States? If
this be true, then ours is a territory to move out of. And
hundreds of industries have moved. We occupy the land and
boast of the lineage and bear the names of the Englishmen of
156 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Halifax and of the Scotch-Irish of Mecklenburg. We have
inherited Magna Charta, but it is worthless without the spirit
of the men who made it.
We will win. The State will receive immense benefit. Our
industries will feel the impulse and new ones will spring up.
North Carolina has paid, too, her quota of tribute to the
rapacity of unlawful monopoly. We have been preyed upon
by trusts abroad and by trusts at home. They take from the
earnings of all. The poor must suffer most. The farmers
especially have been plundered and oppressed in the open day,
without hindrance, by a great concern adjudged now to be in
violation of law. We have been a patient, long-suffering peo-
ple. In our platform there is promised legislation that "will
make the existence of these concerns impossible." There is
promised the enforcement of the civil and criminal law against
the trust and against the man behind the trust.
In the fulfillment of this promise we need a trust law, clad
in blue uniform, that can raid a trust den with a warrant and
handcuffs in its hand. The guilty should be made to tremble,
the innocent may fear not. While I am Governor no innocent
man shall suffer by the criminal law.
The cry will be raised that such legislation will injure
business. The trust will shield itself, if possible, behind le-
gitimate industry. It will paralyze, if it can, the hand of
justice by warnings of disaster from the interference with
business.
The destruction of piracy is the protection of industry. It
is the duty of the State to protect and to encourage every
enterprise, small and great. And this is the age of large
enterprises. They are essential in the economy of our civili-
zation and are the agencies of its tremendous power and ac-
complishment. "All the currents of the time run to central-
ization. To successfully resist it we must throttle steam and
discharge electricity from human service." But these forces
should be for the service and not for the oppression of man-
kind.
One of the greatest works to be done in North Carolina is
the development of her water powers. This enterprise is now
beginning to assume its splendid proportions. It is potential
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 157
with magnificent upbuilding. The energy of our rivers, which
has been wasted in wild cataract and cascade, has been har-
nessed and driven to cities and towns in currents of power
obedient for all manner of service. This industry should be
welcomed and encouraged. The men behind it are benefactors
of the State. The policy of our law is that the State shall
regulate and control public service corporations. These water
powers are the natural agencies for public service. They are
natural monopolies and since the time of the ancient grist
mills have been subject to governmental regulations. The
corporations operating these water powers for public use
should be controlled by our Corporation Commission. This
must be done eventually, and it is but fair and right that it
should be done now. We should always remember, however,
that remuneration should be in proportion to the boldness of
the conception and to the risk of the enterprise. This is just.
For the protection of the people who work in factories and
on the railroads we should have an employer's liability law.
It should provide reasonable compensation for injury or death,
without the delay and the expense of litigation. This law
should be just to employer and employee, and it would be to
the advantage of both. It would eliminate the contingencies
and expense objectionable to both. It is demanded by good
business as well as by the progressive humanity of the age.
From the task of protection we proceed to the grander
task of construction.
We have in North Carolina two and a half millions of peo-
ple of pure English and Scotch-Irish blood. We rejoice in the
enterprise and industry and courage of our urban population,
and we honor our leaders in business, the master men who
have built up and organized great industries and developed
our expanding commerce. But this is essentially a Farmer
State, and will be for generations. We have no large cities.
Eighty per cent of our population is rural — good, sturdy
farmer folks. They grow and spend their lives in the country.
Their destiny, the destiny of our Commonwealth, the destiny
of us all, must be determined by the conditions that exist in
the country.
158 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
North Carolina is a grand old State, her past has been
heroic in peace and in war. But we must confess with hu-
miliation, that we have neglected our country children worse
than any other State in the Union, save one or two. In the
discharge of the sacred duty of protecting their health and
the paramount duty of providing for their education, we stand
among the lowest. We must expiate this sin before we can
longer claim our noble heritage.
The State has been blessed with all the natural conditions
conducive to health and strength. Sufferers from far countries
come here to recover from disease and to renew the vigor of
youth in our salubrious air. But we have allowed disease and
death to stalk abroad at noon-day. Most of the serious dis-
eases are preventable diseases. Formerly the work of the
doctor was to heal the sick, now it is to preserve health. The
beneficence of scientific medicine is to drive back disease and
suffering. Men and women and children suffer and die from
causes that could be removed. They are deaf and dumb, and
feebleminded, and are stricken with blindness and insanity,
condemned to lives of darkness and hopelessness, not by the
inscrutable decrees of Providence, but by the failure of society
to protect them against the enemy more cruel than death.
The courage and energy of a conquering race must spring
from robust health.
We must provide for the accurate record of births and
deaths and the causes of disease in every community. We
can thus ascertain with accuracy the sanitary conditions in
each community and intelligently work for the prevention of
disease and for the promotion of health. Each county and
each city should have an intelligent, efficient, well paid health
officer. We can appeal to our citizenship through the press,
the school house and the pulpit and encourage them to purer
and more healthful home conditions, to the inestimable bless-
ings of all the people.
The mill men of North Carolina deserve commendation for
the humane spirit with which they have cared for the health
and education of their employees and the children of their
employees. In many places they have provided schools and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 159
libraries and comfortable reading rooms. Some of the great
organizers and heads of industries take the most active in-
terest in the cleanliness of their factory towns and the wel-
fare of their workers. But the State should not neglect her
duty longer because individuals have sometimes done then-
duty.
I doubt not that the General Assembly will ratify by
statute the humane recommendations made for the protec-
tion of women and children by the Committee of Mill Men
and the Committee of the Society for the Protection of Child
Labor.
The highest duty of society is the education of the children.
The command to educate our country children has been thun-
dered from the conscience of the age. When in obedience to
the demands of the people and of justice to the child, the
General Assembly shall provide for a six months' rural school,
North Carolina will feel the impulse of an exalted hope. Then
it will not be long before the stigma of ignorance will be wiped
out, the stigma which through the long years has been our
misfortune and our humiliation.
This act of beneficent wisdom will reach down to the
children of the lowliest and lift up to a clearer vision. It will
show them hope and endow them with a new strength. It
will lift the whole State up and give to her a nobler and a
grander meaning. And prosperity, and juster laws, and nobler
institutions and ideals will follow in the train of universal
enlightenment.
The time has come for the State to exercise her sovereign
authority and compel the attendance of her children upon the
schools. The child cannot work to advantage, but his mind is
eager for knowledge and most retentive. His character is
responsive to culture. The factory is no place for the child.
The drudgery of toil is not his rightful inheritance before his
bones are hard or his muscles are firm. If we grind the seed
corn, there will be a failure in the crop of men.
Our institutions of higher learning must be sustained in
their full vigor and efficiency. They are the dynamic centers
of culture and are essential to the life of the State. If we
160 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
should allow them to begin to degenerate, our whole educa-
tional system would begin to lose its vitality and power.
Our eleemosynary institutions must be maintained in the
high state of efficiency for which they have been noted. We
must make provision for the deaf and the dumb and the blind
and the insane and the feeble-minded. When in their distress
and weakness they stretch forth their hands to us, they should
not be driven back as were the blind men in the way to Jeru-
salem, for it was the Christ who said: "Inasmuch as ye did
it unto the least of these, my little ones, ye did it unto me."
I hope that you can provide a more generous pension for
the Confederate soldiers. More than a half century ago
they went in youth and strength to meet the invading host.
Some fell amid the fierce tumult of historic days beneath the
advancing flag, enshrined in eternal youth ; many have passed
since the war; the remnant of the heroic army is with us yet.
Most of them are poor, all are disabled by age and the wounds
and hardships of war. Our privilege to help them is closing,
for the captains and the soldiers are departing. Soon it will
be written what we did for the last of the battle-scarred men
of Dixie.
We should encourage all of our industries, but especially
should we stimulate the growth of agriculture. Its wonderful
improvement is already an inspiration. Our famers are be-
ginning to reap the harvests of the intelligent utilization of
the soil.
We should provide, by every feasible method, for their pro-
tection, and for their obtaining the credits and the means,
that increasing prosperity may come.
Improved highways are the arteries of the country. They
create organized communities of isolated families and make
these communities a part of the life of the great world. Dyna-
mite and the steam shovel are making through the hills and
through the granite of the mountains, pathways for the loco-
motive. The improved road would give the farmers access
to the railroad, to the church, and to the school during all
seasons of the year. Good roads stimulate improvement.
Then enrich the soil. They arouse ambition and generous
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 161
emulation. They increase the value of every acre of land that
they touch and the value of every man, woman and child whose
home they pass. No community can hope for progress without
the good road. We cannot have the benefits of modern civil-
ization without it. It is not an expense; it is an investment
that pays one hundred per cent dividend every year. And
more, it brings culture and contentment and a better social
life. Every community in the State must have it. The cost
is much less than it was a few years ago.
I think that a general statute should be enacted, conferring
upon the townships the power to levy taxes and issue bonds
for road construction and providing administrative machinery.
The counties can continue what they have been doing. The
townships can complete and perfect the system. The State
should supervise and encourage this great work by lending
its credit and by all practicable, feasible means. All available
convicts should be worked on the public roads. In this way
they can be used more appropriately and more to the advan-
tage of the public than in the cultivation of the field or in the
mechanical arts.
It is not strange that in the past thousands of young men
and women, yearning for a larger life, have left the loneliness
and poverty of the farm with its denial of culture and social
enjoyment. These conditions are passing away; the telephone
now puts the home of the farmer in communication with his
neighbors and with the men and the markets of the world.
The mail carrier brings the daily paper pulsing with "the
thoughts that shake mankind." The home on the farm with
its freedom and purity, with all the opportunities of civiliza-
tion, is the hope of our finest development.
The legislation of North Carolina has heretofore been con-
siderate of the welfare of the people and fairly responsive to
their demands. This State has not suffered as other States
have suffered from corrupt and sinister influences, but these
evils will come to us too unless we provide against them.
The primary election is already a recognized institution in
our politics. It is a logical evolution of our democracy. We
have it and let us have it in its best possible form. Let us
162 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
provide for it by law and let us protect it by law. To the
limit of the law let us guarantee purity and fairness in all
elections. The Democratic Party has set its face steadfastly
against all manner of corruption. This General Assembly, in
accordance with the declaration in the platform, will enact a
statute for the conviction and punishment of all persons that
would by any method of corruption whatsoever attempt to
influence elections or the making or the administration of the
law.
The most difficult question for this General Assembly is
the raising of a sufficient revenue to meet the necessities of
the State. The problem of taxation is always difficult and
vital. The Government must be economically administered.
No extravagance should be tolerated. We must provide
revenue for all appropriations and necessary expenses. With
the State, as with the individual, the elementary rule of bus-
iness is, to live within your means. We are going to inevitable
bankruptcy if we continually spend more than our income.
But North Carolina has ample resources with which to
meet all her financial obligations. Within the last decade the
value of her lands and the amount of her wealth have been
multiplied. The railroads of North Carolina are more valuable
today than was all her property put together in 1876.
We cannot repudiate the obligations of Christian civiliza-
tion. Now that the land is yielding the bountiful harvest,
now that the stagnant towns of the last generation are grow-
ing cities of increasing wealth, now that industry is tri-
umphant, now that destiny is unfolding to us in grander reve-
lation—shall we in this day of strength and prosperity with-
draw any support from our institutions of learning, shall we
deny the efficient administration of justice, shall we not hear
the appeal of the unfortunate, shall it be written that to the
Confederate soldiers we give less than any other Southern
State, and for the education of our children we do less than
any State in the Union ? In this new century, when southern
ideals are about to be restored to the Union, when southern
statesmen are coming again to the places of power, when the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 163
future beckons with renewed strength and life; forward, is
the order.
The fault is that we do not assess our property for tax-
ation. The land has been greatly undervalued and most of
the personal property has not been valued at all. It seems
that an immediate reassessment is necessary, and it should
be done before this General Assembly shall adjourn sine die.
It should be understood that the assessment is not ordered
with the view of increasing the rate of taxation, but with the
view of lowering the rate and with the determination of se-
curing a more equitable and more complete listing of taxable
property. The tax on inheritances should be increased and it
should be collected.
In my opinion the impelling reason for undervaluation and
concealment of property is not that men and communities
desire to shirk the payment of their just proportion of taxes,
nor that they desire to take advantage of other men and other
communities, but the reason is that they do not desire that
other men and other communities shall take the advantage of
them. The taxpayer and the assessor, to insure a square
deal for themselves and their communities, are actuated by
a common purpose to undervalue property, and for this reason
undervaluation and concealment have come to be the estab-
lished custom.
The personal property of the average man can not be con-
cealed. The securities of the wealthy can be concealed. The
poor pay this tax. The wealthy escape.
If we could segregate property and provide that the
property in each community should bear the governmental
expense of that community and that property of a general
character should meet the requirements of the State, the
temptation to depreciation would be greatly lessened and the
effort to conceal less successful. This is the essence and the
strength of local self-government, the taxation of each com-
munity by its own people, for its own purpose and benefits.
The unit should be no larger than is necessary to assure the
advantages of co-operation.
The application of this principle has enabled our cities and
164 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
towns and many of our rural communities to enjoy the ad-
vantages of improvement and progress. We must eventually
resort to this principle of local self-government for the highest
development of local institutions. We must resort to this to
obtain the best roads, and the best schools, and electric lights,
and pure water, and the opportunities of modern life. To
realize the full measure of the blessing of this beneficent
principle we need an Amendment to our Constitution.
The formation and the submission to the people of such an
amendment would be the supreme work of this General
Assembly. Such an amendment would be of mighty sig-
nificance in the life of the State. I believe that it could be
framed to result in her enduring welfare.
In assuming the office of Governor I am deeply conscious
of the solemn responsibility. I follow in the line of my able
predecessors, whose administrations have been blessed with
peace and plenty. There are difficulties to be met; as always
the law must be enforced for the suppression of crime and for
the maintenance of order, and as to the policies that vitally
concern the State and all her varied interests, sharp differences
must necessarily arise among able and patriotic men.
I am profoundly grateful to the people for calling me to
the place where earnest endeavor is potential for the welfare
of North Carolina. I welcome the opportunity. I do not shirk
from the labor. I realize my limitations, and I am eager for
the support and counsel of my friends, and of all good citizens
who would guide me in the straight way and help me to do
the best service.
I will strive to prefer uprightness to the approval of the
mighty or to the applause of the multitude. My ambition is
to perform this, my task, with fidelity and courage; I pray
for that wisdom and strength vouchsafed to him who is stead-
fast in the resolve to do right.
On this day I dedicate myself to the service of all the peo-
ple; and for them I do promise to administer this office con-
stant in the obligation to do exact justice to every man with-
out regard to race or politics, to class or condition ; sealed with
the oath that I have taken, this with them is my Covenant.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 165
And may the Almighty Hand be upon this, His State, to
order it and to uphold it with Judgment and with Righteous-
ness henceforth, even forever.
THE GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS
NOTE: How many of the Governor's recommendations voiced in
his Inaugural Address became realities, history now records. The re-
duction of freight rates, the beginning of the building of a state-wide
good roads system, and tax assessment reform are among the most
notable. The Asheville Gazette-News of January 15th sums up the
progressive program advocated, in the following editorial:
Ranking easily among the great State papers in style and
in spirit, voicing the convictions, the yearnings, the ideals of
a new time, yet with reverence of sacred memories and tra-
ditions, Hon. Locke Craig's address delivered today, on the
occasion of his induction into the office of Governor of North
Carolina, will be read, studied and preserved, by his friends
and neighbors in the western section, heightening their
especial pride in today's event, and by the people of the whole
State. For he voices the hour ; simply, eloquently, powerfully.
The address is a finely wrought literary production. Some
passages, in conformity with the theme, are pure poetry.
With the assurance of one who sees a pathway, the Gov-
ernor says that one goal ahead is the abolition of the monu-
mental tax of freight discrimination ; it must end. The water
powers should be controlled by the Corporation Commission.
There should be an employer's liability law. The State's
destiny depends upon the conditions of country life, since
eighty per cent of our population is rural, and our betterment
enterprises must conform to those conditions and be largely
directed by them. Failure to provide for protection of the
health of the children of the State and for their education the
Governor names by its true name — it is a sin. He is em-
phatic on the subjects of the conservation of the public health,
the work of women and children in factories, good roads build-
ing, a primary law. The climax of the address emphasizes the
paramount necessity of tax assessment reform.
166 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Like the preacher of the Gospel, the Governor's task has
been to emphasize things already stated, to say old things in
a new way, rather than to state new facts. He says of good
roads that they enhance the value of every man and woman
and child whose home they pass, and of every acre of land
fronting upon them. What a magnificent task of conserva-
tion, of economy, is thus pictured.
No vast nor impossible scheme of legislation is outlined.
It is presumed that Mr. Craig has made a program which he
considers well within the limits of the present Legislature.
Most progress is by compromise. If even a major portion of
the things suggested in the address are done, the State will
have made great progress and cleared the way to much
greater. The Governor is of the opinion that there should be
a reassessment of the property of the State before final ad-
journment. This will enable the people to see what the effect
will be of a proper adjustment of taxation, before the tax is
levied. Two years ago the budget was made up by guess.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 167
OPENING OF THE GREAT
STATE FAIR
(October, 1913)
NOTE: The Public Letters and Papers of Locke Craig, published
at the close of his administration, give all his messages to the Genera r
Assembly, and official communications. It is not attempted here to
repeat these, except the Inaugural Address and the final message to
the General Assembly. The speeches that follow are selected from
those made while he was Governor of the State.
North Carolina is buoyant with energy. Plenty is the re-
ward of labor. Her cities teem with commerce and her fields
are robed in harvest. Thrift and frugality are the inheritance
of this generation that remembers the days of our adversity.
The State is victorious in industry. Amid the roar of the
cataract and the throbbing of the steam engine, there rises
the manifold song of multiplex wheel and spindle. We have
today two hundred and ninety-four cotton mills, with more
than three million spindles and more than fifty-eight thousand
looms ; ninety-one furniture factories, employing thousands of
people, and sending the finished products of our forests to all
civilized countries. All kinds of industries are prospering and
adding to the wealth of the State.
Our mountain section is becoming a land of orchards. The
apples wear the royal colors of their native hills, and are
flavored by the aroma that is fragrant in the flowers. Their
quality is unequaled. They take the first prizes at the world's
expositions, and command a higher price than the oranges of
the tropics.
In this land corn and wheat are more prolific than the
harvests gathered in the realms of Rasselas, Prince of Abys-
sinia. Our tobacco, peanuts, berries and cantaloupes are
profitable to the producer and the most delicate luxuries
wherever they are known.
The cattle of a thousand hills are ours. The fertile slopes
of our mountains make pastures as rich as those that Abra-
168 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
ham looked upon when he turned his eyes to the plains of
Mesopotamia.
Cotton is the commanding staple of all agriculture, and
from this product alone North Carolina in 1912 realized more
than sixty million dollars.
This Fair is the Annual Festival of Industry. For exhi-
bition, here is brought the unblemished of every herd and the
finest fruits of every section. The experience of each is the
teacher of all. We are awakened to our powers and oppor-
tunities. The spirit of generous emulation is engendered and
stimulates to higher hope and endeavor. We do not know
what North Carolina can do; we do not know what we our-
selves can do, until we see what has been done by superior
energy and intelligence. This fair is a grand object lesson;
an encouragement that arouses the manhood and the woman-
hood of the State to more determined effort. It is and has
been a large factor in accomplishment and in progress. It is
the list where the knights of useful achievement contend.
The victors here are rewarded with a high consciousness that
they are foremost in the peaceful contest for the welfare of
mankind.
But the noblest exhibit of this Fair is not corn or cotton
or fruit or cattle, but men and women. From the mountains
and from the plains they have gathered — these sons and
daughters of the State, sprung from the loins of a sturdy race,
thoroughbred they are from Norman and Saxon sires. These
constitute the State — her wealth and her glory. Like Cor-
nelia, the mother of the Graccii, she points with pride to these
as her jewels, and all industry, all achievement, all progress,
all law and all government should have the supreme purpose
of a more exalted ideal, a finer citizenship, the guarantee of
justice, an equal opportunity to all the sons and daughters of
this Commonwealth. ,
I have the faith that the State is entering upon a career
of grander progress. We are inspired by a history of heroism
in war and unfaltering courage in peace. We can reap in our
strength the golden harvest from the fields that were sown
in weakness. The men of the South, and the men of North
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 169
Carolina are now in the seats of power to restore the ideals
of the Republic, to unfetter our industries, and guarantee
opportunity to all of the people.
We see the coming of the day when privilege shall no
longer plunder with impunity. We see, too, the coming of
the day when justice shall be done in the transportation of
commerce, when natural monopolies shall be subservient to
the public welfare.
We are in the midst of an era when highways, the arteries
of the body politic, shall carry the blessings of progress and
civilization to every home in North Carolina. Inventive genius
has employed the powers of men and revolutionized industry.
The day is coming when wealth and progress shall be the
handmaid of enlightenment and humanity, when the State
shall protect the weak, and offer to every child the hope of a
higher life. Already there are in the State more than six
hundred thousand children upon the rolls of the public schools.
170 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
NEEDS OF NORTH CAROLINA ALONG
EDUCATIONAL LINES
(Roanoke Rapids, N. C, April, 1914)
Mr. W. L. Long introduced the Governor to the audience
with a few brief but clever remarks. Mr. Long spoke of the
duty of the community to educate its children, complimented
the work of the Superintendent and Faculty of the Graded
School and emphasized the fact that the growth and progress
of this community had been such as to far exceed our present
school facilities. He introduced Governor Craig as "North
Carolina's most distinguished son; a man worthy in every
way to succeed our beloved Aycock."
Governor Craig's speech was both humorous and pathetic ;
entertaining the audience every minute he was speaking. He
referred humorously to his introduction by Mr. Long.
"I wish to thank my talented young friend for the hand-
some way in which he introduced me to this great audience.
Of course I know I do not deserve to be presented in any such
way, but I am obliged to him all the same. It makes me feel
good to hear anybody talk about me that way, although I
know it is not so. My folks in the mountains will come to
the conclusion that I have gotten to be a different kind of a
man since I have become Governor." He mentioned the fact
that this was the first time that he had had the pleasure of
speaking to an audience in their county. He mentioned the
astonishing progress made by this community in such a brief
while. "I could not have spoken here so very long ago,
there was nothing here but peanuts and cotton and now there
has been built here one of the great industrial centers of the
State. I was astonished to see such an industrial center
here.
"But industrial accomplishment is not the highest aim of
men; to make money is not the highest aim of men. It is a
great thing to make money. I wish I could make money. I
do not condemn the man who makes money. It is a mag-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 171
nificent thing to build railroads that stretch across a con-
tinent, to erect cotton mills and paper mills and vast manu-
facturing industries; to start in motion machinery; to start
the song of the spindle and the clack of the loom.
"But that is not the highest thing in life. The object of
all human endeavor, the highest aim of all human civiliza-
tion, ought to be the culture of the individual man and woman.
The greatest thing in this world is the building of men and
women. If everything on this green footstool of Almighty
God were for the sole purpose of making money, if that were
the sole object, He would stamp it out of existence. The
highest object of all human endeavor is the improvement of
men and women, and it is the highest object of government.
The highest object of government is not to build great battle-
ships, to erect magnificent public buildings. The symbol of
our government is not the rapid-fire machine gun, or the hang-
man's noose. I would rather compare the government under
which I live to an old hen. I do not mean any jokes by com-
paring it to an old hen. It is one of the grandest symbols I
know of. When our Saviour stood upon the Mount of Olives
overlooking 'Jerusalem the Golden' he said: 'Oh, Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them
that are sent unto thee. How often would I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not.'
"I would not typify this government by the sword, the
hangman's noose or the policeman's billy, but I would have it
a government for protection of the people and to lift up all
the people to a higher plane and a nobler purpose in life.
Liberty and Justice are but means to an end, and Liberty and
Justice have as an end the betterment of every person that
comes under their sway.
"That is the grandest republic which guarantees to every
child in its borders the opportunity of attaining his highest
possibilities. That community is governed by the noblest
ideas, that community is striving for the highest and best in
life, which guarantees to every child in its borders the possi-
bilities of attaining to its highest ideals.
172 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
"Unless this community and this Government guarantee
these possibilities, it is all a fraud and a humbug, and it is
wrong!
"There are three main influences with a man or a woman ;
in the first place, the influence of heredity. We are apt to be
somewhat like our parents are and to receive from them some
of our characteristics. And then there is the influence upon
human character of that thing which you call personal will.
Every boy, girl, man or woman has within him a throne of
power from which he can defy the decree of Almighty God.
And then there is opportunity — the influence of environment,
the influence of the circumstances in which we live, and I
think that counts for more than all of the other influences put
together.
"The intellectual and moral differences between men and
women by nature are not more pronounced than their physical
differences are. But take the most pure and beautiful woman
in Roanoke Rapids and compare her with the lowest, most
degraded woman in Roanoke Rapids. The difference between
them is the difference between a demon and an archangel — as
far as the East is from the West. Why this great difference ?
It does not exist by nature and ought not to exist at all. You
say it does. Suppose you go to the poorest and worst kept
home in this town and take from it an infant at the moment
of birth. Suppose this child is exchanged for a rich child,
unknown to anyone. Do you think that after life would ever
reveal the horrible secret? Lady Clara Vere De Vere, with
all her culture, grace and refinement, if she had been trans-
posed at birth to a cradle of ignorance, vice and sin, do you
suppose that the blood of an hundred earls would have made
her the graceful, talented, Christian woman that she was?
"Circumstances, environment, opportunity, or the lack of
these things, make up these differences between men and
women. You might take the child of the wildest savage and
put him in a Christian home, why he too would be 'the heir
of all the ages in the foremost files of time.' My friends, I
claim that the greatest influence upon human character is
opportunity.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 173
"A boy or girl is like a wireless tower standing ready to
receive messages of love, culture, hope — ready to receive
power. Every child, every human being, wants the oppor-
tunity of that message. It wants its mind tuned for a higher,
nobler and grander life.
"The great differences you see between men are only dif-
ferences in the opportunities they have had. Every man, boy,
or girl, ought to be taught to do that which he is best capable
of doing. I had rather be a good hog feeder than a sorry
preacher and sometimes a powerful good hog feeder is spoiled
in making a poor preacher. Every man ought to be taught
to do that which he can do the best. We cannot all be gov-
ernors, spinners, or preachers, but there is a place for every
one.
"You can take two acorns from the same tree, with the
same possibilities, the same germ of life, the same energy
for development. You can plant one in sterile soil and let it
be choked by weeds. It will grow up into an ugly, knotty,
scrubby oak. Take the other acorn and put it in good soil,
give it sustenance, give it a chance to grow. It will grow into
a great, widespreading monarch of the forest. It will wave
its giant arms in defiance of the storm. If there is a great
difference in what came from the two acorns, what must be
the difference that develops between two human beings, be-
cause these human beings have no limitations? All possi-
bilities are theirs. For them everything hopes. There is no
limit to their development; no limit to the heights to which
they may rise; no limit to their degradation to the lowest
depths. When a community is dealing with its young, it is
dealing with infinite possibilities."
Governor Craig then alluded to the coming bond election
for the purpose of enlarging the educational facilities of the
community.
"They tell me that the corporations of this District are
going to pay eighty-five per cent of the taxes and the people
of the District will only have to pay the other fifteen per
cent. A man who would vote against that kind of a proposi-
tion would vote against the interests of his child.
174 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
"When I look at my boys, it seems to me that the highest
and noblest thing that I can do is to give them the best oppor-
tunity in life. I know that if my boy is educated and your
boy is not educated, I know that my boy grows like the
mighty oak in fertile ground and your boy is fated to grow
like the scrub oak. I know that one boy would occupy an
exalted place in the world and the other boy must be a hewer
of wood and a drawer of water. If my boy has the chance and
yours has not, it has got to be your boy and not mine.
"Of course you are going to vote those taxes. North Car-
olina is voting this tax everywhere for the benefit of the
children of North Carolina. I hope that everyone of you will
go to the polls and vote for the progress of your children.
"There are just as intelligent faces among the Roanoke
Rapids boys and girls as you will find in the most fashionable
community. They need but culture. The highest product of
the human race is to be found in the modern, cultured
American men and women. I believe the boys and girls here
in Roanoke Rapids are capable of all culture and develop-
ment. Unless this community does lift them up and point
them to the very highest opportunity, this community is a
failure.
"The corporations say if you will note this tax, we will pay
eighty-five per cent and you are to pay fifteen per cent. They
are willing to do this because their business will be worth
more. Every human being in Roanoke Rapids will be worth
more. It is a question of whether or not you want to educate
your child.
"You should vote this tax and give all welcome to the
great and glorious opportunity vouchsafed to your children.
My friends, the responsibility is yours, the duty is yours, and
I believe that every man will do his duty to himself and to his
children and let his children take hold of the glorious oppor-
tunity offered them in this beautiful city on the banks of the
Roanoke."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 175
INTRODUCTION OF VICE-PRESIDENT
MARSHALL AT CHARLOTTE
(May 20th, 1914)
NOTE: This occasion was the celebration in commemoration of
the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, May 20,
1775.
Mr. McDowell, in presenting Governor Craig, recalled that
at the great' centennial celebration of 1875, the chief speaker,
Governor Thomas Hendrix, of Indiana, was introduced by-
North Carolina's idol, Governor Zebulon B. Vance. "When
these two luminous figures faced the audience they formed
a picture never to be forgotten," said he, and added that it
was highly appropriate for the guest of the day, a celebrated
Indianian, to be introduced by "our own loved Governor Locke
Craig."
There was an outburst of applause as the Governor arose.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of Mecklenburg and all the other
counties of North Carolina," said he. "If the men of Meck-
lenburg and surrounding counties of 139 years ago could re-
visit this city and witness the scenes that are being enacted
here today, they would conclude that their descendants had
kept at least one of the commandments, that they should
multiply and replenish the earth. (Laughter.)
"North Carolina is gathered here today to celebrate the
clear-sightedness and heroism of the pioneers of human
freedom, or as the poem has put it, the vanguard of the Revo-
lution. We come to acknowledge our obligation and to express
our gratitude to the men and women who, though few in num-
bers as compared with us; 139 years ago, in defiance of the
principalities and powers of earth, declared for the inalienable
rights of all men. We come, my friends, today, and on the
soil made sacred by their dust, and under the same skies
beneath which they lived, and with the same Scotch-Irish
blood coursing through our veins that burned in them, we
come to renew our covenant to do our part with fidelity and
176 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
courage. We acknowledge our indebtedness for this heritage
and realize that it is our responsibility to transmit it in its
purity to the generations that are to follow us.
"It is appropriate that your orator today should come from
the great Northwest, a section whose people, during the try-
ing years of Reconstruction and the political contests that
have come since, have had hearts that responded in sympathy
and co-operation with Southern wrongs and Southern ideals.
"We have with us today a man, who, by grace of the
grandest Republic that ever existed among men, has been
exalted to the second eminence in all the world. (Applause.)
He comes to us, not merely as a distinguished person, but he
comes as the representative of ideals that have come back to
the sovereign places in this Government. He represents an
administration that stands for justice to all men, a vitaliza-
tion of the principle for which the men of Mecklenburg strove ;
an administration that stands for peace with and among all
the nations of earth but one which, with all the power of the
greatest nation in the world, stands for war if war must
come. (Applause.)
"The men of Mecklenburg 139 years ago planted here the
seed of a mighty tree. It has grown up into the magnificent
city of Charlotte. The vanguard of the Revolution, it has
always maintained its position of leadership. I welcome you,
sir, to the largest and most important city in North Carolina;
in commerce and in spirit and in progress, the largest city on
this hemisphere. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great
honor to present to you the Vice-President of the United
States."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 177
MEETING OF THE SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF
AMERICA AND ADDRESS OF
GOVERNOR CRAIG
(May 29th, 1914)
NOTE: The account of this meeting was taken from The Raleigh
News and Observer of May 31st>.
When the Scottish Society of America celebrated its fifth
time in Fayetteville, Thursday, Governor Locke Craig wore
plaid, spoke, and was the most delighted Scotchman in the
crowd.
Governor Craig took his staff with him and while the "God-
Blessed Macs" were dressed up, the State of North Carolina
was putting on some airs also. The Governor's party attracted
the big attention. The Scotch had seen the Macs, their
clothes and their ornamentals, but they had not seen real regi-
mentals since Sherman went through fifty years ago and
raised a little of the stuff that he said war is. He paid Fay-
etteville a delightful visit and helped himself to the good
rations of that town.
Governor Craig began his speech with a story that brought
the crowd to great laughter. He said that while he and his
staff were sitting in their automobile waiting for the parade
to begin, a crowd of boys came out and looked at them.
General Laurence W. Young was the man whom they sur-
veyed. The General had on his military best. The boys
looked him over too awed to talk. But there was one brave
fellow and he personified the sentiment of the others. Look-
ing at the Colonel, the youngster said: "There is one man
what shore is dressed up!"
"They are a people that never crouched in bondage. It
was the red-headed Scotchman, Galgarcus, according to Ta-
citus, that hurled at the crushing destiny of Roman power his
178 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
last defiance, at the foot-hills of Scotland, that is perpetuated
in the oratory of our day:
" 'You plunder our homes, and violate our women, and call
that civilization ; you make the land a desolation, and call that
peace.' They died before the legions of Caesar, but not a man
surrendered. It was the same inspiration in the young piper
of the Seventy-Fifth Highland Regiment at Waterloo. He sat
on a drum, playing the airs of Scotland while his comrades
were annihilated around him. They died remembering Ben
Lothian, like the Greeks remembering Argos. The music of
the bag-pipe did not stop until the piper was dead.
"Wherever English-speaking armies have marched, and
the conclusions of battle have been tried, whether on the
Heights of Abraham, or on the Heights of Gettysburg, or the
Moor of Culloden, there Scotchmen have fought and fallen
among the foremost. Their free-born spirit, their knightly
character and their courage are the themes of romance and
chivalry.
"Not only in war, but in the thoughts that shake mankind,
they have maintained their primacy. That small land has
produced thinkers and philosophers and orators equalled only
by ancient Athens. A land of poor soil, and rugged mountains,
it has been worth more to the world than the vast empires of
the Czars and the Manchus.
"The most powerful thinker of modern times is the Scotch-
man, Thomas Carlyle. With the exception of Shakespeare,
the crowning glory of English Literature. He is one of the
forces of the ages. He is a seer who beheld the apocalypse of
nature, a prophet who called men back to the eternal verities.
Sometimes he rings the Angelus bells, and then in the twi-
light, over peaceful meadow and golden field, we hear the
tones of everlasting love and forgiveness ; sometimes he sounds
the blast of the trumpet of the Day of Judgment, and in the
tempest amid the tumult of the thunders from blackness, the
wrath of God is poured out in fire.
"The songs of Robert Burns have interpreted the thoughts
of love wherever lovers have wooed, and in all lands wherever
the bonds of friendship bind men together, they sing:
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 179
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind;
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne."
"The hard-headed Scotchman stood for self-government in
Scotland. He has stood for self-government everywhere. In
1775 he stood for self-government in North Carolina. With
the resolute daring of his ancestors he defied the power of the
British Empire."
Governor Craig then showed how the Scotchmen have been
leaders of political thought, and how their spirit of independ-
ence had formulated the ideals of democracy, that are po-
tential in the Republic today.
In speaking of the part which Flora MacDonald played in
connection with Prince Charlie, Governor Craig somewhat
took issue with Dr. MacDonald. He said that he thought that
Charles Edward was unworthy of the devotion and heroism
of the MacDonalds, that the Scotch people were finer than the
Stuart Dynasty.
He compared the determination of the people of the South
and the tenacity with which they held to their ideals of gov-
ernment, to the loyalty of the Scotch for the principles which
had always made Scotland a free and unconquerable country.
There was a great cheering when he said that in the hour of
her greatest travail and darkness, the people of the State
were inspired and led by the Scotchman, Zeb. Vance. He told
how in the time of trial in North Carolina, when our civiliza-
tion was threatened, the lion of the Tribe of Democracy stood
upon the portico of the National Hotel in Raleigh, and with a
voice that sounded like a trumpet from one end of North Car-
olina to the other, said that it ought to be more tolerable for
Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for those
enemies of the State in North Carolina.
180 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
THE LEGACY OF THE CONFEDERACY
Accepting The Monument To The Women Of The Confederacy
On The Occasion Of The Unveiling At Raleigh,
North Carolina, June 10th, 1914.
NOTE: This speech was re-printed many times by special request,
and has received more commendation perhaps than any speech ever
delivered by Governor Locke Craig.
The State accepts this monument with grateful apprecia-
tion. It is the tribute of a knightly soldier to the Women of
the Confederacy.
The statue is epic: Arms and the Man. Its theme is
heroism and devotion; the inheritance of the children of the
South. The bronze group represents the grandmother un-
rolling to the eager youth, grasping the sword of his father,
the scroll of the father's deeds. The bronze etchings on the
faces of the pedestal suggest the outlines of her story. To
the earnest beholder the statue is illumined with unfolding
meaning. His vision will determine its revelation.
As we look upon it, there rises out of the past a time when
the spirit of war moved upon the depths of human thought,
and summoned the elemental forces to titanic strife. We feel
the throes of the mighty upheaval. The heavens are black
with tempests, and ominous with the voices of ancient war
and unutterable woe. We see "the marshaling in arms, and
battle's magnificently stern array." Lovers say good-bye
with tokens of plighted troth; the young mother and the
father in uniform, kneel together, weeping over the cradle of
their new born babe; there are tears and everlasting fare-
wells; the cavalcades are filing off; the tramp of innumerable
armies is heard. In secret the mother — this Woman of the
Confederacy — prays and weeps with breaking heart for the
boy who marches away to the wild, grand music of the bugles.
We hear the din of martial hosts, and squadrons galloping
in the storm. They rush to the onset amid the rattle of
musketry and thunders of field artillery. They defy carnage
and death; they are torn by bursting shells, they are pierced
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 181
by bullets and cut with steel; they stagger and fall on the
bloody ground; the resolute survivors close in and press on.
In the crash of doom the gray line stands, despising hunger
and pain and death. Before the numberless battalions they
are Vikings in the hour of despair. They feel the pulsations
of the unconquerable hearts that beat at home. At home
alone, the wives and mothers, these Women of the Con-
federacy, in patience and suffering, are listening for the com-
ing of those who will never return — will never return, but
march on forever in the militant hosts of the heroic of all
kindred and nations, that have redeemed and glorified the
world.
We dedicate this monument as a symbol of our veneration.
We dedicate this monument as a covenant that we too, in
blessed remembrance of them, shall strive for fidelity and
courage.
In unfaltering obedience Abraham would have sacrificed
Isaac. For this, "the Angel of the Lord called unto Abraham
out of Heaven and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the
Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not
withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless
thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars
of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore;
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies ; and in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
The Women of the Confederacy, in supreme consecration,
did lay upon the altar of Dixie their first born, the fairest and
the bravest of the world. And because they did this thing,
we too are the Children of the Covenant. The promise to
Abraham was not alone for the seed of Abraham. It is the
universal decree, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible. It
is the law of development for all the children of men. Ever-
lasting faith is a well of strength springing up into everlast-
ing life.
Had the men and the women of the South been recreant,
had they shrunk from the sacrifice of war, their children
today would be the disinherited heirs of the promise, a dis-
honored and a degenerate people.
182 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
In the onward march of the race, these world conflicts must
come. That people survives, gathers strength, becomes puis-
sant in human destiny that has the faith and the courage for
the supreme issue. The immediate result is not the final
judgment. Who won at Thermopylae, the Persians or the
Spartans? Who was victorious at the Alamo, Santa Anna
or Travis? Who triumphed, Socrates or his judges; Jesus or
Pontius Pilate?
The glory of France is the Old Guard at Waterloo. The
noblest feelings of the English heart are stirred by the Light
Brigade charging to death at Balaklava. Lexington and
Guilford Court House are as dear to us as Trenton and York-
town.
Disaster does not always destroy. The winds may blow;
the rains may descend ; houses and lands may be swept away ;
but God has placed His bow in the heavens as a promise that
the storm shall cease, and the waters subside; the scorching
drouth may wither the fields, untimely frost may kill our corn
and fruit; yet in the procession of the seasons, the rain and
sunshine will again clothe hill and mead in verdure, and har-
vest fields will wave in golden plenty. Armies may be de-
stroyed, "Far called, our navies melt away"; yet from a land
consecrated by the blood of the brave, from a soil enriched
by glorious tradition, tried and purified by fire, a nobler,
stronger race will come. But over the waste of moral desola-
tion, there comes no rejuvenating spring. Upon a land
blighted by the cowardice of those who should defend it, there
is the judgment of decay and death.
The heroic past is our priceless inheritance. Our armies
were destroyed ; our land was smitten by war ; our homes were
ravaged by avenging armies. We were plundered by the
hordes of reconstruction. But standing in this land that has
suffered, amid this throng of gray-haired veterans, and their
kindred and descendants, I declare that the legacy of the war
is our richest possession. I utter the sentiments of every
maimed soldier; of every soldier who gave the best of his
young life to "the storm-cradled nation that fell," of every
bereaved widow and mother; and if I could speak for the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 183
dead, I would utter the sentiment of the forty thousand sons
of the State who fell upon fields of battle, when I declare that
they would not revoke that sacrifice.
Some of you can remember when the young soldier was
brought home dead, when the maiden was clothed in her first
sorrow, and the old gray head was bowed in the last grief.
The mothers of the South had sent their sons to the front as
the Spartan mother when she delivered the shield to her son
with the command: "Return with it, or upon it." They
wept in silent desolation, but in their grief there was exalta-
tion, for they knew that their sons had done a soldier's part,
that in the tumult of historic days they had fought and fallen
beneath the advancing flag; that in strange lands, wounded
and neglected, they had suffered without complaint, and be-
queathing a message for home, had died, as conquerors, with-
out a murmur.
"While one kissed a ringlet of thin gray hair,
And one kissed a lock of brown."
Hail to you, Women of the Confederacy, that bore them
and nurtured them, and offered them for sacrifice! In you
and in your descendants is vouchsafed the promise to Abra-
ham: Henceforth all generations shall call you blessed.
From the shadow of war we sweep into the grander day.
The earth is hallowed because it is the sepulcher of the brave ;
not men whose victories have been inscribed upon triumphal
columns, but men whose memorial is, that in courage and
loyalty for conviction, they were steadfast unto death; men
who have been stoned and scourged, and quailed not before
the mighty. "Their heroic sufferings rise up melodiously to-
gether to Heaven out of all lands and out of all times, as a
sacred Miserere; their heroic actions as a boundless everlast-
ing Psalm of Triumph." They are the conquerors. The South
has forever a part in that chorus of victory.
184 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
OPPORTUNITIES TO THE STATE AND
NATION THROUGH TRIUMPH OF
DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES
(Winston-Salem, October 20, 1914)
NOTE: The account of this speech is from The Winston-Salem
Journal.
Before an audience numbering fully 1,000 people, Governor
Locke Craig, of North Carolina, last night delivered at the
courthouse one of the most superb addresses ever heard in
Winston-Salem. While primarily a political address, at times
the speaker forgot all political parties in his vision of the
ultimate grandeur of the American Nation, the magnificent
destiny that awaits North Carolina, and the potential factor
that the Nation is destined to become.
The speaker paid a glowing tribute to the splendid sates-
manship of Woodrow Wilson; graphically described the inate
tendency of mankind to seek for the highest and the best, and
showed how the broad-minded policies of Democracy have
played an important part in enabling mankind more readily
to approach his ideals; spoke beautifully of the great strides
that this Nation has made, and its ever-increasing importance
in the commercial world, and also along those lines that look
to soul-culture.
He told of weakness of Republican policies; spoke of the
Forsyth County Democratic candidates in terms of highest
praise; looked upon the magnificent strides in the building of
good roads in the State with great pleasure; longed for the
day when the comforts and conveniences of the city may be
seen on the farms in the State ; and likened the great progress
that North Carolina is making now to the beautiful flight of
an eagle soaring skyward, its vision of glory and grandeur
constantly becoming greater and greater.
Governor Craig preluded his address with reference to
the words of introduction by Editor Santford Martin, of The
Journal, stating that it was the second time he had been
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 185
introduced by his talented friend. "He made fine speeches
both times," said the Governor. "I wish he would keep on
speaking all night. I thank him for his words of eulogy and
I wish that I were worthy of the encomiums of praise that he
has placed upon me. I thank him for it the more because I
know they spring from a generous heart and from loyal
friendship."
Governor Craig referred to the elections in the State every
two years, when numerous speeches are made; and the pro-
blems before the people are closely considered. It is in the
elections that the problems of the Nation are solved. He
characterized the United States as the greatest country in
the world ; there is no other country in the world like it. One
can get on a train in the East and travel westward for 3,000
miles and everywhere he stops he will see people like himself,
speaking the same language, inspired by the same ideals, and
having about the same religion. Whether the people come
from Norway, Sweden, Germany or from elsewhere they soon
become part and parcel of this great Government.
Following his tribute to the greatness of the American
Nation, Governor Craig, likewise, paid a glowing tribute to
the American people. He characterided them as being the
most industrious people in the world, the most intelligent, the
best educated, the hardest working. Through the genius of
the American people, more has been accomplished in an eco-
nomic way in the past century than ever before.
Man, he declared, is a progressive animal. He is not con-
tent with the real but conceives of an ideal and promptly sets
about to realize it. He pictured primeval man with all his
crudeness, striving through the centuries to better his condi-
tions. In matchless flow of eloquence he pictured mankind on
his upward march, through the early stages of his develop-
ment, his early methods of transportation.
From the scanty desires that first took possession of the
human heart, he pictured the growth of culture and refine-
ment; from the crude early days and desires to the time when
man began to build palaces and to strive for those things for
which the soul aspires.
186 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
And today, humanity's commerce is carried on everywhere.
Man has harnessed steam and electricity, drives them like an
ox, and forces them to do his bidding. And they create
wealth for him and serve him as an errand boy. America is
the foremost Nation in this great march of progress.
After graphically picturing the rise of the individual in
this great Republic, the speaker attacked the Republican
Party's use of power in the government in years gone by;
told how they pursued the policy of enriching a few people at
the expense of the many. Showed how the national Repub-
lican policies had a tendency to aid the few, how it was op-
posed to the great principle of equal justice for all, the key-
note of Democracy's appeal. He told of how the tyranny of
the Republican rule caused many Republicans to revolt, finally
resulting in the election of Woodrow Wilson. He pictured
the demise of the Republican Party, declaring that only one
well organized party now exists in the Nation — the Demo-
cratic Party.
He told of a colored minister who sometimes got mixed in
his Scripture who was telling his congregation about Jezebel.
He declared that the minister said that while Paul was preach-
ing in Ephesus that Jezebel fell from the temple and was
broken into a thousand pieces; that the dogs came and licked
her sores, and that of the fragments twelve baskets full were
gathered up! He applied the illustration to the Republican
Party but saw no resurrection for it.
He pictured the great opportunities offered for advance-
ment along all lines with the advent of Democratic principles.
The decks are cleared for action, he said, and politically speak-
ing, the Democratic Party is the "Old Ship of Zion." He paid
a glowing tribute to the men who through forty years of
adversity have clung to the Democratic faith, knowing it to
be the party that is right and that it could not be destroyed.
He declared that a certain Progressive has characterized
the Republican Party as "a rotten hulk, loaded with plunder,
with lead for its sails, filled with the wrath of God, and having
Hell as its nearest port." He told of another charge that it
was in league with the invisible empire of greed at the ex-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 187
pense of the people. He said that all these years the Repub-
lican ship has been a pirate ship, preying upon the great mass
of the people of the country. But, he declared, Woodrow
Wilson has driven the pirate from the high seas. The ma-
chinery of government has been returned to the people where
it belongs. No longer is $10.00 paid into the public treasury
while hundreds are poured into the coffers of the immensely
rich.
In eloquent words, Governor Craig told of how Woodrow
Wilson has brought about a great change in heretofore exist-
ing conditions; how the vast tax on the people at large for
the benefit of the wealthy has been removed, and the enor-
mous incomes of the wealthy have been taxed to help bear
the burdens of administering the affairs of the Nation. The
almost inconceivable tribute that has heretofore been levied
on the common people has been removed. He told of the new
tariff law; how the Government has been restored again to
the people, and taken from the hands of organized greed.
Governor Craig declared that the financial center of the
Government is now no longer in Wall Street but in the Federal
Treasury, how no panics can occur now through scarcity of
money.
The speaker said that some Republicans say that the Dem-
ocratic Party is responsible for the low price of cotton. He
declared that if that is true that the Republican administra-
tion is responsible for hookworm and pallagra, as they broke
out during a Republican administration.
Interestingly, the speaker told of the international law of
commerce upon which the price of cotton is based; upon the
world's visible supply and the demand. He showed how only
something over one-third of the crop is consumed in this
country, and the remainder is exported to those European
Nations now engaged in war. Cotton is not low, he explained,
but the coming on of the war stopped the demand for it. He
showed how at the beginning oi the present year that cotton
was selling for fourteen cents, but the great conflict had its
result. However, he stated that cotton has sold low before,
for instance under McKinley's administration in 1898 when
188 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
it brought four cents. Likewise during the latter part of
Taft's administration it sold for eight cents.
The speaker explained why the cotton crop cannot be sent
to Europe now. The channels of trade have been stopped.
But Governor Craig expressed the hope that the same fine
diplomacy of Wilson in avoiding a conflict with Mexico would
devise some way in which to get cotton to Europe, and thus
relieve the cotton planters of the Southern States.
In the great misfortune that has overtaken the Southern
farmers by the lack of a market for the surplus cotton raised,
the speaker declared that he is glad that there are men in
power at the White House today whose sympathies are with
the common people and not with organized wealth. That the
men in Washington are busying themselves in every way pos-
sible to help the farmers in whom they are deeply interested.
He referred to the splendid efforts of Secretary McAdoo to
meet the many difficult calls made upon his ability.
In the restoration of the affairs of government to the peo-
ple, Governor Craig told of the splendid part the South has
played. He referred to the devotion of the South to the cause
of Democracy through many years, how its people remained
true to the principles of the party without deviation, although
the Republicans asked them to come over to their side and
share in the fruits of Republican victory in the Nation.
He told of the constant struggle of the South to bring
Democratic principles to victory again, and how against great
odds the people always stood solidly for the party and its
principles which are immortal. And he told of how finally it
came to pass that a man born in Virginia and educated in
North Carolina was elected as President; and how he has
come to formulate laws that guarantee justice and equal
opportunities to all men.
Governor Craig likened the Democratic Party to Sir Isaac
Newton, and the Republican Party to his dog. An apple fell
from a tree and the mind of Newton thereby discovered the
law of gravity; while the dog only saw the apple fall from
the tree. The mind of man is not satisfied with anything
short of the infinite. Democracy believes in the everlasting
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 189
progress of humanity. Democracy believes in the universal
equality of men. In the difference in men, the speaker only
saw a difference in environment; in opportunity. He told of
the ugly woman Sam Jones saw. The woman's husband re-
sented the way in which the famous evangelist looked at her
for she had a reputation for her ugliness. He saw Jones after
the service and said, "Look here, Mr. Jones, I want you to
know that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world.
Beauty is only skin deep." And Jcnes replied, "Well, for
heaven's sake skin her."
The speaker took the opportunity offered to briefly discuss
the proposed constitutional amendments. He spoke especi-
ally of the amendment relating to taxation. He said that
there is no effort to increase taxes; but that it is desired to
give the Legislature power to segregate taxes; so that
property may be taxed for county taxes; and railroads and
corporations taxed to support the State.
He declared that the land values are too low; that they
will continue to be as long as the present system of taxation
obtains. He declared that there are men who hide their sol-
vent credits, that it is a universal custom in the State; that
the system now is responsible for it.
Likewise, the speaker wanted the counties to transact their
business at home without carrying purely local matters to
the State Legislature. He would also strike out the word
"rebellion" from the Constitution of the State.
Governor Craig referred to the magnificent progress that
the State is making in the building of good roads ; he declared
that by the time his term of oifice is completed that every
county in North Carolina will have a great system of good
roads. He spoke of the splendid work that Mr. P. H. Hanes,
of this city, has done for the cause of good roads; how the
disposition of the people of Forsyth County to help them-
selves in the matter of building good roads led to his interest
in having a part of the government good road appropriation
spent in Forsyth County.
He declared that good roads are great civilizing factors;
that they will paint school houses, build fine churches, place
190 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
music in the rural homes, make better and happier women
and children on the farms. He rejoiced in the rapid growth
of the cities of the State but desired to see greater improve-
ments on the farms of the State ; conveniences for women on
the farms to make their burdens lighter. In a prophetic man-
ner, the speaker pictured the North Carolina of the future
when the farms of the land will blossom as a rose of a
thousand leaves, and everything possible will be done for the
comfort and convenience of the women in the rural sections
of the State. He pictured it as an era of sanitation, con-
venience, and happiness and for the people on the farms of
the State.
Likewise, Governor Craig spoke of the Forsyth County
Democratic ticket. He declared Hon. H. G. Chatham, the
Democratic candidate for the State Senate, to be a tried and
proven knight of Democracy. He characterized him as com-
ing from a race of men who have always done their utmost
to build up North Carolina in every way possible; as a man
who will falter at no time in his duty ; and as a man who will
represent poor men and rich men in the same way. "He is
the friend of all men," declared the speaker. "He believes in
equal rights and equal justice to all."
He also declared that the Democratic candidates for the
Legislature, as well as all the other Democratic candidates,
are men eminently fitted to serve the great people of Forsyth
County.
Governor Craig concluded his address with a beautiful
word picture. He told how he was standing on Mount Mitchell.
That he saw an eagle rise in the billowy clouds. On and on,
higher and higher it mounted into the skies, brushing away
the billows here and there, soaring upward until at length its
royal plumage was bathed in the grandeur of the sun's rays
as it looked out upon the entrancing scene. That, said the
Governor, is the way North Carolina is climbing now, its part
in the development of the Nation is becoming grander and
grander, and the future is most encouraging.
Introduced By Mr. Martin
After making some announcements relative to some Demo-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 191
cratic speakings in the county, Chairman Gilbert T. Stephen-
son, of the Forsyth County Democratic Executive Committee,
introduced Mr. Santford Martin, Editor of The Winston-
Salem Journal, and he introduced the distinguished speaker
in a brief, but eloquent manner.
Mr. Martin referred in an interesting manner to the great
achievements of the Democratic Party in the Nation; of the
matchless leadership of Woodrow Wilson ; and of the splendid
stand that North Carolinians have taken in the halls of Con-
gress.
Likewise he told of the splendid progress in North Caro-
lina; and he asserted that Governor Locke Craig's adminis-
tration means as much to North Carolina as Wilson's does to
the United States. He said that Governor Craig's adminis-
tration has been characterized by constructive achievement —
notably his magnificent work for the State in the solution of
the freight rate matter without having the matter entangled
in long and tedious litigation. Also under his administration,
the ten proposed amendments, the adoption of which will
enable the State to grow properly, have been put forward.
Mr. Martin told of the Governor's faithful attention to
duties ; that not a single charge has been lodged against him.
192 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
ACCEPTING THE BUST OF JUDGE
WILLIAM GASTON
(November 24th, 1914)
We have listened with delight and profit to the scholarly,
masterful and sympathetic portrayal of the character of
William Gaston. We have heard the elegant and graceful
presentation of the marble bust.
The State accepts this statue, and with gratitude to the
Bar Association of North Carolina. It will be placed in one
of the halls of the Supreme Court Building, there to dwell
through the coming centuries with the portraits and the
statues of those who have ennobled the State, and contributed
to the strength and glory of the English-speaking race.
William Gaston has of right a place in this Pantheon of
our great men — primus inter pares. His profound mind was
enlarged and adorned by the erudition of the student, and
the culture of the man of letters. As orator, statesman and
judge, he was among the very foremost, and devoted all of
his splendid gifts and attainments to the service of his
country, and to the service of men. He belonged to the first
order of nobility, and ever maintained his ideals and his
character in exalted purity. He set the highest standard for
private place and for public office. He gave a tone to the life
of the State in the time of her youth that vitalizes and
strengthens her now, and in the future. North Carolina will
ever remember and cherish him, for he is to us an inheritance
more precious than wealth or rich gifts, or princely endow-
ments.
The men and the women of this and other generations,
who aspire to higher things, will look upon this statue to re-
member, to admire, and to emulate his life.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 193
ACCEPTING THE STATUE OF CHIEF
JUSTICE EUFFIN
(February 1st, 1915)
We have listened with pleasure and profit to the fitting
and eloquent tributes pronounced upon Judge Ruffin.
It has been the duty of the State to erect a statue to our
pre-eminent jurist. We accept this splendid statue with
gratitude to those who gave it. In just recognition of the
character and the intellect of the great Chief Justice, we will
place it in the entrance hall of this building, the place for the
memorials of the highest and the noblest of our men in all
generations. There it will live through the centuries typify-
ing in majestic form the majestic man of pure purpose and
master mind. In the plastic years of our history he gave
form and order to our jurisprudence. He interpreted statutes
and constitutions with the wisdom of the sages, and delivered
judgments that are enduring precedents of righteousness.
He was our judge, a distinctive product of North Carolina,
but his influence is beyond the limitations of the State and
the Nation. He is recognized everywhere as one of the
greatest judges that our race has produced. In the uttermost
parts of the earth, where the English jurisprudence exercises
its beneficent rule, he speaks and will speak to legislatures,
to courts, and to executives, directing and enlightening them
in the way of truth and in the conception and the administra-
tion of justice.
We raise the statue in gratitude that the Old North State,
too, has produced a judge that gives laws to the judges of the
earth. We raise the statue to teach to us and to our children
the power and the majesty of an exalted life.
194 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
ACCEPTING THE BUST OF JUDGE
W. P. BYNUM
(April 12tth, 1915)
With gratitude North Carolina accepts from the Bar
Association this statue of William Preston Bynum. It shall
be placed in this our Pantheon with the statues of our fore-
most and noblest men.
He established his title to this high place by intellect and
character. Through a long and eventful career, he performed
his task with fidelity and courage; in peace and in war; in
public and in private life. His broad sympathies were ex-
pressed in acts of kindness and in generous munificence. His
obligations to society were discharged by stern and truthful
maintenance of his own convictions.
As a Supreme Court Judge he ranks with the masters of
our jurisprudence and the builders of the English Law. His
opinions are the clear and virile expressions of the just and
robust heart and mind.
The most conspicuous part of his life was through the
stormy and intolerant period that followed the war. Judge
Bynum was not in accord with the convictions of the State,
but with the determination and force of his race he was
steadfast to his own convictions. Through this time of bitter-
ness and strife, he never forgot that he was a citizen and a
patriot, inspired by the sentiments and traditions of his State,
true to the highest allegiance of his land and people. The
exalted estimate accorded him at all times is the finest
tribute to him and to the just judgment of the people of
North Carolina.
We erect to him this memorial in marble to dwell here
through the generations, that men may look upon it to admire
and to emulate his virtues.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 195
INAUGURATION OF EDWARD KIDDER
GRAHAM AS PRESIDENT OF THE
STATE UNIVERSITY
(Chapel Hill, April 21st, 1915)
This assemblage is worthy of its purpose. Great seats of
learning in near and distant States have sent their Presidents
with messages of cheer and wisdom. Scholars who cultivate
ideals, and statesmen who construct policies of government
have come. From field and factory and busy mart, represen-
tative men and women who build and support the State have
gathered today. We are grateful that you are here. We feel
the encouragement and sustaining power of your presence.
We realize, too, that throughout our Commonwealth the pul-
sations of an earnest people beat in sympathy with us.
We come to dedicate a man to his work. It demands the
energy of his life always steafast to the high obligation that
he assumes. The task calls for the noblest, for it is the keep-
ing and the development of this institution sanctified by tra-
dition, potential for infinite good.
On this day of the inauguration of the new President, by
simple ceremonial we devote anew this University to the ser-
vice of men, and in this time of militant altruism significant
of human destiny, with victorious assurance we give the for-
ward order. We raise him to this exalted place because he is
worthy of our past, equal to the opportunities of the future,
and because he will lay upon the altar of this his alma mater,
a priceless sacrifice, essential in every scheme for the redemp-
tion of men: a pure and earnest life.
This place is endeared to us by precious memories. The
finest spirit of the past is perpetuated here and ever evolves
unto higher and broader meaning. Through all our genera-
tions, this University has been to us a well of strength spring-
ing up into perennial life. She enlarges her efforts with
larger opportunities and with faith and courage welcomes in-
creasing responsibilities.
196 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
In the age of "the steamship and the railway, the thoughts
that shake mankind," this is no academy of the cloister, nor
the voice for every wind of doctrine. This University has
been and will be the exponent of the State's power, the dy-
namics of the State's life. Amid the strife and confusion of
our aggressive democracy she shall be vitalized by the cur-
rents that flow from humanity, and in full sympathy strike
the clear note for higher aspiration and nobler achievement.
Sustained by all the people, owing allegiance to no man, and
to naught but God's truth, she can declare with authority the
creed of enduring progress. Reaching to all classes, and con-
ditions she shall gather unto her bosom the robust sons of
the State to send them forth as ministers of a splendid des-
tiny, "With power in this dark land to lighten it, and power
on this dead world to make it live."
The man and the hour have met. We are opening a new
chapter in the history of the University of North Carolina.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 197
COMMUTATION OF THE SENTENCE OF
IDA BALL WARREN
(March, 1916)
NOTE: The only woman ever sentenced in North Carolina to the
electric chair was Ida Ball Warren, of Forsyth County, who was con-
victed of first degree murder in the killing of her husband, in which
crime she had been assisted by her lover, Samuel P. Christy. Their
prayer for commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment
came before Governor Craig. There was much feeling at the time
over the enormity of the crime committed, and the Governor was
urged on all sides to mete out to this murderess the same justice that
a man would receive, and to allow her to pay for her sin by going to
the death chair. On the other hand, there were some who chivalrously
contended for her womanhood. All were anxiously awaiting the action
of the Governor, believing that it would establish a precedent in regard
to women criminals in North Carolina. Finally he gave his decision,
using his mighty power as the State's Chief Executive, and stepped
between this wretched woman, and the death sentence which she had
admittedly incurred. His reasons are given here below, and are an
eloquent tribute to all womanhood:
Granting the commutation, Governor Craig made the fol-
lowing statement concerning his action:
"The people of North Carolina in their constitution declare,
'The Governor shall have power to grant reprives, commuta-
tions and pardons after conviction for all offenses (except in
the case of impeachment) upon such conditions as he may
think proper and subject to such regulations as may be pro-
vided by law relative to the manner of applying for pardons.'
The power to pardon or to commute thus conferred upon the
Governor has no limitation but his own conception of duty.
It is the highest and most sacred trust vested by law. It
must be exercised in humane regard for the condemned and
for the rights and welfare of society.
"When a petition for pardon or commutation is placed be-
fore the Governor he must act. He cannot avoid the respon-
sibility. His action is in the orderly process of the adminis-
tration of justice, provided in the Constitution. His judgment
is the final decree of the people and the law pronounced by the
ultimate tribunal.
198 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
"There is no escape from the conclusion that this woman,
Ida Ball Warren, is guilty of murder, deliberate and pre-
meditated, conceived and executed in determined wickedness.
The verdict of the jury is fully sustained by the evidence; the
sentence of the court is fixed by the statute.
"But, as the Governor of the State of North Carolina, it
is not my judgment that the majesty of the law demands that
this woman shall be put to death. I cannot contemplate with
approval that this woman, unworthy and blackened by sin
though she be, shall be shrouded in the cerements of death,
dragged along the fatal corridor and bound in the chair of
death. The spy has in all countries been punished by death.
Germany executed the woman spy; England did not. The
action of the Military Governor of Belgium was condemned
by the conscience of the world.
"The killing of this woman would send a shiver through
North Carolina. Humanity does not apply to woman the in-
exonorable law that it does to man. This may arise from
misconceived sentimentality; it may arise from the deep and
holy instincts of the race.
"The participation of Christy in this murder makes more
difficult the question presented to me. He, too, is guilty. He
bought the chloroform with which she drugged her husband.
Either Christy, or Stonestreet, her son-in-law, twisted a cord
tightly around the husband's neck to make sure that he could
never awake from the deadly sleep. The body was placed in
a trunk, Christy and Stonestreet hauled it away and threw
it, weighted with irons, into a deep hole in Muddy Creek. The
woman conceived the design and was the directing and domi-
nating personality of this tragedy. Since life has been spared
to her, Christy, too, must escape death.
"This action is in accord with my conception of the just
and humane administration of the law. It is recommended by
many of our strongest, wisest and best people. Many good
men do not approve of any commutation of the judgment of
the court. The responsibility of the decision rests with me."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 199
INTRODUCING PRESIDENT WILSON
AT CHARLOTTE
The Anniversary Of The Signing Of The Mecklenburg
Declaration Of Independence.
(May 20th, 1916)
"My fellow-citizens of the State of Mecklenburg," said
Governor Craig, "I wish to assure our honored guest today
that he has never come to a State, or spoken to a people more
loyal to him and the great work he has done and the great
cause for which he stands than this. I have the honor, my
fellow-countrymen of North Carolina and South Carolina and
the region round about, to present you to the President of the
United States!"
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
A. & T. College (Colored) Greensboro, North
Carolina, May 26th, 1916
Our government and liberty should guarantee to all our
people the possibilities to attain to the highest and best that
is in them, and unless it does this it is a mockery and a fraud
and an insult in the face of God, said the Hon. Governor Locke
Craig in addressing a great throng assembled to witness the
graduating exercises of the Agricultural and Technical Col-
lege, of this city, this morning. The greatest commencement
exercises in the history of the school were brought to a close
by the awarding of the diplomas and certificates to the grad-
uates by Prof. M. C. S. Noble, Head of the Department of
Pedagogy at the University of North Carolina and Chairman
of the Board of Trustees for the A. & T. College.
Governor Craig took occasion to state in his opening re-
marks: "I have been beseiged by so many requests to speak
at commencement exercises at different points in the State
200 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
that I have found it exceedingly difficult to attempt to even
fill a few of the invitations. However, I resolved to attend
this commencement exercise because I had been deprived of
the privilege so many times of attending and because of my
personal acquaintance and admiration for your President, Dr.
James B. Dudley, and I wish to congratulate the people of
North Carolina upon having a man like Dr. Dudley who is
admired for his ability and leadership everywhere.
"We are living in the greatest age of all history. We have
done more during the past generation than all other genera-
tions put together. We have accumulated great masses of
wealth and built mansions and laid railroads and dug canals
and built macadamized roads and what are we going to do
with all this wealth? We all enjoy money but this is not the
ultimate end in life. Government itself is only a means to
an end. We glory in our government and its flag but this is
not the end of society. Liberty itself is only meant for an
end. That end is to guarantee to each the privilege to attain
to his highest possibilities and unless our government means
this it means nothing; unless it means this, it is a mockery
and a fraud and an insult in the face of God.
"If you contemplate man, one fact is most prominent; the
moral and intellectual difference in men. If you consider the
worst man with the best man, the difference is as great as
the east is from the west or a demon from an archangel.
Three things make up life; blood, will power and environ-
ment. Take one of these boys and give him a chance and
encouragement and let him know what he can do for society
and he will be better than those who have been left behind
him."
Speaking further, Mr. Craig said: "I regret very much
to have to go before hearing all of this program, but I do not
believe that the beautiful and grand of our Southern life can
be more adequately expressed than in those old melodies you
have so well sung just now. No wonder you get religion when
you hear these songs sung at campmeetings and revivals. We
all would."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 201
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
At The Closing Exercises Of The North Carolina
School For The Deaf, June 1, 1916
(From The News-Herald, Morganton)
Hon. Locke Craig, Governor of North Carolina, was at his
best in an address which he delivered at the Deaf School yes-
terday morning. The large auditorium was filled with the
teachers and older pupils of the school and numbers of ad-
miring friends from the town.
The Governor was introduced in a most pleasing and elo-
quent manner by Rev. J. O. Atkinson, of Elon College, Presi-
dent of the Board of Trustees of the School.
This occasion, Governor Craig stated, was his first visit
to the school since he became Governor. He has been very
much impressed with the wonderful results that are being
accomplished in the work of educating the deaf. He said that
Morganton, already renowned for the high type of her citizen-
ship, had been placed on the map by the location of two of
the State's splendid institutions here.
With warm words of praise for the fine bearing and mili-
tary precision of the deaf cadets from Morganton in the pa-
rade in Charlotte on May 20th, Mr. Craig said that he had
been proud on that day to tel! the wife of the President who
the boys were.
The Governor grew eloquent as he spoke on the objects of
human endeavor. He said that the making of money is all
right, but should not be the aim of our efforts. It is not so
much the attainment of power that counts (and money repre-
sents power) as what we are going to do with that power.
Even liberty and justice, which are idealized, are only means
to an end and that end is to lift up every human being, and
to give all equal opportunities. That government is the finest
government, that State the best State which comes nearest
to accomplishing this end; that flag means the most, which
202 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
waves over the land where the fortunate and unfortunate are
alike given the opportunity to develop the highest and noblest
instincts with which the Creator has endowed them. It is
North Carolina's privilege and opportunity to enable all her
sons and daughters to have an equal chance.
The Governor stated that environment and training play
a much greater part in the individual life than inheritance.
The difference between us physically is not so great. The
State reaches its highest attainment when it gives to all alike
the opportunity to attain to their highest possibilities.
He said that when in one of the classrooms in the school
he saw, just before his address, a girl reproduce from mem-
ory on the blackboard a long narrative her teacher had just
finished telling, he thought that she had gained more in in-
tellect than she had lost in hearing. The loss of hearing or
of any of the senses has been demonstrated not to be an im-
passable barrier of all knowledge.
There is the same difference in nature between neglect and
cultivation as there is between the untrained and trained hu-
man being. The State and society are responsible for ugliness
of character which grows out of environment. Such a school
as the Deaf School is absolutely necessary, considering the
obligation of the State.
The Governor took occasion to say that the tax rate in
North Carolina is the lowest except one, and yet we have one
of the finest school systems in the country.
"The wealth of the world is ours; to transform it into
moral and intellectual womanhood and manhood is our oppor-
tunity. North Carolina's highest obligation is to protect her
helpless ones in the period of their helplessness. By thus
doing we shall be living up to our destiny of high and noble
life."
The address was interpreted to the deaf pupils present by
Superintendent Goodwin.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 203
ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE
(Washington, D. C, June 22, 1916)
NOTE: This speech was made by Governor Craig in behalf of the
State of North Carolina, in presenting to the Nation, for a place in
Statuary Hall, at Washington, a statue in memory of her most dis-
tinguished son. The statue is the work of Gutzon Borglum. The
movement for its erection and presentation was inaugurated by Gov-
ernor Craig soon after he became Governor.
Mr. Chairman: You and each member of your Commis-
sion are entitled to the grateful appreciation of the State.
You were appointed by the Governor and Council of State
under a resolution of the General Assembly authorizing the
placing of the statue of Zebulon Baird Vance in this hall.
You have done your work without compensation, but with a
zeal which no money could buy. You secured one of the most
eminent artists of the age, and have delivered a magnificent
statue that excites the enthusiastic admiration of all that
have seen it. It speaks the force and the character of our
greatest man.
I should acknowledge, too, the obligation which all of us
feel for the invaluable assistance of Mr. Silas McBee and
Mr. Peter M. Wilson, generously and patriotically given.
And now, Mr. President, the State of North Carolina pre-
sents through you to the United States the statue of Zebulon
Baird Vance. This is done by authority of a resolution of
the General Assembly of North Carolina passed without dis-
sent. The recognition of Vance as the greatest of our men,
and the placing of his statue in this pantheon of the Nation,
is but the execution of the judgment of all of the people of
North Carolina. His personality, his character, and his deeds
confer upon him the right to stand here, a peer among the
foremost of the Republic.
Our State has not been in a hurry to occupy the two places
assigned to her in this hall. In preferring Vance as the first,
she has been mindful of her obligation to consider with justice
all of her noble sons. And she has realized, too, her obliga-
204 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
tion to do justice to herself. This statue shall be a perpetual
memorial of him and of her. The State must be judged by
the best that she can produce. He is our most precious gift
to the world. Since we have set him up as the finest con-
ception and expression of North Carolina life, he must be the
standard by which this and coming generations shall measure
the significance and worth of the State.
He was a son of North Carolina, bone of her bone, and
flesh of her flesh. He was born and reared among the moun-
tains, and was of Scotch-Irish lineage, but his sympathies
were not limited by sectional lines nor by the dogmas of
creeds. Wherever he went, among all classes and conditions
of men, from the humblest to the greatest, he was primus
inter pares, and exemplified the universal brotherhood. In
fashionable salons, among scholars and statesmen, he was
simple, natural, brilliant, easily the center. With the same
unpretentious manner, on terms of perfect equality he
charmed the men in working clothes, with rough hands, and
was loved by them as their wiser and stronger brother, whose
fidelity could never be doubted. He taught dignity to no-
bility. He was "a legist among the lawyers, a sidereal among
the astronomers."
Vance was trusted and honored and loved by the people
of North Carolina as no other man has been. He was elected
and re-elected to the places of highest honor. He was vested
with the greatest trust and called in every crisis to do the
foremost part. From the time that he was thirty years old
until the day of his death at the age of sixty -four he was the
unrivaled leader. Faith in his loyalty and prowess never
faltered.
Pre-eminent merit is not always the necessary pre-
requisite to high official position, but for thirty years, in
times of war and revolution, disaster and suffering, Vance
was the chosen champion of the people. He declared their
policies. He voiced their highest aspirations. He was always
in the fiercest of the conflict to meet and to overcome with
blow for blow the mightiest that opposed. He was the voice
of the State, the incarnation of her passion, her hopes, her
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 205
determination, and her purpose. He was the leader to call
her to duty, to rescue her victoriously from ruin and strife
into the way of peace and to point her to a triumphant des-
tiny. This entitles him to a place among the immortals.
In 1860 Vance attended the State Convention of the Whigs
in Salisbury. This was his first appearance before the whole
State. He was thirty years old, a Member of Congress from
the mountain district, having been elected for the first time
in 1858. The greatest men of the State were there, among
them William A. Graham and George E. Badger, statesmen
of national prominence. Reports about the young Congress-
man from the Mountains had spread down into the State.
When he spoke to the convention it was realized that the man
for the times of approaching storm had appeared. Men heard
him with wild delight, and the multitude bore him on their
shoulders through the streets of the city. Nothing like him
had been seen. He was young, splendid in courage and in
humor, in logic and eloquence. They acclaimed him then the
born leader of men. He held and was worthy of this dis-
tinction as long as he lived.
In 1861 he resigned his position in Congress and went
into the Confederate Army. He was Captain and then Colonel
of the Twenty-Sixth North Carolina Regiment, a regiment
glorious for heroism and sacrifice. The men emulated the
daring and the courage of their Commander. In 1862, with-
out his seeking, he was elected Governor. No man was ever
called to a task more difficult, and no man ever performed
his task with more consummate ability and determination.
North Carolina was a Union State; Vance was a Union
man. He and she were steadfast to the Union until the awful
choice was presented, either to. join the armies that were to
crush into submission the seceding States in the exercise of
constitutional right, or to join the sister States of the South
in resisting invasion. When North Carolina joined the Con-
federacy, and plighted her faith to the cause, Vance was de-
termined that his State should be true to the covenant even
unto destruction and death, that she should never surrender
until the last soldier had laid down his arms.
206 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
In 1863, after the Battle of Gettysburg, when the cause
of the Confederacy was desperate, there were strong men in
North Carolina who demanded that the Governor should make
peace separate from the other Southern States. They made
to the old Union men an appeal of plausibility and power.
There were thousands of men in the State who would not join
the Confederate Army, and thousands who had left it.
The conscript laws must be enforced; the laws and the
jurisdiction of the State must be maintained; there was uni-
versal uncertainty and confusion. But always the young
Governor was firm and clear. He held the State true to the
Confederacy. But he made the Confederate Government to
know that the civil tribunals of this State were supreme for
the protection of the rights of the humblest citizen against
military power; that the writ of habeas corpus must be re-
spected, and that it should never be suspended, neither for
the enforcement of the conscript laws nor for any other cause ;
that if under this writ a citizen of North Carolina should be
released from arrest or prison, for the protection of such a
citizen he would, if necessary, make armed resistance to the
Confederate Government with the whole military power of
the State.
He trampled down disloyalty to the Confederacy at home.
He resisted the unlawful exercise of military power from
Richmond. It required a master arm to guide the Ship of
State in this tempest between Scylla and Charybdis.
In the political campaign of 1864 his enemies threw down
to him the gage of battle — peace against war. The strong
Union sentiment of the State that prevailed until the very
breaking out of the war, the reverence that had always ex-
isted for the Union, made the situation dangerous and fraught
with more difficulty in North Carolina than in any other
Southern State. Vance was the storm center. Destiny shook
her doubtful urn. The material considerations were all with
his opponents. The State could cut loose from the Con-
federacy and make an advantageous peace if she would.
Vance went to Virginia to speak to the North Carolina soldiers
of Lee's Army. They were the men who bore the hardships
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 207
and the brunt of the battle The supreme issue was clear—
the separate peace or continued war. Already the land was
robed in the consuming fire of war. North Carolina was
bleeding to death, a land of sorrows and acquainted with grief ;
the flower of her sons had been slain; wives and children
were suffering at home, sometimes gathering for bread the
corn that was spilled out of the wagons of invading armies.
The men had heard this cry from home, but they heard, too,
the clarion voice of the Governor that called to battle and to
sacrifice. Wellington said that the presence of Napoleon in
battle was equivalent to 50,000 men. Lee said that Vance's
visit and speech to his army was equivalent to a re-
enforcement of 50,000 men.
He spoke in various parts of the State. Not only the
army but the people were inspired with his heroic spirit.
The opposition, born of selfishness, wilted before his burning
eloquence. The men who had left the camp returned to the
colors. North Carolina sent more soldiers to the armies of
the Confederacy than any other State, and they were con-
stant even unto the end.
In 1864, on the issue of separate peace or continued war,
and on his administration as War Governor, the soldiers
voted for Vance. The people voted for him. He was tri-
umphantly elected. North Carolina kept her faith and en-
dured the sacrifice.
When Xerxes was invading Greece, he sent ambassadors
to Athens to portray the ruin of resistance and to propose a
separate peace that would bring to the Athenians wealth and
make their city the ruling city of Greece. The Spartans had
been slain at Thermopylae, the Persian armies — innumer-
able — were sweeping down from the north. The Persian
fleets covered the JEgean Sea. Some favored the proposal for
the ignominious peace in the Assembly of Athens. Cyrsilus
urged that the terms of the great king be accepted. Them-
istocles declared that it were better for Athens to be de-
stroyed while fighting for the honor and independence of
Greece than to accept all of the gold of the Orient. The men
of Athens followed Themistocles. They sent away the Persian
208 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Ambassadors; they stoned Cyrsilus to death. And in the
day when overwhelming armies were marching upon our
land, when the State was drinking the cup of trembling to
the very dregs, under the leadership of Vance she gave to us
the inheritance that shall never be taken from us.
While mastering the difficulties of politics, and harmon-
izing contending factions, he did not forget the needs of the
soldiers, nor the people, nor the destitute families of the de-
serters. His ships defied the blockade and brought into our
ports from England, rifles, munitions, clothing, shoes, and
blankets for the Army, necessities and comforts for all of the
homes of the rich and the poor. Our soldiers and people were
better provided for than any of the South. He is known to
us and to history as "The Great War Governor."
After the carnage of battle, after the wreck and desola-
tion of war, the night of reconstruction set in. North Caro-
lina's wounds had healed, but her heart was bleeding. All of
the beasts of prey came forth to plunder and to devour.
Darkness and demoralization prevailed., There were many
who thought that we should seek admission to the Union in
humility and contrition, that we should accept the new order,
that we should join the dominant party with its dogmas of
social and political equality, that we should submit to the
disfranchisement of the foremost and the bravest, and not
cry aloud against the control of elections by Federal soldiers.
Many of these men were strong men. They thought that
further contention with a victorious party was hopeless, and
would be disastrous. But there were those who stood for the
integrity of the State as a member of the Union, who did
not surrender their ideals, who believed in the supremacy of
our race, who knew that the policies of reconstruction were
impossible, except to our shame and ruin. Vance was the
leader, the voice of these, the inspiration of a State that was
crushed. In a speech in Raleigh at the beginning of this era
of chaos, referring to the men v/ho were advocating the pol-
icies that in his opinion would bring ruin to the State, hu-
miliation to the people, and threaten the overflow of our civil-
ization, after pouring out upon them his ridicule and invec-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 209
tive, as with the blast of a tempest he said: "It shall be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judg-
ment than for them in North Carolina." He made good the
prophecy.
After the surrender and the dissolution of the Confederacy
he was loyal to the Union. He had left it with sorrow. He
had no venom, no hatred, in his heart, he was charitable to
all of his foes, even in his own adversity, but he made re-
construction odious in North Carolina. He poured out the
lava of his wrath upon the men who were plundering the
State and trampling down her pride and her life.
In 1870 the State elected a Democratic General Assembly
over military power and enfranchised slaves. Vance was
elected to the United States Senate. He was denied admis-
sion on account of disabilities — proscribed because of his
service to the Confederacy. The devotion and trust of
the people in him was stronger than ever. The storms grow-
ing out of the war had not abated. The violence of the con-
test for the rehabilitation of the State and the restoration of
her government to virtue and intelligence continued with de-
termination. Vance was nominated for Governor in 1876.
Judge Thomas Settle, a man of character and eminent ability,
the foremost of the Republicans, was his opponent. Their
joint canvass has never been equaled in our State, nor in my
opinion surpassed anywhere. The problems resulting from
the war, the political status of the State, the constitutional
rights of the people, the new social order, the administration
of our government, were debated with consummate power.
These men standing for opposing ideas had grappled to try
conclusions. The time was fierce and the people were intense.
Multitudes gathered to hear them. The Republicans hailed
Settle with enthusiasm as a splendid and undaunted chief.
Vance was acclaimed as a deliverer. He was escorted by
cavalcades and surrounded by cheering thousands. Vance was
elected. The supremacy of his party, the ideals and the pol-
icies for which he stood were firmly established in North Car-
olina. Order came out of chaos, the hatreds of the war were
forgotten, the fields were glad with harvests, the university
210 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
was opened, schools were established, the State rejoiced in
peace and in her growing strength. She turned to the work-
ing out of her destiny, loyal to the Union of the fathers and
under the flag.
In 1879 Vance took his seat in the Senate of the United
States. The volcanic force and fire of the period of storm
and revolution subsided into the calm and clear strength and
dignity of the Senator. At no period in our history have there
been so many men in the Senate of power and accomplished
statesmanship. Every State sent her strongest men. The
floor of the Senate was the arena of intellectual giants. There
were Blaine, of Maine; Edmunds and Morrill, of Vermont;
Hoar, of Massachusetts; Conkling, of New York; Bayard, of
Delaware; Ransom, of North Carolina; Hampton, of South
Carolina; Benjamin Hill, of Georgia; Morgan, of Alabama;
Lamar, of Mississippi ; Blackburn, of Kentucky ; Vest, of Mis-
souri; Voorhees, of Indiana; Thurman, of Ohio; Ingalls, of
Kansas. In this great company, Vance was recognized as the
equal of any, an intellectual gladiator who never lowered his
arm, a statesman who dedicated himself to labor and to the
service of the State and of the whole Nation. He mastered
the problems of his time, and added to his national fame. His
speeches gave evidence, not only of his known ability, but of
classic culture. In debates on the policies and fundamental
questions of controlling importance he was generally put for-
ward as the spokesman of his party. He was by constitution,
and by culture a democrat. He was the unrelenting foe of
unjust privilege of all kinds, the apostle of equal rights. He
delivered the faith that is now the creed of Democracy. For
half a century the advocates of political dogmas have conjured
with his name, or tried to conjure with it.
There was nothing of the demagogue about Vance. He
was nearly always on the popular side, but often by his own
genius he made his side popular. He was one of those men
of genius of universal type. He was one of the people, in full
accord and sympathy with them. His single purpose was the
common good, with a passion for justice and against un-
fairness and oppression. General Theodore F. Davidson, a
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 211
kinsman of Vance, who knew him perhaps more intimately
than any living man, says of him :
"Another characteristic, particularly in public matters,
was his capacity to divine the right; it seemed to me that
with less effort than any public man of whom I have any
knowledge, he could almost instantly comprehend a public
question with its results, by intuition. This quality was an
endowment of nature, developed and strengthened by the cir-
cumstances of his unusual career.
"Another distinguishing characteristic which made him
the first of the 'leaders of men," was his absolute devotion to
that which he believed to be the best for his country and his
people. I do not believe there ever was a moment in his life
when he was not perfectly willing to offer himself and all he
had for the benefit of his countrymen without the slightest
consideration whether it brought to him compensation in any
form."
If you strike the chord of a musical instrument in the
midst of other musical instruments, all of the chords that
are in perfect harmony will vibrate with the same rhythm.
Vance was in harmony with the people. The same causes
that stirred them stirred him. He uttered the dominant note.
His vision was farther and clearer. His conception stronger.
He expressed what they vaguely felt, and what they had been
longing to hear, and he gave tone and unity to their thought,
their aspirations, and their life.
He was sympathetic and tender as a child. On the 13th
of May, 1865, he was arrested without notice by Federal sol-
diers in Statesville. As he went along the road to his un-
known destiny, a prisoner surrounded by soldiers, through a
State where in other days every journey had been a triumphal
procession, Mr. Samuel Wittowsky, who was with him, says
that for a moment he was overcome and shed tears while they
drove along in silence. "This will not do," said Vance; "I
must not allow my feelings to unman me, but it is so hard to
bear. I am not so much concerned about what may be in
store for me, but my poor wife and little children; they have
not a cent of money to live on." When Danton, the giant of
212 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
the French Revolution, who had defied imperial armies, who
had hurled at the feet of the coalesced kings of Europe as
gage of battle, the head of a king ; who had organized armies
and had saved France, when he stood upon the platform of
the guillotine, surrounded by soldiers and the populace howl-
ing for his blood, he, too, broke down in tears, saying : "I will
never see my poor wife any more, then." He, too, nerved
himself with the expression: "Danton, no weakness."
Vance never quailed nor bowed the knee to power. When
he was down, when his enemies were in control and his future
seemed darkest he wrote the following letter:
"To the editor of The New York World : I see by the pub-
lic prints that General Kilpatrick has decorated me with his
disapprobation before the people of Pennsylvania. He informs
them, substantially, that he tamed me by capturing me and
riding me 200 miles on a bareback mule. I will do him the
justice to say that he knew that was a lie when he uttered it.
"I surrendered to General Schofield at Greensboro, N. C, on
the 2nd day of May, 1865, who told me to go to my home and
remain there, saying that if he got any orders to arrest me
he would send there for me. Accordingly I went home, and
there remained until I was arrested on the 13th of May by a
detachment of 300 Cavalry, under Major Porter, of Harris-
burg, from whom I received nothing but kindness and cour-
tesy. I came in a buggy to Salisbury, where we took the cars.
"I saw no mule on the trip, yet I thought I saw an ass at
the General's Headquarters; this impression has since been
confirmed. Respectfully yours,
"Z. E. VANCE."
His humor was inimitable ; it was spontaneous. Audiences
were convulsed with laughter by his witticisms and his
stories; but his humor was always an incident. It always
illustrated. It was always used for a purpose. It was over-
whelming and brought his antagonist irresistably into ridicule.
When the southern leaders in Congress were accused of dis-
loyalty, he said:
"What motive have we to injure this country? Having
surrendered the doctrine of secession and abandoned any in-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 213
tention whatsoever to divide this Union, how could we expect
that the democracy to which we belong could obtain and hold
the control of the Government except by showing the people
by our acts that we are patriotically desirous of promoting its
welfare and its glory. But you say you distrust these ex-
pressions. My friends, in your hearts you do not. On the
contrary, a man who has offered his blood once for his plighted
faith you believe when he plights his faith again. There is
not a southern rebel, no matter how bitter and rampant he
may have been, that you have not received with arms wide-
spread and rewarded with offices of honor and trust who came
to you with craven repentance on his tongue, ready to vote
the Republican ticket and eating dirt with the same gluttonous
appetite with which he once ate fire. You profess to believe
him, but you despise him in your hearts. You are not alarmed
to receive him and you cast no suspicion upon his professions
of sincerity, though, as has more than once happened, he asks
you to believe he tells the truth today because he told a lie
yesterday."
His personal appearance was unique. He did not look like
other men. No man who saw him ever forgot him. His mag-
netism charmed with a peculiar and indescribable power.
When you looked upon him, you knew that you beheld the
lion-hearted leader of men.
When known and understood, men of all parties admired
and honored him for his convictions, his courage, his kindness
of heart, his abiding loyalty and devotion to the whole country.
When he died, the State was awed into a solemnity that
we had not known. It was realized that the foremost had
fallen. The train bearing him for the last time to the bosom
of the mountains that bore him and nurtured him passed
through the State while the assembled people with uncovered
heads bowed and wept. Meetings were held in almost every
county in expression of universal sorrow. The State was his
funeral cortege.
"No hollow formalist was he, deceptive and self-deceptive,
ghastly to the natural sense, but a very man, fiery, real, from
the great fire bosom of nature herself."
214 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES .
OPENING OF THE GREAT STATE FAIR
(October 17th, 1916)
Industry is victorious. She comes to celebrate her triumph
and to show her accomplishments. From the hills she has
reaped the yellow harvest, and from the wide fields she has
gathered the silken fiber, more valuable than the Golden
Fleece for which the Argonauts sailed. On her pastures are
the finest herds of cattle. Her fruits are wrapped in the
crimson and gold of autumn, flavored with the royal aroma
of the flowers. All the staples of food and raiment and
luxury have been produced in abundance.
In manufacture and commerce, intelligent industry has
been rewarded with equal bounty. Our factories send furni-
ture to the farthest States of the Union, and our mills send
fabrics to the farthest countries of the world.
The towns and cities are pulsing with energy, and grow-
ing in trade and commercial importance.
From the year 1901 until now no country ever went for-
ward in economical development more than the State of North
Carolina, nor did any ever manifest more progress in moral
and intellectual development.
It may encourage us to renewed activity and strength to
remember what our people have done within the last sixteen
years. The facts and the figures eloquently tell the story.
Mr. Bion Butler states that in the census period of 1900-
1910 North Carolina doubled the value of her farm products,
and that in the first five years of the present census period,
she has almost doubled again ; that within the ten years from
1900-1910 the State made the phenomenal record of advanc-
ing as much in agriculture as she did in the three hundred
years of her history from the planting of Raleigh's first colony
to the beginning of this century ; and that within the last six
years she has made an equal advance. "This," concludes Mr.
Butler, "is without pg-rallel in history." If this magnificent
progress be continued for another ten years, North Carolina
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 215
will leave behind her rival sister States, and forge to the
front among the very foremost of the Union. I never travel
with a stranger through our territory without hearing his
enthusiastic comment on the wonderful improvement and the
spirit of enterprise manifest along all railroads and highways.
In the year 1900, the disheartened farmer with his ox or
bony horse scratched the sterile, stingy soil and it yielded on
an average of thirteen bushels of nubbins to the acre ; now he
produces on an average of twenty-two bushels of corn to the
acre. Then he got on an average from an acre six and seven-
tenths bushels of wheat; now he reaps eleven bushels. Then
he got twelve bushels of oats ; now he gets twenty-three
bushels. Then he produced on an average seven bushels of
rye to the acre, and it was destined for twenty-one gallons of
liquor, three gallons to the bushel, with all the disorder and
misery that liquor can bring and more, for red pepper and
sulphuric acid were thrown in for good measure ; now he pro-
duces eleven and five-tenths bushels of rye to the acre, all of
which is food for man and beast.
In that time after the toil of the long hot days of summer,
he gathered in hopeless poverty one hundred and sixty-seven
pounds of cotton from the average acre, worth twelve or fif-
teen dollars; now he gathers two hundred and sixty pounds
worth fifty dollars. The cotton seed that he now produces to
the acre is worth more than was the cotton fiber in the latter
years of the last century.
This year the State will produce 65,000,000 bushels of
corn; 10,000,000 bushels of wheat; 12,000,000 bushels of po-
tatoes; 197,000,000 pounds of tobacco; 650,000 tons of hay;
and 650,000 bales of cotton, every bale of which together with
the seed is worth more than a hundred dollars. The cotton
crop of North Carolina alone this year is worth $70,000,000,
and all of the crops of the State combined have a value of
more than two hundred million dollars. This does not take
into consideration the cattle which are shipped out of the
State, and which constitute now a rapidly growing industry.
North Carolina ranks now, and has ranked for six years,
216 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
as the first State of the Union in the production of cotton per
acre.
The soil has been strengthened. Man can sow in faith to
reap the harvest of plenty. Agriculture has evolved from
penury to profit.
In recounting this unrivaled development it would not be
just to fail to acknowledge the invaluable work done by the
College of Agriculture & Mechanic Arts, and by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture with the present earnest and able Com-
missioner of Agriculture at its head. The College has sent its
alumni to all sections of the State equipped for the practical
and scientific cultivation of the fields and for the higher de-
velopment of the profession of agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture has stimulated farming to
increasing activity. It has protected the farmers from impo-
sition, it has ascertained and encouraged the most profitable
crops and methods by intelligent experiment and demonstra-
tion.
In manufacturing, our development has kept pace with the
progress in agriculture. North Carolina is now one of the
leading manufacturing States of the South. In 1900 our cot-
ton mills were capitalized at $22,000,000; now we have three
hundred and eighteen cotton mills with a total capital of
about $58,000,000. These mills are operating 4,000,000
spindles with 67,000 looms, requiring 178,000 horsepower.
We manufacture all of the cotton that we produce and some-
times more. The value of the yearly output of these mills is
near $90,000,000. They give employment to more than 51,000
people, whose wages amount to $17,000,000.
There are in the State one hundred and two furniture fac-
tories, with a capital of more than $8,000,000, giving employ-
ment to 6,000 people, whose wages amount to a half million
of dollars, with an output worth more than $10,000,000.
All over the State, mechanical industries are doing a
thriving business, and making for home and for export all
kinds of manufactured articles. From one end of the State
to the other are stretched the electric cables through which
stream the harnessed powers of the French Broad, the Ca-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 217
tawba, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Cape Fear, and the Roa-
noke, delivering exhaustless energy to the centers of industry,
lighting cities and towns and setting in motion millions of
wheels and spindles.
In the last sixteen years there have been built in North
Carolina 1,500 miles of railroad, and 15,000 miles of improved
highways. The facilities of transportation have been carried
to the remote sections. Our cities and towns have been in a
large measure relieved from the unjust discrimination in
transportation that has heretofore prevailed against them.
By this freight rate adjustment the saving to North Caro-
linians has amounted to millions of dollars. The effect is
manifest in the increasing prosperity of our cities and towns.
The unjust discrimination has to a large extent been cor-
rected. Our wholesale merchants are now competing with
the merchants of other States.
In 1900 we had no highways. The roads were avenues of
mud and hills. During the last four years we have built ten
thousand miles of improved highways — twice as much as in
all the preceding history of the State. In addition to this, we
have graded about all of the principal roads of the State.
From the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Smoky Mountains, and
across the State from South Carolina to Virginia, there are
now the finest roads for citizens and for tourists.
During the last four years, North Carolina has spent more
than fifteen millions of dollars on roads. This is not an ex-
pense. It is an investment that pays a dividend of one
hundred per cent every year. The last Legislature estab-
lished a Highway Commission to provide for a more efficient
and a more systematic expenditure of the people's money.
Nothing has contributed more to the prosperity and the
happiness and social development of our country than these
improved roads. The movement has gained a momentum that
will result in the establishment of the best highways to every
community. No community can be without good roads, unless
it be satisfied to lag behind in all the improvements of modern
life in this day of enlightenment and progress. The old
country road of rocks and mud and steep hills is a thing of
218 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
the past. The highway immeasurably finer than the "King's
Highway" of old, has been established, with the swift and
powerful vehicles of modern transportation.
There pass in review no soldiers today. They are on the
southern border, for the protection of the people and the
territory of this Republic. But in imagination we can pass
in review the grand army of North Carolina workers; 3,000
corn club boys marching in the van; 250,000 cornfield men
with brown faces and brave hearts, the producers of bread;
60,000 textile workers, spinners and weavers, with lint on
their garments and hair; 50,000 men in overalls whose levers
turn the driving wheels of mills and locomotives ; 250,000 wo-
men, the mothers of the sons and daughters of Carolina, the
priestesses who preside with vestal devotion over the sanc-
tuary of home. These with the captains of industry and all
men and women who work, constitute the State, and are the
builders of the State. These plowers, spinners, weavers,
builders, unstained by the heart's blood of men, ennobled by
fruitful labor, growing ever nobler, whereby man has risen
from the low places of earth. Hail them with triumphant
acclaim ; invest them with the cestus of victory, for they have
overcome! They belong to the "Grand Host; immeasurable;
marching ever forward since the Beginning of the World.
The enormous, all-conquering, flame-crowned Host, noble
every soldier in it; sacred and alone noble. Let him who is
not of it hide himself; let him tremble for himself. Stars at
every button cannot make him noble; nor any other con-
trivance, but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly taking place
and step in it."
This wonderful advancement of the State is manifest in
the financial condition of the people. In 1899 there were
ninety-five Banks, both State and National, in the State.
Today there are four hundred and twenty-six State Banks,
and eighty-one National Banks. In 1899 there were $14,836,-
000 on deposit. Today the people have on deposit in their
banks $107,424,000. The farmers, the manufacturers, the
merchants, have made money for the extension and the im-
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 219
provement of their industries, and besides have deposited
more than a hundred million dollars in the banks.
But economic development is not the object of man's
highest endeavor. It is not the ultimate aim of civilization.
All wealth and all laws and all government and all institu-
tions must have for their final aim and result the guarantee
of an opportunity for every citizen to attain his highest de-
velopment.
North Carolina's moral and intellectual growth has kept
pace with her material growth.
We have not forgotten that the child is the hope of the
State. There are now in attendance upon the public schools
more than twice as many children as in the year 1900, and
they are going to school nearly twice as many days in the
year. The houses in which they are taught cost nearly nine
times as much, and their teachers are paid two and a half
times as much. Then the average value of a school house
was $158.00 ; now it is $1,162.74. Then there were 1,190 log
school houses; now there are but sixty-five. Soon these will
give place to handsome structures similar to those that are
the ornament and the pride of nearly every School District
in the State. This has cost money, but money that the pa-
triotic citizens of North Carolina have willingly paid.
It will not be long until illiteracy in North Carolina will
disappear; and in the Moonlight Schools the people who grew
up in a less fortunate era are receiving the opportunities
which they should have enjoyed in their youth. All of our
institutions of learning are thronged with students eager for
that strength and equipment in a State where merit is re-
warded, and where the honest hope of all men is not denied.
We have established a Department of Health in recent
years that has brought untold blessings to our people. This
department is stamping out the preventable diseases. It is
protecting the homes of the high and of the lowly against
the invasion of disease and death. Pestilence no longer stalks
abroad unchallenged in the noon day. Men and women and
children suffer and die from causes that can be removed.
They are deaf and dumb and feebleminded, and are stricken
220 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
with blindness and insanity, condemned to lives of darkness
and hopelessness not by the inscrutable decree of Providence,
but by the failure of society to protect them against the
enemy that is more cruel than death. North Carolina is dis-
charging this sacred obligation. It costs money that a noble
State will gladly pay. But withal our government is the
cheapest, the most economical, in all the civilized world, and
taxes are lower per capita than in any other State but one.
We should not boast of this. The courage and energy of a
growing race must spring from robust health.
And North Carolina is now one of the healthiest States in
the Union. Her death rate is among the lowest of all the
States of the Union. Her birth rate is the highest of any
State in the Union. We produce not only more corn per acre
than any of the Commonwealths, but we produce more babies
per capita than any. This infant industry cannot be dis-
couraged by tariffs or free trade, nor by wars nor rumors of
wars.
The prosperity and the development which we have en-
joyed in North Carolina demonstrates that the people have
full confidence and the security of good government. From
the opening years of this century until now no scandal has
been suggested. The public officials have honestly discharged
their duties and the Legislatures have enacted laws for the
welfare and encouragement of the people of the State. No
country can prosper without good government. The territory
of Turkey is as fertile as ours. The people of that country
would develop an enlightened and advancing civilization but
for the discouragement that comes from tyranny and corrupt
government.
Every dollar invested in railroads, every dollar invested in
factories, and all of the energy expended upon the farms of
this State are protected by just laws honestly and economic-
ally administered.
The country is enjoying prosperity that never before has
been ours. By a currency system, elastic, adjustable to the
demands of commerce, panics for scarcity of money have
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 221
been made impossible, and by an administration determined
to protect the producers, the speculators that have heretofore
preyed upon them have been driven away. Wall Street can
no longer paralyze the enterprise of the Nation. It can no
longer strangle commerce by contracting the currency and
depreciating values. If President Wilson was responsible for
the temporary low price of cotton in 1914, "a fortiori," he is
responsible for the lasting high price of cotton in 1916, and
unprecedented prosperity. With the unlimited resources of
this country as yet in the beginning of development, with just
laws, the future unfolds in grander revelation to the genius
of the American people.
222 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
OUR OPPORTUNITY
Extract From A Speech Delivered By The Governor To The
Southern Commercial Congress, At Norfolk,
Virginia, December, 1916.
The South is endeared to us by the heroism and sacrifice
of our fathers and kindred. Her soil is consecrated by the
lives and by the blood of the bravest, and the roots of our
tradition grow deep, hallowed by the memories of the past.
We love the Union; we rejoice that we were born beneath
the ample folds of the Stars and Stripes. We will defend it
forever. It stands for Law and Freedom and Justice for all
mankind. More than any other flag, we hope and believe it
stands for the Altruistic.
The patriotism of sectionalism is past — no longer deter-
mined by geographical lines. All civilized nations are inter-
dependent — bound together — correlated in one Federation of
the World. Humanity has no frontiers. The locomotive, the
gasoline motor, the electric current, the morning newspaper,
are the Evangels of our time — economically — spiritually. The
race realizes its kinship, and the world throbs with the pulsa-
tion of the same thought, the same aspirations. The day of
the hostile tribe and the hostile state has passed.
Dumas tells of the political prisoner, the Count of Monte
Cristo, confined in a stone fortress for fourteen years on the
rocky coast of the Atlantic Ocean. A fellow prisoner occupied
a communicating dungeon. At the end of fourteen years this
prison mate died. They sewed the body in a coarse winding
sheet, and laid it upon the stone couch. As the Count of
Monte Cristo, in the gloom of his dungeon, looked upon the
dead form, and realized that the only voice that had spoken
to him in friendship and sympathy for fourteen years was
forever hushed in death, he was almost a maniac. But the
lightning flash of a thought ! He knew that when the darkness
came, the jailors would bury the dead body by casting it over
the rampart of the castle into the sea. He unravelled the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 223
stitches of the winding sheet. He placed the dead body upon
his own couch, and sewed himself in the hempen shroud.
Sure enough, when it was dark he heard the footsteps of the
jailors ; the door to his dungeon swung upon its rusty hinges.
He feared that they would hear the drum beat of his heart.
The rude hands of the jailors took, as they thought, the dead
form along the damp corridors of the fortress to the open
deck. They swung the body to and fro — and then, with a
mighty heave, they cast it over the rampart into the sea. As
the Count of Monte Cristo touched the water, with his knife
he ripped open his shroud. He swam to the nearest rock that
projected out of the water. He clambered up. For the first
time in fourteen years he felt upon his pallid brow the breath
of Heaven's air. He looked upon the broad expanse of sea
and sky. Naked, like a gladiator in the circus; "for Circus,
he had the vast horizon; instead of the Vestals, the Stars;
instead of Caesar, the All Powerful!" By the winds of the
illimitable oceans, by the radiance of the stars, God sent a
message to him, and he shouted : "The World is mine !" Yes,
the lone man upon the rock, the seething serf lashing his feet,
his face covered with its foam — free! In the glory of his
manhood he could say, "The World is mine!"
The World is Ours ! — not for conquest — not for exploita-
tion — not for oppression; but for co-operation and mutual
opportunity, to the realization, by the forces and ideals of our
enlightened age, of the finer civilization, the finer individual
life. The great day of Crisis and Awakening calls for the
brave, clear and steadfast in the Faith of Righteousness,
"With power on this dark land to lighten it, and power on
this dead world to make it live."
224 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
MOUNT MITCHELL
Extracts From A Pamphlet Published By The Governor In
1915, Entitled "Mitchell's Peak And Dr. Mitchell."
Mitchell's Peak is the highest mountain in North America
east of the Rockies. Its altitude is 6,711 feet. It is one of
the peaks of the Black Mountains, the loftiest range of the
Appalachian System. The Peak is situated in Western North
Carolina in the County of Yancey, twenty miles from the
Town of Black Mountain, on the Southern Railway, and ten
or fifteen miles from Mount Mitchell Station on the Carolina,
Clinchfield & Ohio Railway.
The Black Mountains are covered with luxurious growth
of balsam or spruce. From the dark, rich green of this forest,
the mountains derive their name. Their dark, somber color
is in distinct contrast to the blue of other neighboring
mountain ranges covered with forests of lighter green.
This balsam or spruce timber is now very valuable for
lumber and wood pulp. It has been purchased by companies
who are rapidly removing it in immense quantities, and de-
nuding the slopes of the mountain of its magnificent virgin
growth. The ground is left covered with the resinous leaves
and laps of the trees, which when dry are most inflammable.
It seems impossible to prevent fires. On the areas which
have been cut over, conflagrations sweep with terrific fury,
burning everything. The rich and gorgeous slopes of the
vast mountains are left a desert of blackened ruin.
In the summer of 1914 the lumbermen who had purchased
the timber on Mitchell were proceeding to remove it. Large
areas on the sides of the mountain had been destroyed by axe
and fire. The summit and the whole mountain were threat-
ened. I had a conference with Messrs. Pearley and Crockett,
who owned and were cutting this timber. At my solicitation
they generously agreed to suspend operations on and around
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 225
the summit of the mountain until the General Assembly-
should meet. I stated to them that I would urge the General
Asssembly to protect this mountain and provide a reasonable
compensation to them for the timber. But for this arrange-
ment Mitchell's Peak would have been devastated, and its
beauty destroyed. The General Assembly did make an appro-
priation of $20,000 to be used in the purchase of land for a
park on the mountain, including the summit. By this enact-
ment, the most noted mountain in the eastern portion of the
United States was preserved in its original beauty and
grandeur for ourselves and our posterity.
One of the considerations moving the General Assembly
to the establishment of the park was to relieve this famous
mountain from private control, that the people of North Car-
olina and tourists from all parts of the world might have the
privilege of free access.
The bill making the appropriation for the establishment
of the park was introduced and advocated in the Senate by
Senator Zebulon Weaver, of Buncombe; and in the House by
Hon. G. P. Deyton, of Yancey. It passed both houses by a
large majority.
This Act of the General Assembly provided for a Com-
mission to purchase and condemn the land for the park. I ap-
pointed on this Commission: Messrs. G. P. Deyton, of Yan-
cey; E. F. Watson, of Yancey; M. C. Honeycutt, of Yancey;
Wilson Hensley, of Yancey; and T. E. Blackstock, of Bun-
combe.
The Commission has agreed with the owners as to the
price and has purchased the land for the park except five acres
near the summit. To secure this five acres, condemnation
proceedings have been begun, as provided by hte statute.
The land on the summit, including the grave of Dr. Mit-
chell, was conveyed about forty years ago to Miss Margaret
Mitchell, a daughter of Dr. Mitchell. Her heirs have expressed
their willingness to convey this land to the State.
When on the top of Mount Mitchell you feel that you are
in a lofty altitude, and amid the mighty upheavals of the
226 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
primeval ages of the planet. Geologists tell us that this is
the oldest land of the earth. In the beginning the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of chaos, and God said let the waters
under the heavens be gathered together in one place, and let
the dry land appear, and it was so. At this command of the
Almighty the tide of the boundless ocean receded; the dome
of the Appalachians appeared above the waste of waters.
Before Abraham was, this mountain was. It was old when
Sinai was built. It was dry land when Noah's deluge swept
over Asia, for the waters did not rise above this summit.
On this mountain, covered with forests dark and somber,
you hear in the ancient winds "The voice of days of old and
days to be." For ages it has stood in primeval solitude and
solemn grandeur, while above and around and beneath the
clouds have swept and the storms raged. It will stand in
silent and august majesty when austral seas shall bury our
civilization under ocean wastes.
Here nature has riven the awful gorges and built the ever-
lasting cliffs. The neighboring peaks of the Black Mountains,
all over six thousand feet, clad in the dark rich green of the
balsam, rank worthily with the commanding monarch. Across
the dizzy depths is the Pinnacle of the Blue Ridge ; across the
Gorge of the Swannanoa rise the Craggies — The Dome, The
Pinnacle, and The Bull's Head; on the far horizon are the
towers and domes of the vast amphitheater of mountains —
Table Rock, The Roan, Grandfather, Tennessee Bald, Pisgah,
and a hundred others. Peaks and ranges, fold behind fold,
higher and higher, in the purpling distance,
"Loom grander far than any sea."
Mitchell's best view is at sunrise. In the light of Dawn
the world of mountains seems to rise out of the darkness of
the infinite abyss ; below great lakes of white clouds cover the
valleys ; the chambers of the East are hung with crimson and
cloth of gold, for the Majesty of Day is approaching with his
escort of splendor ; "From dewey branch birds here and there
with short deep warble salute the coming Sun. Stars fade
out and Galaxies — Street Lamps of the City of God. The
Universe is flinging wide its portals for the Levee of the
Great High King."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 227
THE ACCOUNT OF HIS STEWARDSHIP
Governor Craig's Last Message To The General
Assembly, January 5th, 1917.
To the Honorable the General Assembly of North Car-
olina: The days of my ministration are accomplished. In
obedience to the Constitution and in compliance with your
will, I speak to you my last word as the Governor of the State
of North Carolina.
Four, years ago you invested me with the responsibilities
of this high office. I have welcomed every opportunity for
service, and my strength and energy have been devoted to
the State. I have administered this office steadfast in the
resolve to do exact justice to all — to the rich and to the poor,
to the strong and to the weak, without regard to race or
politics. In delivering up this place to my able and patriotic
successor, it is with regret that I have not been able to do
more for the people that conferred upon me the honor and
the trust to be the Chief Magistrate of the State.
I acknowledge with gratitude the courtesy and co-
operation, the faithful work of all my associates and as-
sistants in office.
I reflect with some pride and satisfaction that the people,
by an overwhelming majority, have placed the seal of ap-
proval upon my administration, and have declared their con-
fidence in my successor and his administration.
I do not come with a full program for your consideration ;
that task will be performed by my successor.
In my opinion, the salaries of State Officers should be in-
creased. The Constitution forbids any increase of the salary
of Governor and Officers created during their terms of office.
Any increase for them must be before the inauguration. The
greatly increased cost of living has made all salaries less
valuable. It seems but reasonable that we should pay our
Chief Executive as much as the Federal Government pays the
Senators and Representatives in Congress. The Governor can-
228 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
not live in the Mansion provided by the State at the present
salary and do the things expected of him, and Which he must
do in accordance with established custom and the require-
ments of hospitality. I know whereof I speak. He must pro-
vide the means from other sources, and this the State does
not desire.
The same observation applies to all the State Officers, but
the Legislature will have full time for consideration of re-
muneration to all of them except the Governor and the mem-
bers of his Council. We have able, conscientious officials.
They are worth more, they earn more than they receive. The
people of North Carolina would willingly pay a reasonable
and just compensation for efficient service.
All the offices and all the places in our Government have
been administered in economy and honesty, above the breath
of scandal, and by men of upright lives and high purpose,
whose daily walk is in the Democratic plainness and simplicity
of the tribunes of ancient Rome.
At the last election, the people ratified Amendments to
the Constitution. This General Assembly must enact statutes
to make them effective. You will, by the Amendments, be
relieved of a vast amount of local legislation, and have time
for the consideration of problems of general importance.
Recently, the Republic of Cuba has come into possession
of "Reconstruction Bonds" amounting to more than two mil-
lions of dollars, and is attempting to enforce the payment of
these bonds in the Supreme Court of the United States. The
bonds were issued in the evil days that followed the war, when
corruption and plunder were shameless, when marauders in-
fested this capital. The State received no benefit from them.
They were promptly repudiated, and the Constitutional Con-
vention of 1875 made unlawful their payment by any official
or by any General Assembly. Their dishonor was published
to the world, and no interest upon them has ever been paid.
Adventurers and unscrupulous speculators have procured
or gotten control of many of these bonds, and have by devious
methods attempted to collect them. The Federal Constitu-
tion provides that no individual can sue the Sovereign State.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 229
On this account, the holders and their agents have attempted
to force collection through the agency of other States of the
Union, and for this purpose have offered most liberal gifts to
States with whom they have negotiated. After these States
became informed of the facts, they refused to touch the un-
clean thing.
If North Carolina owed the bonds, she would pay them,
and would have recognized their validity. She does not owe
them, and will in every way possible resist their payment.
The citizens of North Carolina have always felt the deepest
interest in the welfare and destiny of the Republic of Cuba.
In 1898, thousands of young men volunteered from the State
to enlist in the Army for the relief from oppression and for
the liberty of the people of that island. The blood of the
bravest was shed in the war of emancipation and humanity.
We were, for these reasons, astonished that the Republic of
Cuba should make herself a party to the unholy alliance for
forcing from North Carolina the payment of these dishonored
and fraudulent bonds.
I have declined to consider any suggestion of compromise.
I have declined all suggestions of negotiations with the view
to securing a withdrawal of this suit by the Republic of
Cuba. These bonds are not like the South Dakota bonds. It
is inconceivable to me that the action can be maintained in
any jurisdiction, or that their payment by this Sovereign
State can be enforced by any power. I have employed able
counsel to assist the Attorney-General. The case is set for
argument in the Supreme Court of the United States on Mon-
day, the 8th of January. We will fight it to a finish. I am
convinced that the State of North Carolina will prevail in
the great case now pending, and that this last cloud of Re-
construction which has threatened for fifty years upon our
horizon, will disappear forever.
I rejoice to declare that the State is in better condition
than at any period in her whole history, that the governing
party that placed me here is stronger and more secure than
ever in the loyalty and harmonious union of its members, and
that by the long continuation of a government of integrity
230 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
and devotion to the public weal, it has justified the confidence
and trust of the people.
In our memory there are years of darkness and hardship
with tempests of war for a background, when political might
prevailed, and its minions went forth to plunder and to de-
vour, when fields were barren, when people were poor and
discouraged, and when opportunity was denied. This was
indeed a land of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We, our-
selves, have been witnesses and partakers in the transforma-
tion of a State and her people. Out of the darkness of Re-
construction, there was the day spring of '76. The people
girded their loins to overcome adversity. They re-established
a government of law and security. They rehabilitated the
State and her institutions. They opened the university and
built the school.
During the sixteen years of this century, North Carolina
has made more progress than in all the years of her preceding
history. In substantial development she has been surpassed
by no State of the Union, nor by any civilized country whose
history we know. Her growth and accomplishment is like a
tale of Arabian romance.
We are an agricultural people, and agriculture measures
our national progress. By the intelligent cultivation of the
soil, the yield of all staple crops per acre has been about
doubled. The acreage of tillage has been increased until now
the State, once far behind, ranks in agriculture among the
first of the Union. The prosperity of the farm appears to
the passerby in improved fields, improved dwellings, and all
the appointments of the farm.
The College of Agriculture & Mechanic Arts and the De-
partment of Agriculture have been potential agencies in this
wonderful development. The college must be manned and
equipped for its larger usefulness. It should have 5,000 stu-
dents. Its alumni will go to all sections of the State, and of
the country, trained for captains of industry, for the practical
and scientific cultivation of the soil and for the higher de-
velopment of the profession of agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture has stimulated farming to
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 231
increasing activity. It has protected the farmers from impo-
sition, it has ascertained and encouraged the most profitable
crops by methods of intelligent experiment and demonstra-
tion. The building now occupied by the Department is not
fit. In its stead there should be erected a building commen-
surate with the requirements, typifying the finest and the
greatest of all of the industries of North Carolina.
Manufacturing is prospering as never before, and is de-
veloping in every section of the State. The cotton mills alone
require for their operation 187,000 horse-power. They manu-
facture all the cotton that we produce and more. The value
of their product for the last year was $100,000,000.
The utilization of water-power is assuming large propor-
tions. On a twenty-mile section of the Yadkin River, 250,000
horse-power is now in course of development. From one end
of the State to the other are electric cables through which
are poured the transformed power of the French Broad, the
Catawba, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Cape Fear, and the
Roanoke, delivering exhaustless energy to the centers of in-
dustry, lighting cities and towns, and driving millions of
wheels and spindles. The commercial advancement of our
towns and cities is keeping pace with manufacturing and
agriculture.
The country home is no longer a place of isolation and
desolation. Improved farming brings the comforts of life;
the telephone, the mail box, good schools, and good roads
enlarge and illuminate the horizon of country life. As rural
conditions improve, ambitious youth and manhood will abide
and grow in the free and pure atmosphere for the breeding
of a robust race. The country home should be provided with
all modern appliances of comfort and economy. Rural com-
munities should be empowered by statute to incorporate them-
selves for the purpose of securing water and light, and all
available public utilities. Running water in the home is the
most desirable of all modern conveniences. It saves women
and children from drudgery in the heat and in the cold. It
brings comfort and cleanliness. It preserves health. Every
farmer of modern means can have this convenience. It is not
232 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
an expense. It is an economy. With screens in the windows
and pure running water in the house, the home will be clean
and sanitary, and the people who dwell therein will be cleaner,
healthier, stronger and better.
We have always the perplexing question of taxation. The
Constitution makes the solution difficult. The large per cent
of the personal wealth of the State is not listed for taxation.
One cause for this is the alleged under-valuation of the land.
The Corporation Commission made an intelligent and
courageous effort to equalize the tax values of the State, and
have accomplished much, but the situation is by no means
satisfactory.
There are in the State vast acres of unused land held for
speculation. The owners neither use it nor intend to use it.
These lands are listed for taxation at a very small part of
their sale value. In assessments, the discrimination is in
their favor and against the lands that have been improved.
These unused lands should not be favored by the tax assessor
for their owners are appropriating the value — the unearned
increment created by the growth and enterprise of the whole
community. If there be any discrimination let it favor the
man who has improved by industry his holdings, and made
his land productive; not to the man who refuses to improve
and who prevents the natural development. A proper assess-
ment would discourage the holdings of vacant land for pur-
poses of speculation, and encourage the industrious and the
energetic to buy their own homes. This is especially true of
city and suburban property.
There is nothing that contributes more to the strength
and patriotism, the highest development of citizenship, than
the ownership of homes. A proprietor is independent. He
cannot be a serf. Every farmer in North Carolina should de-
termine to own the land upon which he lives, though the
acreage be small. He will then have a firm dwelling place, a
steadfast interest in country and government.
The Federal Reserve Act has destroyed the money mo-
nopoly. The Farm Loan Bank recognizes the land as security
upon which money can be obtained on long and easy terms.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 233
Land in North Carolina is comparatively cheap. A man of
energy and determination can own his home if he will.
Good roads have been a potential agency for the welfare
of the State. In obedience to the dictates of common sense,
business requirements and the progressive spirit of the age,
the people of North Carolina have determined to have good
roads. During the last four years, we have built twice as
many miles of improved highways as in all our preceding his-
tory. We now have about 15,000 miles of well graded, sur-
faced roads. In January, 1913, we had about 5,000 miles.
We have built 10,000 since then.
During the last four years, the Central Highway* has been
built from the Atlantic Ocean over the coastal plain, over the
hills of the Piedmont, over the Blue Ridge to the Canyon of
the Great Rocky Mountains. The section of this road from
Old Fort to Ridge Crest, and a section in Madison County,
were built by State convicts. Within the last four years, the
highway from Charlotte to Asheville has been completed.
The State convicts built that difficult section from Chimney
Rock to Hickory Nut Gap. Similar highways have been built
across the State and into every section. Road building goes
on with increasing momentum. No community will be with-
out unless it be satisfied to deny itself the improvements of
modern life in this day of enlightenment and progress. The
old country road of rocks and mud and steep hills, consuming
energy, forbidding progress, is past. With good roads, com-
munities are correlated, markets are available, schools and
churches are accessible, land rises in value, progress is in-
evitable. Our highways are immeasurably finer than "The
King's Highway" of old, and they are the tracks for the swift
and powerful vehicles.
The automobile is the modern machine for local trans-
portation. They are rapidly coming into universal use. We
cannot get along without them, and they cannot get along
without the good road. Their indispensable efficiency is not
available without the graded, surfaced highway. They are
monopolizing the roads, and they make road building and
road maintenance far more expensive. They should bear a
♦Now the Old Hickory Highway.
234 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
large part of this burden. The tax on them might be in-
creased, and their owners would not complain, provided the
money be applied to the betterment of the roads.
The State Highway Commission was established by the
General Assembly of 1915. This Commission has justified its
creation. Its usefulness has been limited by lack of funds.
The revenue from automobiles might be largely administered
by the Commission. The modern highway is no longer a
neighborhood affair, but a State institution for communica-
tion and use by the people of different sections. By improper
location and construction, a vast amount of money has been
spent not to the best advantage. This can in the future be
remedied by conferring upon the Commission supervisory
powers. Competent and experienced engineers could be furn-
ished.
On all of the principal highways, railroad grade crossings
should be abolished. This is demanded for the utility of the
road, for the economy of the railroad, and in the interest of
safety and human life. The railroads are now more pros-
perous than ever before. Their net earnings are greater. For
the last fiscal year, the net earnings of the railroads of the
South were approximately $3,500 per mile. They have already
realized the duty which they owe to the public of removing
this inconvenience and danger. They have begun the work,
and should proceed with all possible expedition while the
expense can be easily borne.
The authorities of the State have the right to compel the
abolition of grade crossings. I do not mean that the whole
evil should be remedied at once. Due consideration should
be given to the transportation companies, but in the location
and the building of our highways we should avoid the grade
crossings. The State Highway Commission might designate,
after consultation with the Corporation Commission and with
the companies, what crossings should be abolished.
Through the Highway Commission, the State is enabled
to receive the benefits of the Federal Aid Road Bill, which
places at our disposal for road construction $115,000 for the
present year, and an increasing amount for each succeeding
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 235
year. One of the provisions of this Federal Act is that funds
must be provided for the maintenance of roads upon which
the Federal money is expended. The State must therefore
provide a maintenance fund if we are to take advantage of
this Federal aid, and co-operate with the Federal Government.
It has been the recognized policy of the State to aid in the
construction of certain railroads in the Piedmont Section and
across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Convicts have been furn-
ished to the Statesville Air Line Railway, the Elkin & Alle-
ghany Railway, and to the Watauga & Yadkin Valley Rail-
way. These convicts are not paid for in cash, but as au-
thorized by law, are paid for in stock of the companies. This
stock has no market value. But the consideration is not the
value of the stock, but the value to the State of that mag-
nificent country west of the Blue Ridge. These railroads,
when built, will connect that country with the State. In trade
and commercial intercourse, it is cut off from North Carolina
by impassable mountains and has been forced to trade with
the cities of Virginia, and send to them its valuable products.
This is a section with a splendid destiny. We need its fertile
lands and vast forests. It is equal in beauty and natural
richness to the famous Southwestern Virginia Section which
it adjoins. As a matter of justice to the patriotic citizenship
that dwells in the counties of Alleghany, Ashe and Watauga,
the State should aid in securing for them railroad transporta-
tion for their development and for our mutual benefit.
At the beginning of my administration, freight was
hauled from the North and the Northwest through the State
of North Carolina and delivered to the cities of Virginia at
a lower rate than the carriers would stop this same class of
freight and deliver it to the cities of North Carolina. By this
lower rate, the merchants of Virginia were enabled to sell
goods in the State of North Carolina cheaper than the mer-
chants of North Carolina could sell the same class of goods
at their very doors. Business was obliged to leave the State.
The cities of Virginia flourished at our expense.
The Federal Government had jurisdiction of this question.
The injustice was indefensible. The people of North Carolina
236 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
had borne it for many years. In 1913, this unjust discrimi-
nation was remedied to a large extent. Public opinion was
the compelling power. It found expression through the Just
Freight Rate Association, and encouragement in a General
Assembly that was ready to go to the limit to compel justice
and secure the rights of the people of North Carolina. Earnest
men held meetings in various cities. The wrong was exposed,
the General Assembly was called in extra session. The
difficulties were great, and while complete equity was not
obtained, the remedy was substantial. Under present con-
ditions, North Carolina wholesale merchants have the ad-
vantage in our territory over competitors in any other State.
By this extra session of the General Assembly of 1913, a
statute was passed for the reduction of intrastate freight
rates. In accordance with the power conferred upon the
Governor, a Commission was appointed to fix transportation
charges within the State. The report of this Commission
was accepted by the people, by the carriers, and by the
General Assembly. The railroads have sought before the
Interstate Commerce Commission to raise some of our State
schedules, but in all controversies the State has prevailed,
and the rates fixed by the Commission are now established.
By the reduction of interstate rates and intrastate rates,
our people have saved by careful estimate $2,000,000 a year.
The spirit of progress has been relieved from unjust oppres-
sion. Commercial and industrial enterprises have been en-
couraged and established. A prosperity has come that could
not have resulted under former conditions.
There is another phase of this subject that I would im-
press upon this General Assembly, upon the Corporation Com-
mission and upon the people of the State. Freight originating
in North Carolina going to the States south of us is subjected
to the same tariff as the same class of freight originating in
Virginia. North Carolina is entitled to a decided advantage
upon all such merchandise. The haul is much shorter. Mak-
ing all fair allowances, this freight originating in North Car-
olina going south should bear an average tariff of twenty
cents less on the hundred pounds. There is no justification
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 237
for fixing the same tariff upon south-bound freight for the
two States, when the Virginia freight must be hauled through
the State of North Carolina. We are entitled to the advan-
tage of our geographical situation, and we should not rest
content until this unjust discrimination be corrected. Eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty.
In recent years, the railroads have manifested a disposi-
tion and a desire to treat the people with fairness and to con-
duct and to regulate their business in accordance with a well
conceived public sentiment. Their managers are men of pa-
triotism and broad views. I hope for the continuation of
peace and co-operation between the people and the carriers
for actual welfare in just regard to all concerned.
The State has done well. She is just emerging into her
strength. Destiny calls. She can accomplish vastly more.
Higher things demand to be done. To the energy, the faith
and genius of our people, the future is unfolding in sublime
revelation.
"But, oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And, oh, not the valleys of Hall.
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call —
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall."
But material development is not the object of man's
highest endeavor. Life, not economics, is the purpose of
society — the ultimate aim of civilization. All wealth and all
laws and all government must have as their purpose a fuller
and a finer life, a better social order. In the day of our pros-
perity, we must not forget our institutions of learning. We
must not forget the places where children and men and wo-
men are educated to the higher conceptions. I do not like our
boast that we are running the cheapest university, and the
cheapest normal schools in the world. We need the best in
238 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
the world. These institutions have done splendid and in-
dispensable work. They must grow or we go backward. Hope
must not be denied to aspiring youth. Who can estimate the
worth of our university, the normal schools, the denomina-
tional colleges, the public schools ? Our intellectual and moral
growth must be commensurate with our material growth.
We rejoice that the old log school houses have disappeared,
that now in every community there is a school building, the
pride of that community, and equal to the college buildings
of the days of our childhood. These measure the efficiency
of the school. The patriotic citizens of North Carolina will-
ingly pay taxes for the education of the young. They are not
willing that our educational institutions should not develop
with the increasing demands of the age. Facilities must be
provided for the boys and girls in North Carolina who are
eager for the strength and equipment of life.
During my administration, every institution in this State
and every Department of the State Government has been sub-
jected to the most thorough investigation. Everything has
been uncovered. No dishonesty has been anywhere found.
The Board of Internal Improvements has done its work fear-
lessly and without favoritism. The institutions are of the
highest order.
We are expending hundreds of thousands of dollars every
year in taking care of the insane, the deaf and dumb, the
blind and the feeble-minded. This is an obligation that no
State can avoid. For if in the days of our good fortune we
do not remember them, our hearts would be hardened and
our land would be accursed. And when, according to the
plan of the last General Assembly, we build the new school
for the blind, let us not be more niggardly to them than any
other State.
The Jackson Training School for youthful derelicts is
doing a noble work. Humane consideration for wayward
boys demands its enlargement.
We have not forgotten the soldiers of the Confederacy.
We have provided for them a home, clean and comfortable,
kept in a high state of efficiency. These veterans are fast
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 239
disappearing. They are all disabled by age, and by the wounds
and the hardships of war. Our privilege to help them is
closing, for the captains and the soldiers are departing.
It is noble to provide for the sick and the afflicted, but
the prevention of disease of mind and of body is the aim of
the higher and wiser humanity. This is the task for modern
pathology. Men and women and children suffer and die from
causes that can be removed. They are deaf and dumb and
are stricken with blindness and insanity, condemned to lives
of darkness and hopelessness, not by the inscrutable decrees
of Providence, but by the failure of society to protect them
against the enemy more cruel than death.
The State has no duty more imperative than the conser-
vation and the promotion of health. Four years ago, the
General Assembly passed the vital statistical law. It has
done immense good in ascertaining the causes of disease and
death. The work for the prevention of disease has been stim-
ulated. The State Board of Health is waging a campaign of
energy and intelligence against tuberculosis, typhoid fever
and malaria, and such diseases that can be exterminated by
intelligent and determined action. Many counties have em-
ployed health officers. They are doing good work, but as yet
the health work is by the county as a unit. The conserva-
tion of health is not a local question. The State has an in-
terest. The State Board of Health should have general super-
vision of this work, and each community should have the
benefit of its expert knowledge and wide experience. This
Board should have power to know by systematic reports the
conditions and the work in each locality. Such correlation
and publicity would increase efficiency and excite emulation
of every health officer in the State. The State Board should
be given the power to locate and reasonable means to prevent
the spread of contageous diseases. Modern facilities for
travel give wings to disease. Infantile paralysis, scarlet
fever and other contagions may in a day be transported to
distant counties for the establishment of new centers of in-
fection, with dire calamity. The State Law provides no pro-
tection against this. The Federal Statute provides against
240 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
interstate contagion, but there is no State Statute to provide
against intrastate contagion.
North Carolina has the largest birth rate as to white
children of any State in the Union — more babies per capita
than any other country. This "infant industry" deserves and
demands protection. They are the most desirable immi-
grants — thoroughbred from Norman and Saxon sires.
During the last four years, the State's Prison has been
successful beyond precedent. Above all expenses of every
kind, it has earned for the State the net sum of $350,000. To
the Superintendent of the Prison, the Board of Directors and
their subordinates credit must be given for this result. The
institution has been managed with ability, honesty, economy
and in humane consideration for the prisoner. This money
has been made for the State by the work of the prisoners on
the State Farm, on the State Highways, on the railroads, and
at the quarries and dams of the Yadkin River.
The making of money for the State is not the principal
purpose of prison management. In this flood-tide of pros-
perity and plenty, the families of most of the prisoners were
in need of food and raiment. In many instances women and
children were destitute. The poor and little ones suffer in
winter. To me it seemed just, and to the Prison Board it
seemed just that out of the earings of the unfortunates a
small amount be sent to their scanty, needy homes to relieve
some distress, and as a testimonial of justice and sympathy.
This seemed especially appropriate in these days of good-will
and benevolence. Some may criticise this act as unauthor-
ized, and object to it as an unsafe precedent, but if this
General Assembly condemns it, every dollar of the money
will be promptly returned. "Swear," said the captuous Roman
tribune to the consul, "swear that you have observed the
laws." "I swear," said the consul, "that I have served the
Republic." And we too in this have obeyed the law of hu-
manity and righteousness, and done the will of the people of
North Carolina.
I hope that this General Assembly will by statute, con-
sistent with the economic welfare of the Prison, provide for
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 241
some return to the dependent, needy families of prisoners in
times of prosperity like these.
I do not believe in "coddling" criminals. Crime must be
punished. Justice is stern. The innocent suffer for the sins
of the guilty. It was so declared on Sanai. It is the in-
exorable decree. But the law grows "with the growing hu-
manity of the age, and broadens with the process of the suns."
At the final judgment, in divine commiseration may be spoken
of us too: "I was in prison and ye ministered unto Me.
* * * For inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these My
brethren, ye did it unto Me."
Out of the surplus already earned by the institution, this
General Assembly, in obedience to the plainest duty, should
allow and direct the Board of Directors to build on the Cale-
donia Farm a modern prison, equipped with appurtenances
and appliances for the proper care, custody and training of
the State's convicts. It seems to be the established policy of
the State to maintain this farm as the place of penal servi-
tude. The buildings there are not adequate, and no longer
tolerable. I do not see the necessity for the continued main-
tenance of the Central Prison at Raleigh. The whole institu-
tion can be centralized at Caledonia.
During my term of office pardons and commutations have
been granted to four hundred and twenty-eight persons con-
victed in the courts. Most of these convictions were for mis-
demeanors, and in many cases, judgments were pronounced
in contemplation of a conditional pardon, with the object of
restraining the offender from further violations of law. In
my opinion such judgments are not in accordance with the
proper administration of justice. It places upon the Exe-
cutive the labor and the opportunity to accurately ascertain
the facts. The courts might be invested with power to pro-
nounce conditional and indeterminate sentences, but the judg-
ments of the courts should be pronounced as a finality.
I have granted no pardon nor commutation except upon
the conclusion, after most careful consideration, that justice
and humanity demanded it. In each case, the facts have been
fairly stated, with the reasons. The press of the State has
242 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
generally approved. The disappointment and sorrow of those
whose petitions have been denied have touched me deeper
than criticisms for judgments that to me seemed just and
merciful.
During my term, seventeen men have been punished by
death. I have spared human life unless the extreme penalty
was justified by the evidence and demanded by the law.
On the 16th of last July, a great flood wrought disaster in
Western North Carolina. There has been no such swell of
waters since the country was settled by the white people.
The flood gates of heaven were lifted and the deluge poured
down. The sides of the mountains were torn loose. The val-
leys were flooded by raging torrents. Trees, crops, buildings,
roads, railroads and the land itself were swept away. Ani-
mals could not escape, and many human beings were lost.
The homes and fertile fields by the rivers were destroyed.
The rich bottom lands of the Yadkin, the Catawba and tribu-
taries were turned to desert waste.
In this overwhelming disaster the people were bewildered.
They were for a time without food and shelter. When the
extent of the calamity became known, the people of the State
nobly responded. Eagerly, generously, they gave, not in the
spirit of condescending charity, but in the discharge of an
obligation to the unfortunate of their own race and kindred.
Edward E. Britton was made Chairman of the State Relief
Committee. More than $45,000 have been received by him.
Local Committees were organized in every county that had
been stricken. Through the various local organizations at
least $50,000 more have been contributed. All destitution was
relieved. There has been no suffering. At present, there is
money in the hands of the Chairman of the Committee in
each county that has asked for relief. The leading men in
the State offered their services without compensation, and
went to carry relief and encouragement. Neighbors divided
with the needy whatever they had, and throughout the State
the finest spirit of sympathy was manifest in contributions
by all classes of people.
The forests of North Carolina furnish annually a product
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 243
of immense value. On the coastal plain and in the mountains,
we once had a forest and a timber supply unsurpassed in any-
country. A vast portion of this has disappeared by unwise
and wasteful cutting. The pine of the east and the hardwood
of the mountains would readily come again on our fertile soil
if properly protected. The lumberman should be controlled
by laws for the economic use of the forest. Destruction by
fire should be prevented. Though the fairest part of this in-
heritance of ours is gone, much remains, and can be saved for
this and the next generation. The sources of supply of the
rivers that water the plains and turn the wheels of industry
can be protected and conserved. Ruinous floods can be to a
large extent prevented.
Under an Act of the General Assembly of 1915, the State
has a clear title to about six hundred acres on and around the
summit of Mount Mitchell. This area is covered with a virgin
growth of luxuriant spruce or balsam. Around this section
now owned by the State, the forest has been mowed down by
the lumberman. The diy resinous debris is most inflammable.
After the lumberman, conflagrations with terrific waste have
swept these mountain areas, leaving the vast slopes of black-
ened desolation. But for the purchase by the State, the whole
of Mount Mitchell would be a barren waste. Now, as far as
this majestic mountain, the highest east of the Rockies, can
be seen, the dark green of its summit is discernible above the
ruin. A railroad runs from the town of Black Mountain to
the edge of the park established by the State. Its terminus
is about three-fourths of a mile from the top. Thousands of
people visit this mountain during the summer. Each year
multiplies the number. The State should recognize and regu-
late this railroad as a common carrier of passengers, and
should confer upon the Governor the power to appoint a Com-
mission composed of patriotic, interested citizens to serve
without pay, for the protection and the management of the
park on the summit of Mount Mitchell. General Julian S.
Carr has consented to head a Committee for the building of
a memorial to Dr. Elisha Mitchell upon this mountain. This
insures a structure suitable to the solemnity and the majesty
244 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
of the sublime height, the most famous in Eastern America.
The General Assembly of 1915 enacted a law for the regu-
lation of the fishing industry and for the conservation of the
fish of Eastern North Carolina. Our waters have been and
are the source of a valuable food supply. They have been
wastefully exploited and the yield largely diminished. But by
wise and economic management, conditions will improve and
the fishing industry be restored for the welfare of the whole
State, and the eastern section especially.
The law of 1915 has been administered by proficient men
who have earnestly devoted themselves to the important
work. Heretofore the subject has been dealt with as local,
but now as one of State concern, properly under the jurisdic-
tion of the State. These waters are not private property.
Opposition has been encountered. The Fisheries Commission
Board and executive officers have enforced the law firmly,
but with discretion and consideration. The healthy public
sentiment now approves. The people are coming to realize
that this law is necessary for the protection of the fishing in-
dustry from destruction, for the ultimate good of the fisher-
men, and for the good of the public. We have the most val-
uable fishing waters on the Atlantic Coast, and must not allow
them to be destroyed.
During the month of June, the National Guard was called
to mobilize for the defense of the Southern Border and to
meet the dangers that threatened. The soldiers of every com-
pany in the State willingly volunteered. Some went at much
sacrifice, but they did not complain. At El Paso, under the
command of Brigadier-General Laurence W. Young, they have
distinguished themselves for discipline and for military train-
ing and efficiency. They have reflected credit upon the State
in peace, and were ready with the courage and patriotism of
their fathers to carry the flag to the farthest front of battle.
The love and the admiration of the folks at home have been
with them and we hope for their return as soon as their
presence on the Rio Grande is no longer demanded.
It is unfortunate that those brave men in the service of
their country were in the last election deprived of the right
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 245
of franchise. We need a statute to enable any citizen of this
State to cast his vote when away from home by unavoidable
necessity.
In this State, every citizen, every corporation, every le-
gitimate enterprise, has had and should forever have the pro-
tection and the encouragement of just laws and fair and
honest government. The civic purpose and effort has been to
guarantee universal opportunity and the betterment of all the
ranks of society.
And now we should remember with devout gratitude that
we dwell in this land of freedom, of prosperity, and peace.
With the Hebrew poet we can say:
"How goodly are thy tents, oh, Jacob ; and thy tabernacles,
oh, Israel!"
In this time of war and confusion, our Nation has stood
for the law of civilization, for the freedom of the seas, for
the rights of American citizens in all lands. Every American
demand has been acknowledged, and every American right
has been conceded. The Schoolmaster of Princeton College
has become the world teacher of a new diplomacy. His
dogmas of righteousness are more powerful than forty-two
centimeter guns. He has dictated to militant kings and em-
perors the principles of humanity, and has exalted the majesty
of justice above all thrones.
The countries across the Atlantic are consumed by the
vast conflagration of desolation, Europe is crushed and bleed-
ing. The flower of her men have been destroyed, and are halt
and maimed and blind and maniac by the savage weapons of
this war. All her women and children are in mourning.
Lurid, ghastly and relentless War still strikes and strikes
with unabated fury and reaps his boundless harvest of death
and destruction. Thus far we have been spared. We have
been spared through the wisdom, the patience, the steadfast
courage, of this great servant of God — reserved for a supreme
duty, when the fullness of time shall come.
When the peoples that drink the cup of trembling in the
horror of great darkness shall behold the dawn of the coming
day, Woodrow Wilson will stand forth as the Prophet, and
the Arbiter of the Peace of Righteousness for the World, to
point the nations to the higher way of truth and freedom, to
turn the hearts of the disobedient, to the Wisdom of the
Just.
246 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
THE account of his stewardship rendered, through his
farewell message to the General Assembly, his trust
discharged with honor to himself and the State,
Governor Craig turned over the affairs of his office to his
duly elected successor early in January, 1917. It was a
typical January day. The skies were overcast, and the chill
penetrating — the Governor broken in health. His great public
service had been rendered. His promises had been brought
to fruition. He had kept the faith. Again he came before
his people, and again his beautiful voice rang out in the place
where cheering thousands had gathered for his inauguration
four years before:
"By authority of the People of North Carolina,
And of the General Assembly, Mr. Chief Justice,
I present to you Thomas Walter Bickett,
Governor-Elect, and ask that you administer to him
The oath of office."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 247
ASHEVILLE'S WELCOME HOME
TO LOCKE CRAIG
(January 12th, 1917)
NOTE: On his return, the people of Asheville gathered at the
Majestic Theat<re to welcome their Governor and his family back home.
They presented him with a beautiful service of silver, and there were
cordial welcoming addresses from prominent citizens. The following
account is from The Asheville Times, though only a part of it can be
found :
Asheville gave Governor Craig a royal as well as a neigh-
borly and hearty welcome when he arrived in the city Fri-
day.
Southern Passenger Train No. 15 was late — reaching the
station close to the noon hour. A goodly company of repre-
sentative citizens were ready to grasp the hand of Locke
Craig and speak their joy at his home coming. There was no
blare of trumpets — no noise of drum — but the dignity of the
occasion was present. It was the return of an esteemed
citizen, who had been away for a time at the call of his State,
one who had honored his community and section with efficient
service.
Surrounded by friends, men of varied stations, merchants,
manufacturers, bankers, lawyers, physicians and preachers,
Governor Craig and Mrs. Craig were escorted to the waiting
car and followed by the reception party directly to the Ma-
jestic Theatre where the formal reception followed.
Locke Craig, Jr., was the first to start the cheering in the
Majestic Theatre. Sitting in Judge Phil. C. Cocke's arms, he
saw his father on the stage, surrounded by members of the
Reception Committee, and called out to him, and then gave
a boyish yell of greeting. The audience broke into applause.
The splendid tributes of the speakers were frequently in-
terrupted by cheering, and the Governor was given a rousing
ovation when he rose to reply.
Locke, Jr., did not know that he was to figure largely in
248 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
the speechmaking, but he did. Dr. Winston paid Mrs. Craig,
an eloquent tribute. Thomas J. Harkins presented the chest
of silver and the silver water set. Part of this testimonial
was on the stage during the exercises.
When the curtain rose at 12:30 o'clock, the orchestra
struck up "Are You From Dixie?" and the audience gave the
distinguished guest a round of enthusiastic applause. Judge
J. D. Murphy, General Chairman of the Committee for the
Reception of the Governor, then delivered the following ad-
dress :
"Ladies and Gentlemen: Four years ago Governor Craig
left Asheville to enter the service of the State as Chief Exe-
cutor, upheld by the prayers, and followed by the good wishes,
of the people of Buncombe County and Western North Car-
olina.
"Today, he returns to us to receive the welcome plaudits,
'Well done, good and faithful servant'; you have fought a
good fight, you have kept faith with the people, you have
served the State's best interests, you have done justly, you
have loved mercy, you have walked humbly among your peo-
ple; henceforth there is laid up for you a crown of the love
and esteem of the people of a great Commonwealth to whose
service you have devoted your talents and energies.
"May I be permitted to say that one of the most widely
known public men in this State, recently told me in a private
conversation that Governor Craig was one of the purest and
best men he had ever known. Another gentleman, high in
official life in this State, remarked in my presence recently
that Governor Craig was one among the most unselfish men
he had ever known. Such are the impressions left upon the
people of the State by our distinguished fellow-townsman.
"Buncombe County has given this Commonwealth three
great Governors, who have glorified her annals and adorned
her history, who have presided over her destinies in epochal
and distinctive periods— David Lowry Swain, Zebulon Baird
Vance, and Locke Craig — men who tower among men as does
Mount Mitchell, Mount Pisgah and Craggy Mountain, among
our mountain peaks— men whose record of achievement and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 249
service to the people of the Commonwealth, will ever shed a
gentle and beneficent radiance to lighten the pathway of men
through the coming time.
"It is now my pleasure to present to you our distinguished
and scholarly fellow-townsman, Dr. George T. Winston, who
will deliver an address of welcome to Governor Craig in be-
half of our people."
Judge Murphy also read extracts from a letter he had re-
ceived from a prominent North Carolinian who paid a tribute
to the Ex-Governor as an orator and a public servant who had
labored with brilliant success for the welfare of his State.
Dr. Winston spoke, in substance, as follows:
"To speak words of welcome to you, Governor Craig, is as
useless a superfluity as to add perfume to the violet or color
to the rose. Wherever North Carolina is mentioned, men think
of you. The welcome of the people of Asheville and Western
North Carolina is written in their hearts today and is pro-
claimed in their faces. If I should tell you how much we love
you, our wives would be jealous. You, of noble heart and
brain, you who have achieved so well for the welfare of the
State, we welcome home. We welcome ourselves to your
midst, instead of you to our midst.
"This occasion is not only a personal welcome. Your cares
have been a part of the progress and development of this
Commonwealth. Lincoln said that no man had a right to
govern any other man without that man's consent. For four
years you have governed North Carolina with the consent and
loyalty of 2,000,000 people.
"You have introduced a new system of government in
dealing with crime. You have adopted kindness instead of
force and violence and in your Christmas remembrance of the
convicts you have set a precedent that future Governors will
follow. In recommending that some of the profits of the con-
victs' labor should go to the support of their families you
will be supported by the people, whatever peanut politicians
may say.
"You have helped to establish a great National Forest
Reserve here for the people of the United States and you
250 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
alone led the way for the location of a great State Park in
the mountains. You have launched the movement for the
building of a monument on Mount Mitchell that will be worthy
of the sainted bones of Elisha Mitchell who lost his life ex-
ploring the peak. You have established a State Highway
Commission and stretched great highways across the Blue
Ridge. You have enriched rural life.
"I do not know how many of your good deeds were inspired
by your better half.
"When you became Governor, you said to the people, 'All
that I have is yours.' We now say to you, 'All that we have
is yours.' This is your recall by referendum of your people."
Judge Murphy then introduced Mr. Harkins, who in the
name of the people of Asheville presented the Governor with
an elaborate chest of silver and a silver water set. Mr. Har-
kins said:
"Governor Craig: After four years' devotion to the service
of the people as Governor of our Commonwealth, you have
returned to live with us again in good old Asheville, and the
hearts of our people are gladdened. We rejoice that we shall
again, for many uninterrupted years we hope, enjoy the priv-
ilege of your daily associations.
"Four years ago," replied the Governor, in substance, "I
was inaugurated with Military and State ceremony. Of course
I valued that demonstration. And while I have been Governor
I have received many honors from people from all sections,
at home and elsewhere. But no testimonial of esteem, no
honor I have received, has touched me as has this welcome
from my own people. Your friendship and trust means mil-
lions of times more to me than all the encomiums and honors
bestowed."
GOVERNOR CRAIG had heretofore had an iron consti-
tution, but his untiring labors for his party, and for
the advancement of the State, followed by the arduous
duties of the Governor's office, had drawn upon his reserve
strength to such an extent, that he returned home an invalid —
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 251
wounded in battle for the public weal, and accepting the pen-
alty inflicted as a true soldier would.
Soon the World War swept the country into its vortex,
and carried with the Colors bis three sons, Carlyle, George,
and Arthur. Governor Craig, though eager to go with them,
was only able to urge them on, while he himself gave inspira-
tion to the parting hosts in words of encouragement and
cheer.
It is to be regretted that no notes can be found of his
speech at the Auditorium Mass Meeting in Asheville at the
beginning of the war; nor of his speech bidding farewell to
the local members of the now famous Old Hickory Division,
delivered from the portico of the County Court House. His
speech to the first contingent of the National Army, later to
become a part of the Wildcat Division, is taken from The
Asheville Citizen, and follows:
252 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
TO THE DEPARTING SOLDIERS
Speech Delivered From The Portico Of The Pack Memorial
Library, On Pack Square, Sept. 20th, 1917.
NOTE: The demonstration on Pack Square that preceded the
departure to the station, eclipsed anything of the kind ever attempted
in Asheville. Fully eight thousand people deserted homes, business
and dinners to gather around and pay a parting tribute to the young
men who are to "help make the world skfe for democracy." Every-
thing passed off just as it was planned, except the crowd and the en-
thusiasm. These surpassed all expectations.
Next followed the principal address of the afternoon, de-
livered by former Governor Locke Craig, who was introduced
by Mr. Frank M. Weaver, President of the Chamber of Com-
merce. The Governor said, in part:
"This is a day long to be remembered in history — in our
local history — in universal history. It is a day significant
with the destiny of the world. On this day throughout the
vast domain of the Republic, the strong and valiant youth of
America are leaving home to constitute the grandest army
that ever marched, to fight for the grandest cause 'ever pro-
claimed by the trumpet, or pleaded by the sword.'
"You, my own young friends, sons of my neighbors, are
making this day historic and constituting this army. You
are no longer the civilian boys, but you are the soldiers of the
Republic.
"I congratulate you that in this mighty day you are to
occupy the place of honor; that you are to carry the flag to
the front in the battle line that is defending civilization
against Goths and Huns and Mohammedans; that you are to
unhorse the savage militarism that would ride down and slay,
and overrun the earth that you are to establish the order in
which civilization may, with security, beat its defensive sword
into a plowshare, in which nations in trustful federation and
Lt. Carlyle Craig George Winston Craig
U.S.N.
m ■
£%~ \m m
Locke Craig Jr. Ij. Arthur Burgin Craig
U.S.N.,
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 253
co-operation may develop and achieve in permanent peace with-
out the burden of armies and armaments. Blessed are you in
all generations.
"From the sanctuary of every home, from the altar of
every temple, whether it be the grand cathedral, or the little
church in the heart of the remotest mountains, petitions will
constantly go up to our Heavenly Father for your safety and
your welfare. You will never be forgotten by the folks at
home. They will watch with hope and faith and prayer for
your safe return. But above that, we depend with unfaltering
faith that at the front you will do a soldier's part, that you
will remember the obligations to home, that you are the cus-
todians of the honor of your country, that you will glorify
this country by the pure manhood of your lives, and by the
courage that never wavers.
'The Spartan mother delivered the shield to her son going
to war with the injunction, 'Return with it, my son, or upon
it.' Remembering this mother's command, the last dying sol-
dier wrote upon his shield at Thermopylae, 'Go tell at Lace-
demon that we died in obedience to her law.' If you should
fall, let it be beneath the folds of the advancing flag. The
Archangel will tell before God's judgment seat that you died
in obedience to His Law.
"On this day, my friends, when we dedicate these young
men to the holy cause of this war, let us dedicate and conse-
crate ourselves anew, that we may be worthy of them, and
of their heroism and sacrifice.
"For you, my young friends, for us all, a mighty day has
dawned, a day of crisis and of altruistic awakening.
"You are going across the far seas, but you will be con-
voyed safely by the battleships and cruisers and dreadnaughts
of the Republic. You will look upon the vine-clad hills of
heroic France, and of fair lands and cities blasted and desolate
by relentless, revengeful war. Weak and oppressed people,
starving women and children, will stretch forth their hands
in gratitude to you in the day of their deliverance. You will
see the great captains of the world, and the great men of
the world. You will march on battlefields immortalized by
254 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
Caesar, Clovis, Charlemaine and Napoleon. You will hear the
tramp of embattled hosts and the sounds of falling cities.
When bloody fields are won, you will behold the broken and
retreating squadrons of the enemies of freedom. And I hope
that over the broken ramparts in the day of triumph, some
boy from Buncombe will carry the stars and stripes at the
head of the victorious columns into the City of Berlin !
"We pray for the return of peace. '0, let the bugles sound
the truce of God to the whole world forever.' May the reign
of the Prince of Peace be restored to all the kingdoms of this
earth. But it will not be until the seven vials of God's wrath
shall consume iniquity, and shall destroy all dynasties and in-
justice of privilege. From the conflagration of this war must
come a purified civilization with a higher social order, that
shall guarantee to all mankind their inalienable rights ac-
cording to the everlasting Covenant of God.
"When you shall return, my young friends, in that im-
mortal day we will welcome you with universal acclaim, and
honor you and your children as the soldiers of the great
struggle for the liberation and for the redemption of man-
kind."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 255
THE CASE OF THE RAILWAY COMPANIES
VERSUS STATE COMMISSIONER
OF REVENUE, ET AL.
Argument By Hon. Locke Craig Before The District Court
Of The United States, January, 1922.
NOTE: The State won this case, involving millions of dollars in
revenue. Governor Craig presented his argument by brief, and his
forceful presentation of the case for the defendants, shows his great?
power as an advocate, and his clear reasoning ability.
May it please the Court, I appreciate the honor and the
responsibility of my participation in this great trial by this
High Court of Equity.
When I consider the learning, the ability and the experi-
ence of the judges who constitute this tribunal, I approach
the discussion with embarrassment. But I do feel the pro-
found conviction of the righteousness of our cause. I know
that it will be presented in eloquence and power by my emi-
nent associates, and will receive from the Court the consider-
ation demanded by this issue, involving as it does constitu-
tional questions, and the administration of the affairs of the
State.
The partisan zeal of ordinary litigation is overshadowed
here by the universal desire for a just judgment. The
Plaintiffs are the public carriers of our traffic, and constitute
the arteries of our commerce between ourselves and between
us and the civilized world. The Defendant is Alston D. Watts,
who represents in his official capacity every man, woman and
child in the State. Their collective will and conscience con-
stitute the sovereign majesty of the State. And the State
desires, above all other considerations, justice and equity for
all her citizens, corporate and individual. She realizes that
justice is the handmaid of security and patriotism, that
plenty and prosperity follow in her train.
Resistance to taxation is not without precedent with
256 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
English and American people. It has been the issue in the
front line of the defense and development of their constitu-
tional liberty. The tyrannical imposition of an unjust tax
cost Charles the First his head, and George the Third would
not profit by his example. In our day, resistance by violence
has ceased, for in the evolution of the English Law, our Court
of Equity is the tribunal before which all grievances may be
redressed in this day of peace. And the decrees of our Courts
of Equity have commanded the dutiful obedience of good
citizens, for the extraordinary power of this Court has from
time immemorial been continuously exercised by chancellors
with a clear conception of the processes and relations of our
governmental system, guided by the precedents and the wis-
dom of the masters of English Jurisprudence. The Supreme
Court of the United States, in the case of Irwin v. Dixon, 9th
Howard, 33, has termed this "a transcendent and extra-
ordinary power, and is therefore to be used sparingly, and
only in a clear and plain case."
Shaffer v. Carter, 252 U. S., 37 ;
Coulter v. Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co., 196
U. S., 599.
And in Cavanaugh v. Looney, 240 U. S., 453, the Supreme
Court says that the injunction should not be granted, "unless
in a case reasonably free from doubt, and to prevent great
and irreparable injury."
While it is the duty of patriotism to resist taxation clearly
unjust, it is equally the duty of patriotism to submit to just
taxation. We concede to the Plaintiffs the right to resist the
payment of a tax, when strongly convinced of its injustice,
but for reasons just as compelling is it the duty of the State
to enforce the payment of all taxes that are just. If the
Plaintiffs shall avoid any part of the taxes laid upon them by
the duly constituted authorities of the State in the necessary
administration of her government, this additional burden
must be borne by the people. For their protection, and in
justice to them it is imperative upon the State to uphold her
acts in their defense, in equity and for the common good.
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 257
For a quarter of a century the conviction has prevailed in
North Carolina that property was improperly assessed for
taxation, and that taxes were not levied in accord with new
conditions to meet the obligations of an enlightened and ad-
vancing State.
The defects of our tax system became more pronounced
and more intolerable. In 1919, the General Assembly, under
the leadership of Governor Bickett and statesmen of experi-
ence and patriotism, determined to reform the antiquated and
discredited conditions. For this and other noble service,
North Carolina will keep in affectionate memory this Gov-
ernor who devoted himself to the State with a splendid con-
ception of her destiny, and of his high trust.
The Plaintiffs contend that in the revaluation provided by
the General Assembly of 1919, their property was assessed
for taxation at a value that is excessive.
By this revaluation the value of railroad property in the
State was increased from about 40 per cent to 100 per cent.
The property of the Coast Line was increased from
$34,645,345 to $50,867,800 ; the property of the Seaboard Air
Line was increased from $20,191,720 to $34,768,440 ; and the
property of the Southern Railway from $46,869,942 to
$96,306,357. The Norfolk & Southern applied to the Com-
missioner of Revenue and secured a reduction of $4,000,000
in its assessment. It seems to have gotten about all it asked
from the State authorities and yet it is not at all backward
in coming forward to ask for more. The value of the real
estate in this State was increased fully 200 per cent. Prior
to the revaluation, the Southern Railway Company and
$46,000,000 of the real estate bore equal parts of the burden
of ad valorem taxes. By the revaluation the Southern Rail-
way property was assessed as $96,000,000, and this same real
estate at $140,000,000. Now, except as modified slightly by
the horizontal reductions, they bear the burden in the ratio
of 96 to 140. Yet the Southern Railway is resisting. The
landowner is submitting. The ratio of the increase of the
burden of taxation was much more favorable to the other
railroads of the State than to the Southern, and yet these
258 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
other railroads are resisting, while the landowners are sub-
mitting. The real estate in North Carolina was all assessed
on an average by the 200 per cent increase, and bears ac-
cordingly the increased proportion of the burden.
The equitable assessment between citizens depends on the
relative valuation, and this relative value determines the por-
tion of the burden to be borne.
When the value of railroad property for taxation was in-
creased from 40 per cent to 100 per cent, and the value of
real estate by 200 per cent, I submit that the railroads had
no right to complain of excessive valuation. As a fact, the
railroads paid less tax in 1920 under the new assessment than
they did in 1919 under the old assessment. The Southern
Railway paid $50,958.82 less under the new than the old as-
sessment. The Atlantic Coast Line paid for the year 1919,
$680,811.89; for the year 1920, $489,686.79; that is, this
Plaintiff paid nearly $200,000 less tax in 1920 under the new
assessment than it did in 1919 under the old assessment, and
yet this Plaintiff was paying this tax under protest, while
the landholders of North Carolina were bearing the greater
proportion of the tax burden willingly and without a protest.
In the face of commanding facts like these, how can these
Plaintiffs allege that their property was over-assessed for
taxation, and how can they justify themselves before the fair-
thinking people of North Carolina, and how can they come
before this Court of Equity and ask that the processes of the
State Government be stopped by "the transcendent and extra-
ordinary power to be used sparingly and only in a clear and
plain case?" Irwin v. Dixon, supra.
This complaint comes too late. A decree to the effect that
the assessment of railroad property is excessive and in-
equitable involves the conclusion that for many years North
Carolina has taxed her property by systematic and continued
injustice, and has done this by the acquiescense of the rail-
roads for a quarter of a century. General Assemblies have
biennially met, and Courts of Equity have always been open.
Not a complaint from the Plaintiffs on account of excessive
valuation until the year 1921, when their property has been
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 259
increased from 40 per cent to 100 per cent, and the landed
property of the State 200 per cent. By this assessment and
revaluation, the railroads were relieved of one-third of the
burden of ad valorem taxation compared with the land, and
that proportion of the burden theretofore borne by them was
placed by this re-assessment upon the land.
They now ask this Court to issue a decree that would be
tantamount to a condemnation of the administration of our
government for a quarter of a century, that would set at
naught as ineffectual and unrighteous the system of our tax-
ation carefully devised by the General Assembly of 1919 and
1921 in an earnest and an honest effort to meet the just re-
quirements of our time; a decree which would relieve the
carriers from taxation which they should bear, and place this
burden with increased proportion upon the shoulders of the
people; a decree which would relatively decrease the taxation
of the railroads, and in the same proportion relatively increase
the tax upon the people.
If any class of people in this State have the right to com-
plain and to invoke the strong arm of a Court of Equity for
relief, the land owners have that right. Their property has
been increased three-fold in value for taxation. They have
borne their burden in financial stress and in the presence of
impending calamity with patience and patriotism, and have
not attempted to interfere with the processes of government.
There are a half-million land owners in North Carolina that
have a far better right to complain of this re-assessment than
have the railroads in North Carolina, as the assessment now
stands. If they were as swift to enjoin the collection of
taxes as the railroads, the government would have to sus-
pend — the courts would be crowded with a half million of
litigants.
But it may be contended that heretofore real estate has
been valued too low, and has not paid its pro rata share of
taxes as compared with the railroad; that the revaluation of
1920 was therefore not as great an increase in accordance
with value as the increase in the value of railroads.
In consideration of such contention, I appeal to the higher
260 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
understanding of Your Honors, that comes of your associa-
tion and environment, and human sympathy — the understand-
ing that illumines the learning and the conscience of every
great chancellor and law giver. The land of North Carolina
has been an inheritance sacred in tradition and rich in hope,
but not an inheritance of wealth. The farms of North Car-
olina have been tilled by a frugal and industrious people.
They have been the homes of virtue and strength, with oppor-
tunity to labor and to earn bread by the sweat of the brow.
Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," declares that the
first maxim of taxation is: "Subjects of every State ought
to contribute towards the support of the government as nearly
as possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is,
in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy
under the protection of the State."
The Department of Agriculture, in an estimate from the
consideration of 160,000 American farms, makes the state-
ment that the annual rental value of the farm is 3.54 per
cent, and that does not take into consideration the taxes that
are paid. I feel sure that the annual net rent of the farms of
North Carolina does not amount to more than this per cent
of their tax value. To show the conditions under which the
people of North Carolina live, and as indicating the value of
their homes and farms, it is stated by the Department of
Agriculture that only 25 per cent of the farmers have running
water in their homes. Really, they do not have, as they
should have, the advantages and conveniences of modern civ-
ilization. They earn for themselves no high salaries, and live
without extravagances and luxury.
The farmers and their families work from childhood on,
and if the sons and daughters have the benefits of a college
education, it is generally by self-denial and sacrifice at home.
This shows the value of the farm property of the State. I
know that there are some farms that are an exception to this
rule, but the farmers and their wives generally in the State
live plain and dress plain because they have to.
The farmer women may spend more on their backs than
is sometimes customary in fashionable circles, but at least
their overhead expenses are not so great!
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 261
Here there are no "Rajahs with white parasols and ele-
phants mad with pride." Here there is no princely compensa-
tion for continuous labor. Here wealth does not accumulate
and men do not decay.
For fifty years the people of North Carolina have been a
comparatively poor people, and the farms have been compara-
tively poor as money-making agencies, but through all the
years of hardship and financial stress, the people have never
uttered a note of disloyalty to their government, it mattered
not what political party was in the ascendency. She has been
a land of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but we rejoice
that she is coming through the travail of toil and hardship
into this better day.
It may be that taxes in North Carolina will be increased,
but the fear of this increase does not justify the Plaintiffs
before this Court. They should be increased if necessary.
We have heretofore paid less taxes than any civilized country
on earth. Our government has been good and pure. It has
been too cheap. Able officials have been niggardly paid for
the best kind of service. Our public institutions have been
supplied with a parsimonious hand. But North Carolina is no
longer the puny child that suckles the dry breast. We have
cleared new fields. The land responds with increasing har-
vests to the faith of the sower. We build new cities and en-
large the old. We are harnessing the cateracts to the dy-
namos, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth there
stream the volts of infinite energy to illuminate the darkness
and drive the myriad wheels of industry.
There was and there is the aspiration surging in the peo-
ple of North Carolina — there is the divine command to the
conscience of North Carolina that this mighty industrial power
and progress shall be expressed in nobler opportunities and
higher social conditions; in good roads for the correlation of
the communities, the utilization of the instrumentalities of
modern civilization ; in efficient public schools for the best and
finest intellectual development; and hospitals for the rescue
and for the grateful refuge of our kindred who suffer in sore
affliction.
262 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
The General Assembly has provided the ways and means
in a just consideration of the right of all.
It is well established by authority and by reason that this
Court has no power to review or to reduce the assessment
made by the constituted authorities of the State of North
Carolina, unless it appear to the Court that such assessment
is in violation of constitutional right, or not in accordance
with the directions of the statute, or that the assessment is
inequitable by reason of a general and systematic understand-
ing expressed or implied.
Shaffer v. Carter, supra ;
Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, 457;
Magoun v. 111. Trust & Savings Bk., 170 U. S.,
293;
St. Louis R. R. Co. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S., 350;
L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Greene, 244 U. S.
We contend that the Plaintiffs have not set forth in their
complaint facts sufficient to justify the interference by this
Court on any of the grounds above stated.
They have not alleged that there was an unlawful combi-
nation and design to overvalue their property.
They have not alleged that there was any general or sys-
tematic understanding, expressed or implied, to do them any
injustice.
They could not make this allegation, for such would be an
unwarranted attack upon the officials of the State of North
Carolina. After long consideration and careful preparation
they have not made this allegation before this Court.
The allegation in the complaint that the Plaintiffs adduced
before the Revenue Commissioners facts "showing that said
valuation was in excess of the true value, actual value of the
property," is not conclusive. We assume that the Plaintiffs
present here and now for the consideration and determination
of this Court, all of the facts and arguments germane to this
cause.
Plaintiffs do not complain of the constitutional provisions
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 263
of North Carolina, nor of the statutory provisions directing
and regulating assessment for taxation, but they do complain
and allege that the valuation of their property is predicated
upon an income that is excessive, and that in arriving at the
value by this method, the Tax Commission did not obey the
statute. Hence a defective result.
The Southern Railway Company alleges that the Tax Com-
mission fixed its income at $6,117,625; that its income in
North Carolina is not this much. This Plaintiff admits that
this amount of income was ascertained by deducting operating
expenses and taxes in North Carolina from operating revenue
in North Carolina. There can be no question that this is the
proper and natural method to ascertain the net revenue in
North Carolina. It is the method prescribed by statute. The
Machinery Act of 1921 directs the Tax Commission to deter-
mine the value of Plaintiff's property by due consideration of
the gross earnings as compared with operating expenses with
other acts affecting value.
Plaintiff does not contend that in this method there is any
error in the statement of its operating revenue in North Car-
olina, but does contend that there is error in the statement of
the amount of its operating expenses in the State.
If there was error in the amount of these operating ex-
penses, the Plaintiff, Southern Railway, as well as the other
Railroad Plaintiffs, are responsible for this error. It admits,
states in the complaint, that in its report made in accordance
with law, it reported to the State Tax Commission the amount
of operating expenses used by the Commission as a factor in
ascertaining its net revenue. The Tax Commission took the
figures from the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff admits now that the
operating expenses reported to the Tax Commission are the
actual expenses incurred in North Carolina in the conduct of
its business, but says in its complaint that the report made
to the Tax Commission was erroneous in that the operating
expenses in North Carolina were understated — that there are
terminal expenses outside of the State which rightfully should
be charged to North Carolina in determining the amount of
its net revenue in this State.
264 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
We conceive the Plaintiff to be an "organic unity," with
correlated lines and terminals. The terminal expenses of
transportation are a part of the cost of transportation as
certainly as the expenses of driving the locomotive and oper-
ating the trains.
The expense of transporting any merchandise should be
apportioned to each State in or through which such mer-
chandise is transported in perfect equity if possible — not with
mathematical precision, for that is not feasible, except by the
elimination of elements of expense and value which should be
considered under the varied conditions and complicated prob-
lems of transportation. Especially should these differences in
value of Plaintiff's lines in this State be considered where the
cost of construction was immensely greater and where the
lines are much more valuable on account of the larger volume
of traffic.
The initial terminal expenses in carrying, for example, a
carload of peaches from Atlanta to Winston-Salem is a le-
gitimate part of the cost of transportation. And so is the
initial terminal expense of a carload of tobacco from Winston-
Salem to Atlanta. Under the present method of allocation
which has been used by the Plaintiff, and is still in use, the
former expense is charged to Georgia, and all the latter ex-
pense to North Carolina. This method we must conclude
from the complaint is applied to the transportation of all mer-
chandise. That is, the terminal expenses are charged to the
State in which they actually occur.
Now, assuming, as stated in the complaint of the Southern
Railway Company, page 19, " (a) that the traffic which moves
through the State of North Carolina greatly exceeds the
traffic originating in or destined to North Carolina," and,
"(b) that the terminal expenses on traffic originating or des-
tined to North Carolina are very much less than those with-
out the State," it does not follow from this allegation that
North Carolina escapes its equitable proportion of terminal
expenses. The Plaintiff does not state the amount of ter-
minal expenses incurred in North Carolina and in other States,
and does not show to the Court the proportion between the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 265
North Carolina terminal expenses and traffic in North Car-
olina. It may be impossible to do this on account of the many-
complications.
The traffic originating in North Carolina, as alleged in
this paragraph, is certainly less than the traffic originating
in all the other States served by the Plaintiff, and therefore
its terminal expenses are less than all other terminal expenses
as alleged in the complaint. The same is true of the traffic
destined to North Carolina, or passing through, and North
Carolina is charged with no such expenses on this larger
amount of traffic, and of course should not be charged with
any such expense.
"While it may be true that under such a plan so employed
the result is a showing that the ratio of operating expenses to
operating revenues in North Carolina is less than that of the
entire system," as alleged in complaint, we deny that this
ratio is less than it justly and equitably should be. There are
no facts set forth in the complaint that logically contravert
this position.
The Plaintiff suggests, on page 20, a method by which to
arrive at its actual operating expenses and money value in
North Carolina. It suggests the capitalization of the net
revenue of the whole system and the apportionment of a part
of this value to North Carolina on a mileage basis. That would
be manifestly unjust, for that would assume that each and
every mile of all the lines of the Plaintiff has identically the
same value. This conclusion, we assume the Court will not
entertain in view of the expensive construction and larger
traffic in North Carolina.
The Plaintiff admits, on page 20, that on a gross earnings
basis, its property is worth $78,004,769, and on a mileage
basis it is worth $71,267,994. These figures themselves show
the greater importance of the Plaintiff's North Carolina
property and its greater value.
The Plaintiff's other suggestion as a method by which to
ascertain its total value in the State is by the capitalization
of its total net revenue in all of the States combined, and
apportion to North Carolina its pro rata part of this greater
266 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
total value on a gross earnings basis. The injustice of this
suggestion is as manifest as the other suggestion. It elimi-
nates from the problem the more economic handling of large
volumes of traffic, and the expensive construction and import-
ance of the lines through Piedmont and Western North Car-
olina.
The Plaintiff, Southern Railway Company, shows in its
complaint that North Carolina furnishes for transportation
more merchandise — more than its proportion of mileage. On
the latter suggestion the value in North Carolina would be as
above stated, greater on gross earnings than on mileage basis,
showing a much larger value on gross earnings basis in North
Carolina.
On the mileage basis by the method suggested by the
Plaintiff, Southern Railway Company, at 6 per cent its total
property in North Carolina, tangible and intangible, rolling
stock, and all, should be assessed at $71,267,994 or $50,863 a
mile, and if we consider the double tracks, it would be as-
sessed at $47,300 a mile. On the gross earnings basis, it
would be assessed at something more than $50,000 per mile.
Neither of these assessments would accord with the value of
the Plaintiff's property. They would not be just to the peo-
ple of North Carolina, for it is known and recognized that the
Plaintiff's property, tangible and intangible, with rolling
stock, is far in excess of any such value, and that its replace-
ment would cost several times that amount.
A large proportion of the traffic originating in North Car-
olina is of such a kind as not to require the ordinary initial
expense; for example, lumber for the eastern markets, wood
pulp, tobacco, furniture carried in large quantities by the car-
load, and by the trainload to eastern markets. These com-
modities are loaded by the shipper without any expense to
the Plaintiff. North Carolina is credited with comparatively
a small per cent of the revenue from these vast shipments, as
in many instances they are hauled over short distances within
this State into and through other States.
Considering the unprecedented growth and development
of the State, her vast and varied industries contributing to the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 267
lines of the Plaintiff, her increase in the products of the field
and factory, the number and commercial importance of her
many thriving cities and towns, it cannot be that with equity,
she must bear not only all of her own terminal expenses of
transportation, but must contribute to the terminal expenses
of other States in which, as Plaintiff shows in its complaint,
the volume of traffic is less and necessarily entailing larger
expense in the initial handling thereof.
The method adopted by the Tax Commission to ascertain
the net revenue of the Plaintiff is the natural method, the
method adopted and used by the Plaintiff, when by the law
it was required to furnish the Tax Commission a statement of
its gross revenue in this State, its operating expenses and its
net revenue. The Plaintiff itself stated its own net revenue
to the Tax Commission.
For the first time the Plaintiffs complain of their own
methods. They offer and can offer no substitute as fair as
this method, established, approved by reason, and sanctioned
by custom.
The Plaintiffs, Southern Railway and Atlantic Coast Line,
object to the capitalization of their values at 6 per cent and
contend that a just per cent by which to arrive at their values
should be 8 per cent.
This is rather an astonishing contention in North Car-
olina, where from time immemorial, the legal rate of interest
allowed is 6 per cent, and where in accordance with our ex-
perience and observation, the great majority of investors are
fortunate if they can realize this 6 per cent clear of taxes, as
has been credited to these companies.
We have seen that the farmers realize a rental of 3.54 per
cent and must pay the tax beside.
If the Tax Commission adopted the 6 per cent in consider-
ing and estimating the value of these carriers, the judgment
of the Tax Commission is final and cannot be reviewed. This
point is expressly decided in L. & N. Railroad Company v.
Greene, 244 U. S., 522.
In fixing the taxable value of the Plaintiffs, it was the duty
of the Tax Commission to consider the market value of their
268 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
stocks and bonds. But in fairness and equity, it was not the
duty of the Tax Commission to fix the taxable value of these
carriers in accordance with the stock and bond method, when
their securities were at the lowest on account of unprece-
dented depreciation in the value of securities.
On page 23, paragraph 6, of the complaint, the Plaintiff,
Southern Railway Company, contends that in accordance with
the figures found by the Bureau of Valuation of the Interstate
Commerce Commission, the property of the company should
have been valued at $59,904,438, and the company avers this
"to be the limit of true value in North Carolina for ad valorem
taxing purposes, beyond which the Plaintiff's property should
not be assessed." This Plaintiff seems to have forgotten that
this amount does not include the value of the franchise, and
this amount was arrived at by the Bureau of Valuation of the
Interstate Commerce Commission from values as of June 30,
1914. Since then we know that all kinds of construction, the
building of railroads and houses, have about doubled in cost.
The Southern Railway Company in its report to its stock-
holders for the year ending December 31, 1919, stated that
the laying of a double track on a revised grade between Wash-
ington and Atlanta that was expected to cost $34,838,000,
actually cost $52,134,000, on account of advancement in prices.
This was the cost of the construction of 625 miles of second
track, the cost of laying which is much less than the cost of
first track. The cost of laying this second line track along-
side of the track already constructed cost the Plaintiff,
Southern Railway Company, in 1919, $82,884 per mile, and
yet the Plaintiff, Southern Railway Company, is contending
before the Court that on the valuation of the Interstate Com-
merce Commission the limit of valuation of its track in North
Carolina, considering first and second lines, should be $36,504
per mile.
About the time that the State was valuing the property
of the Southern Railway Company at $96,306,000, this com-
pany appeared before the Interstate Commerce Commission
in a petition to the Commission to allow an increase of freight
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 269
and passenger rates. In this showing before the Interstate
Commerce Commission at this very time when the State
valued its property, the Southern Railway Company contended
that from its investment account, its property should be
valued at $111,308,323, and it contended that the actual value
of its property in North Carolina was in excess of this amount,
and should be estimated by the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission in excess of this amount when the Commission should
fix a tariff for freight and passenger traffic.
He who comes into a Court of Equity, must come with
clean hands, with a consistent plea. He cannot be allowed to
contradict himself to his own advantage. The location of the
Court cannot change the lav/ and the facts. He who asks
equity, must do equity in Washington as well as in North
Carolina. With what measure he metes to himself in Wash-
ington, it should be measured to him again in North Car-
olina.
There was a tribunal in the City of Washington to con-
sider the value of the Plaintiff's property for the purpose of
fixing the tariff which should be allowed to the Plaintiff, upon
the people of North Carolina, just as the State Tax Commis-
sion in Raleigh, and just as this Court must consider the value
of the Plaintiff's property as determined by the tariff that it
can levy upon the people of North Carolina, and the tariff that
the people of North Carolina can levy upon it. It does not
signify that these tribunals do not sit in the same building,
and in the same city. They are both constituted — that court
and this high court — for one ultimate purpose, and that is, to
do justice between the carriers and the people ; and when this
Plaintiff was asking and receiving from that court in Wash-
ington the power to levy a tariff predicated on a value of
$111,000,000, it is estopped in good conscience in this Court
to say that the limit of value in this State is $59,904,438.
Whatsoever things you would that men should do to you,
do you even so to them.
This is no arbitrary law, but the expression of the law
that pervades all nature, all life, the law of order and civil-
ization, of progress and of liberty ; the law of our being and
270 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
all our social relations, and growth and strength. It was an-
nounced by the Highest Chancellor from the Highest Court
of Equity. I invoke that law when Your Honors shall pass
judgment between the Plaintiff, Southern Railway Company,
and the people of North Carolina.
In accordance with this contention of the Plaintiff before
the Interstate Commerce Commission, it was allowed the
power to exact from the people of North Carolina a 25 per
cent increase in freight rates, and 20 per cent increase in pas-
senger rates.
If this Court should adopt the valuation which the Plaintiff,
Southern Railway Company, contends for, and the method sug-
gested by the company, the value of the company's property
on a basis of 6 per cent would be $43,429 per mile. On a basis
of gross earnings it would be $47,534 per mile. This, against
the Company's own statement that its secondary track in
1919 cost more than $82,000 a mile, and against its solemn
statement before the Interstate Commerce Commission that
its property in North Carolina was worth more than
$111,000,000.
How can it expect this Court to exercise its "transcendent
and extraordinary power, to be used sparingly and only in a
clear and plain case," in the face of these glaring contradic-
tions ?
But the Company contends that if the capitalization
method is to be used it should be on a basis of 8 per cent.
On this basis, considering secondary tracks in North Carolina
the Plaintiff's property in this State would be valued at
$53,460,995 or $32,578 a mile.
If this process of shrinkage in value continue, the stern
metaphor of the camel and the needle's eye will not debar the
Southern Railway from the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Plaintiffs all, I believe, complain that the horizontal
reduction made in the value of lands in North Carolina by
the Board of Review, should be applied to their property to
effect the uniform taxation provided for by the Constitution.
But we respectfully submit that the landed property of North
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 271
Carolina and the transportation property of North Carolina
are not at all similar in their functions, and that their value
is not affected by the same causes and that the increase or
decrease in the value of one does not logically necessitate the
increase or decrease of the value of the other.
In 1919 and 1920 farm products were abnormally high —
higher than ever before in the history of the country. When
they fell in value, "a priori," land fell in value. Land is
worth what it will produce. Land that produces corn worth
$2.00 a bushel, cotton worth 40 cents a pound, tobacco worth
$1.00 a pound, is of more value than land that produces these
staples today, worth one-third of the former market price.
The decrease in the value of land is much more in proportion
than the decrease in the valae of its products, for the higher
value of the products carries the profits. On the same reason-
ing the value of a Transportation Company is determined not
by the value of the merchandise that it carries, but by the
rate of carriage. It is worth today as much to the Plaintiffs
and more to carry a bale of cotton worth $80.00 than it was
in 1919 to carry a bale of cotton worth $160.00. While cotton
has fallen in value, the freight rate has been increased 25 per
cent.
When the land fell in value "non sequitur" that the value
of railroad property fell. The causes that brought down the
value of the farm did not apply to the railroad.
And there are no such fluctuations in transportation tariffs
as there are in the market prices of farm products. We do
not know what the price of cotton will be next year, not even
what it will be tomorrow, but we know with reasonable cer-
tainty what freight rates will be. And in the future, as in
the past, tribunals established by law will maintain these
rates for the just remuneration of the common carriers of the
country.
It was eminently just and fair that the assessment of the
farms should be reduced in 1921, and it would be equally
unjust and unfair to reduce the railroad property in 1921.
If there be one stable value in all the country, it is the
value of the property of the common carriers, upheld and pro-
272 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
vided for by administrative power, and by the all-pervasive
and supreme law of commerce. They are sustained by the
law that correlates commerce and supplies with the elements
of life all portions of civilization.
Until the structure of our society changes, the products of
industry will flow along the lines of the Plaintiffs in volume
increasing with the enlightened energy of mankind — as in-
evitably as the rivers carry their waters to the sea — in obe-
dience to that law of human association and human progress,
in its benevolence and power like unto the law that was re-
vealed in the Apocalypse of Newton, the law that orders the
winds and the tides, the law that binds the sweet influences
of Pleiades and guides Arcturus and his sons.
The Plaintiffs further contend that the franchise or priv-
ilege tax imposed by the State is in truth an ad valorem tax,
in violation of Section 3, Article V, of the Constitution, and
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States.
It is clear, in consideration of the history of the Revenue
Act of 1921, that Sub-Section (3y 2 ) of Section 82 does not
apply to the railroads; that Sub-Section (6V2) of Section 82
levied and intended to levy the tax of one-tenth of one per
cent on the assessed value of railroad property in North Car-
olina as a privilege for doing an interstate commerce business.
It is apparent that Sub-Section (3V2) fixing the measure
of the privilege tax of certain corporations by one-half of the
capital stock, is dealing with corporations other than railroad
corporations. The whole tenor of this Sub-Section shows this.
Sub-Section (31/2) was in the Act of 1920, just as it is now
in the Act of 1921. Sub-Section (6i/ 2 ) in the Act of 1920 was
numbered 78. It was brought forward and numbered (6V2)
and made a Sub-Section of Section 82, while Sub-Section (8V2)
was allowed to remain just as it was in 1920.
Instead of measuring this privilege tax by gross earnings
per mile, as heretofore, the new measurement in accordance
with the value of the property in the State was adopted.
We must conclude that the Legislature intended to levy
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 273
this privilege tax on the business of intrastate commerce, and
not on interstate commerce. To assume that the tax was
levied on interstate commerce would assume that the General
Assembly passed an unconstitutional law, when the history
of this legislation shows, and the legal inference is, that it
passed a constitutional law in accordance with its power.
It was certainly within the power of the Legislature to
measure this privilege tax on intrastate commerce by the
value of all the property of the carrier in this State engaged
in intrastate commerce.
This contention is expressly decided in favor of the State
in the case of St. Louis, etc., Railway Company v. Arkansas,
235 U. S., page 350.
In this Arkansas case, the privilege tax was based "solely
upon the portion of outstanding capital stock of the corpora-
tion represented by property owned and used in business
transacted in this State."
In the brief of counsel for the State of Arkansas, there is
cited a long list of authorities sustaining this position.
And in United States Glue Company v. Oak Creek, 247
U. S., page 326, Mr. Justice Pitney, speaking for the Court,
says:
"But property in a State belonging to a corporation,
whether foreign or domestic, engaged in foreign or interstate
commerce, may be taxed, or a tax may be imposed on the
corporation on account of its property within the State, and
may take the form of a tax for the privilege of exercising its
franchise within the State if the ascertainment of the amount
is made dependent in fact on the value of its property situated
within the State (the exaction therefrom not being susceptible
of exceeding the sum which might be leviable directly
thereon) and if payment be not made a condition precedent
to the right to carry on business, but its enforcement left to
the ordinary means devised for the collection of taxes."
The statute of North Carolina, 82 (6V2) levies a privilege
tax on railroads and measures that tax by the value of rail-
274 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
road property within the State. This is almost identical with
the statute of the State of Arkansas,, and passed upon by the
Supreme Court in the case of St. Louis, etc., Railway Company
v. Arkansas, supra. The Supreme Court in that case refused
to hold the Arkansas statute unconstitutional on the ground
that it could not assume that the Legislature of Arkansas in-
tended in any way to levy a tax on interstate commerce, as
that would be beyond the power of the Legislature. But the
Supreme Court, took the view that the Legislature of Ar-
kansas acted within its rights, and levied a privilege tax on
the intrastate traffic. In our case there is no disposition, no
contention, to levy any tax upon interstate commerce, but on
intrastate commerce. It is practically the same statute that
has been in effect for many years. To hold that our statute
is unconstitutional would be in conflict with the judgment of
the Supreme Court in the Arkansas case ; in the Glue Company
case ; in Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway, 142 U. S., 217 ; United
States Express Company v. Minnesota, 223 U. S., 347; and
many other cases cited in these opinions.
In Postal Telegraph Cable Company v. Adams, 155 U. S.,
688, the Court says a tax is not obnoxious to the commerce
clause merely because imposed upon property used in inter-
state commerce, even if it takes the form of a tax for the
privilege of exercising its franchise within the State.
When the State Tax Commission, in obedience to the law,
valued for taxation the property of the Plaintiffs, we must
assume that the Commission acted in accordance with the
statute, and performed its duty according to law, until the
contrary be shown to the Court. This point is decided in
Illinois Central Railroad Company v. Greene, 244 U. S., 556.
We must conclude according to the Supreme Court of the
United States in this last cited case, unless the contrary ap-
pear, that the Tax Commission considered "the actual cost
of replacing the property with a just allowance for deprecia-
tion on rolling stock, and also of other conditions to be con-
sidered in case of private property."
We must conclude, unless the contrary be shown to the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 275
Court, that the Tax Commission obeyed the law which pre-
scribes that it "shall then assess the value of the franchise,
which shall be determined by due consideration of the gross
earnings as compared with the operating expenses, and par-
ticularly by consideration of the value placed upon the whole
property by the public." And we must conclude that, in ac-
cordance with the proviso of Section 65 of the Machinery
Act, the Tax Commission, in valuing the fixed property in
this State, gave due consideration to the character of the
roadbed and fixed equipment, number of miles of double track,
the amount of gross and net earnings per mile of road in this
State, and any other factor which would give greater or less
value per mile of road in this State than the average value
for the entire system.
But the Plaintiff, Southern Railway Company, complains
that neither the State Tax Commission, nor the Revenue
Commissioner, advised it as to the amount at which its
tangible property was assessed, and the amount at which its
intangible property was assessed. But on page 25 of its com-
plaint, there is the statement : "The Commissioner of Revenue,
the Plaintiff is advised, believes, and hence states, assessed as
the total value of Plaintiff's property the sum of $78,778,169,
and to this he added the intangible or franchise value, the
sum of $17,528,188, making a total assessment for ad valorem
purposes of $96,306,357." The statute does not require that
the Tax Commission should notify the Plaintiffs of these dif-
ferent values and we cannot see how this failure, if there
was any failure, to notify the Plaintiffs should affect them in
any way. The tangible and the intangible are both assessed
in the same way, and taxed at the same rate. The proviso
added to Section 65 of the Machinery Act makes it the duty
of that tribunal, assessing the property of the Plaintiff, to
take all elements into consideration in assessing both the
tangible and intangible property.
If the Tax Commission assessed the whole property as
provided in Section 64, and then deducted therefrom the value
of the physical property, we see no benefit that this process
276 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
conferred upon the Plaintiffs, for Section 64 further provides
that the Tax Commission shall add together these two values
to ascertain the aggregate of the tangible and intangible
property — the same result that it started with. We fail to
see how this arithmetical exercise of subtraction and addition
should give the Plaintiff any right of equitable relief.
It is not alleged in these complaints, that there was any
design on the part of the Tax Commission to defraud the
Plaintiffs. It is not alleged that there was any understand-
ing expressed or implied between the different taxing tri-
bunals by which the property of the Plaintiffs should be over-
estimated, and the property of the other taxbearers under-
estimated.
There was an honest and an earnest effort by the Legisla-
ture and by the taxing authorities, to revalue the property of
North Carolina in justice to all, in fairness to all, and in ac-
cordance with our obligations as a people and as a State. The
Tax Commission obeyed in all things the statute, considered
the property of Plaintiffs by all methods prescribed by law,
pronounced an honest judgment. That judgment was reviewed
and approved by the Commissioner of Revenue.
But, in addition to all this, the General Assembly of 1919
did not direct nor empower the State Tax Commission, nor
the taxing authorities to assess for taxation the railroad
property and other property of the State, but this General
Assembly did direct and empower the State Tax Commission
and the taxing authorities to re-assess all of the property of
North Carolina at its true value, and submit those values to
the Special Session of the General Assembly called for 1920.
After the greatest publicity, and after long and careful con-
sideration by all of the taxing authorities in North Carolina,
the railroad property and other property was revalued as set
forth in the complaints. The General Assembly of 1920 met,
and although it was known by probably every intelligent
citizen of the State, that these tax values would be passed
upon by this Assembly, the assessment recommended by the
State Tax Commission and other taxing authorities of the
State was approved and ratified by the General Assembly, and
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 277
the General Assembly by a solemn statute enacted that these
values should be the basis of taxation for the State for the
succeeding four years. I do not believe that there was a dis-
senting vote. Certainly these Plaintiffs did not protest nor
object.
This Court is now asked to strike down the judgment of
the State Tax Commission and by its decree to annul an Act
of the General Assembly.
Let us remember that just taxation depends upon the
equitable and relative value placed upon all the property of
the State. We have seen how, by the large increase in the
value of real estate, the proportion of the burden borne by
the railroads has been decreased, and the proportion of the
burden borne by the real estate has been increased, and this
is so notwithstanding the horizontal reduction of the real
estate. The horizontal reductions in the sixty-seven counties
does not seriously affect the proportion. These reductions
did not average over 20 per cent at most while the value of
all land had been increased 20 per cent. The reductions were
greater in the territory of the Coast Line and the value of
this Plaintiff's property was increased only 40 per cent.
The fear that hereafter the railroads may pay more taxes
than they have heretofore paid, cannot justify this proceed-
ing any more than the hundreds of thousands of landowners
would be justified to resist their taxes because of an increase.
If the State needs the revenue, the wealth of the State is
sufficient, and the legitimate purposes of government should
be supplied. There rests upon us the supreme obligation of
a just, resourceful and prosperous people.
The fact that in the opinion of these Plaintiffs their assess-
ments are too high, does not justify them. Though it might
be the opinion of this enlightened tribunal that the property
of the Plaintiffs was over-assessed, this would be no justifica-
tion for this injunction. Differences of opinion always occur,
and unless this Court shall find that there was some scheme
278 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
or plan or conspiracy by the taxing authorities of the State
to discriminate against the Plaintiffs, this injunction must
be denied.
The Supreme Court of the United States said in Chicago
Railway Company v. Babcock, 204 U. S., 585: "A point less
pressed than the foregoing was that the other property in
the State was greatly undervalued, and that thus the rule of
uniformity prescribed by the Constitution had been violated.
Upon this matter it is enough to say that no scheme or agree-
ment on the part of the County Assessors who taxed the
other property was shown, or on the part of the Board of
Equalization and Assessment." And the Court said: "We
have nothing to do with complaints of that nature, or with
anything else than fraud or a clear adoption of a funda-
mentally wrong principle."
Coulter v. Louisville & Nashville Ry. Co., 196
U. S., 599;
L. & N. Ry. Co. v. Greene, 244 U. S., 536;
State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S., 610 ;
Pittsburgh, etc., R. R. Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S.,
421.
As stated above, these Plaintiffs do not allege any fraud
or scheme or disposition or intention by the taxing authorities
of the State of North Carolina, and none could be truthfully
alleged, and yet they ask this Court to exercise the extra-
ordinary power of the chancellors to halt the program of the
State, and interfere with the administration of our govern-
ment.
In the language of the Supreme Court in the Ohio Tax
Cases, 232 U. S., 576: "The present act does not on its face
manifest a purpose to interfere with interstate commerce,
and we are unable to accept the historical facts alluded to as
sufficient evidence of a sinister purpose, such as would justify
this Court in striking down the law. We could not do this
without in effect denouncing the Legislature of the State as
guilty of a conscious attempt to evade the obligations of the
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 279
Federal Constitution." That is what these Plaintiffs are
asking of this Court. If the State, by an unconstitutional
statute or if her officials by any unlawful and sinister methods,
have attempted to dispoil these Plaintiffs under the forms of
law, then they should be commanded to stop to our discredit
and humiliation.
We earnestly submit that there is no justification for this
injunction, no jurisdiction for it in the law or in equity.
We have an abiding regard for the welfare of the Plaintiffs.
They are essential and integral elements of our life and
progress. They are manned and controlled by men of pa-
triotism and great ability. It is for this reason more to be
regretted that, as we contend for reasons totally unjustifiable
and at variance with the law and the facts, they have placed
themselves in antagonism to the authorities of the State, for
the welfare of none. We have the greatest respect for their
able counsel, but when examined in the light of facts and law
and equity, their case is a case of "shreds and patches."
We live in a time of larger conception and higher ideals.
The Great War convulsed the world with desolation, and woe,
but it awakened the conscience of men, and enlisted all classes
and conditions in universal fellowship of self-denial and sacri-
fice, even unto the Supreme Sacrifice. It enlarged and sancti-
fied our conceptions of human relations, and human obligation.
It extended the frontiers of our patriotism and sympathy to
the frontiers of humanity; for we realized that Nations and
the Oppressed of Nations are too of our tribe and kindred.
We sent two million of our sons across a thousand leagues of
sea to unfurl a star-lit Flag for the emancipation and for the
redemption of mankind. It was the altruism of a mighty race,
grown militant.
Let this awakened spirit of altruism move with quickening
power for the homeland.
Our Governor has sounded the clear, strong note of the
new day. With faith and courage he has called the Old North
State to the front line of advancing civilization for the greatest
accomplishment of her history. He has put to silence the
280 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
prophets of pessimism, the conservitors of stagnation. The
people have responded with the pulsations and with the en-
thusiasm of the Great Age. Even today the landholders are
paying of their necessities the increased taxes for the larger
public good. They are the bulwarks of the State. They are
the heirs, loyal and lineal, of the "Embattled Farmers" of
Guilford Court House. These Plaintiffs alone obstruct and
resist. "They alone break from the Van and the Freemen."
We have the abiding faith that this magnificent concep-
tion and program will not be deranged and crippled by a
judgment of this Court, that the orderly processes of govern-
ment will not be discredited, nor the confidence of the people
therein be shaken by uncertainty and distrust.
With victorious assurance let us do the task of our time,
in the hope that our children may come to the realization of
the "Golden Age of which poets have sung, and high-raised
seers have told in metaphor."
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 281
BISHOP KILGO
(June 21st, 1922)
NOTE: The farewell to the members of the National Army was
Governor Craig's last public speech. He has from time to time, how-
ever, been heard through the press. Of Bishop Kilgo he wrote the
following tribute:
"Bishop Kilgo is, in my opinion, the greatest preacher of
the age. I have heard many powerful men. Bishop Wilson
was a man of tremendous force, moving and exalting; Dr.
J. L. Curry was a cyclone, sweeping all with eloquence and
power. George Truitt is a wonder. He stirs great congrega-
tions and makes strong men tremble and weep with emotion.
"I have heard Talmadge, Dr. Hawthorne and other
preachers and platform speakers of world reputation, but, at
his best, I rank Bishop Kilgo first of all. I have heard him
many times and he always had fine thought and eloquence of
original grand conception. On one occasion I heard him at
his best, and had I not heard him then I would never have
known him. That was before he was Bishop.
"The General Conference was held that year in Tennessee
and many preachers passed through Asheville on their way
home, Dr. Charles Wesley Byrd among them, a rising star of
first magnitude in Methodism. He and Dr. Kilgo were con-
sidered rivals in this section.
"There had been a contention between the late Colonel
J. P. Kerr and myself as to who was the greater, Byrd or
Kilgo. Colonel Kerr was a man of the finest ability and char-
acter. He had to be known to be appreciated.
"On one Saturday he came to me and told me that Charles
Wesley Byrd would stop over and preach here tomorrow and
he wanted me to go and hear him — saying he was 'loaded' and
would unlimber his biggest gun. I told him that I would go
with him, and that I had seen the announcement that Dr.
Kilgo would preach here Sunday night and that we must go
to hear him, too — 'all right.'
282 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
"Dr. Byrd was then in the full maturity and enjoyment of
his physical and intellectual strength. He had attained to his
best. He took as his text: 'If ye have not the spirit of
Christ ye are none of His.' He made a masterly deliverance —
strong and earnest in its appeal to the mind and conscience,
moving to nobler conceptions of life and religion.
"That night Dr. Kilgo stood upon the same platform and
drolled out his text: 'If ye have not the spirit of Christ ye
are none of His.' He did not know that Dr. Byrd had used
this text.
"For two hours, crescendo, Dr. Kilgo unfolded with logic
and eloquence his inspiring theme. He had no limitation of
creed or dogma. Emancipated from all theologies, free as an
angel, with glowing metaphor and intellectual daring he swept
into realms of subtle and sublime thought. In the rapt vision
of a seer he spoke like a prophet sent from God — His minister
plenipotentiary to deliver His ultimatum to the world — the
message of infinite love and divine redemption.
"As Colonel Kerr and I walked out I asked him what did
he think of that. He replied: 'Of course, nobody else can
preach that way.'
"As to forms and dogmas, Bishop Kilgo appears to be
orthodox after the straitest sect. When he gives expression
in his big, original way, to some dogma of the mediaeval
councils the benches of the clericals and deacons resound
with 'Amen' and sanctimonious groans. With thankfulness
they hear the enunciation of traditions — tottering with age —
by this great thinker and preacher who speaks with authority
and not as the Scribes.
"The finest funeral sermon I ever heard was by Dr. Kilgo
on Charles B. Aycock. He loved Aycock as one fine spirit
loves another. Aycock had defended him in his famous trial
and the severest ordeal of his life — Gattis vs. Kilgo — un-
equaled, certainly never surpassed in our forsenic history.
His enemies sought to compass his destruction. Cy Watson
led the prosecution, the trained gladiator of the forum, en-
dowed with humor, logic, powerful invective — all the prowess
of the master. Aycock, the defender of Kilgo — Aycock was
MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES 283
in the full enjoyment of the majesty of his manhood — in-
tellect like the Scimitar of Saladin — gifted with eloquence and
resistless persuasion.
"When he closed his speech, Kilgo threw his arms around
him, pressed him to his bosom, weeping with profound and
grateful emotion.
"Now Aycock was dead. The eloquent lips were hushed
in the pale repose. When the funeral cortege entered the
church, Dr. Kilgo, with a large group of distinguished min-
isters, occupied the platform, Kilgo the conspicuous and
central figure. He stood like a fine marble statue, unmoved,
with fixed gaze, beholding the eternal mystery. Yet in form
and chiseled feature and eye expressive of the awe and be-
reavement of a State mourning for her best beloved son. He
presented a worthy conception of Aycock. He had felt and
he knew the pulsations of the heart of his dead friend. He
told of his princely personality, his passion for justice and
truth, his fellowship and sympathy for men, the qualities
that made him the trusted and idolized leader, the preacher
of the new Gospel of universal enlightenment and liberation.
"Dr. Kilgo, in my opinion, in his younger days, was un-
bending in his own convictions and his determination to en-
force them — aggressive — an autocrat — intolerant of opposi-
tion. Opposition to him was heresy. Had he lived in the
days of priestly power he would have persecuted the heretics.
"But he is not a Pharisee, not a Levite, withal he is a
priest after the order of Melchisedeck."
284 MEMOIRS AND SPEECHES
GOVERNOR CRAIG has now for some
months been ill at his home near the
Swannanoa River attended con-
stantly by his devoted wife and little son,
Locke Craig, Jr. Crowds of friends and ad-
mirers visit him in his home, and draw from
his presence the inspiration of old. He re-
ceives them all in his ever gracious spirit of
friendship, and never turns a deaf ear to
the unfortunate. The beautiful example of
his patience in suffering doubly endears him
to all his people, and the lesson he is giving
them is more eloquent than speech.
— M.F.J.
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