President of the National Association of Democratic Clubs, was in Baltimore last evening. He stopped at the hotel where Senator Gorman is making his headquarters and directing the State campaign. They are said to have had a conference on politics in general and the issues for next year.
Before leaving the city, Mr. Black declared that the race issue may be a deciding one in the Presidential campaign. He agreed with Senator Gorman that President Roosevelt "had identified himself with the question of negro equality."
Mr. Black further said he believed the undercurrent of thought upon the race question was deeper and more intense at present in the popular mind of the North than was generally supposed.
The encouraging of the negro ambition for public office and colonizing them in the North under the patronage of monopolizing corporations was a growing evil.
"Even in Pennsylvania," continued Mr. Black, "the 75,000 negro voters, increasing annually by industrial colonization and party coddling, are more than enough to decide the fate of the State on anything like a fair vote.
"The threats by radical Republicans of cutting
down the representation of States which have disfranchised the illiterate negroes, concurring, as they
do, with the course of the President, the official head
and candidate of the party, seem to make this race
issue inevitable, whether we will or not."
That there are people who are connected with the Federal government who will not dine with negroes may be seen from the following incident (The New York Times, August 25, 1903, p. 1) : —
