Delegations pledged to Mark Hanna were considered especially likely in the South, where Roosevelt's quiet attempt to include blacks in party councils had stirred fierce opposition. In addition, southern Republicans had never forgiven Roosevelt for the unprecedented dinner invitation extended the previous fall to the black educator Booker T. Washington. At the time, the vehement reaction in the South had stunned and saddened Roosevelt. Newspaper editorials throughout the region decried the president's attempt to make a black man the social equal of a white man by sharing the same dinner table. "Social equality with the Negro means decadence and damnation," announced one southern official. "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place," declared South Carolina's Ben Tillman. For disaffected Republicans in both North and South, Mark Hanna promised deliverance from Roosevelt's wrongheadedness.
from page 321, The Bully Pulpit
from page 321, The Bully Pulpit