The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-02-23

interested in very small number Of SUBJECTS
at once, and the next twenty years VIII Ger,
tainly crowd subjects upon it. Free tra1e ana
protection, civil service reform, munlclps'
reform, taxation, finance, and foreign reiA-
tions form the tangled web which Is 10 % ths
business of the next generation, as negro
slavery has been that of the last. Inc moment
is fast coming when the negro VIII dlsappsar
from the stage of national politics. Ihs last
thing we can do for him Is to pass the fifteenth
amendment and establish on paper the prinS-
pie that his rightsto vote shall not be taken
AWAY from him by State restrictions, and that
neither an aristocracy of color, nor of race,
nor of property, shall enslave him. In fact,
the only way open to us of guard
ing the negro against encroaohmeut
perhaps, looking at the matter from
a speculative point of view, the most serious
mistake we have made has been in refusing
TO retain armed possession of the South until
proofs of a radical change of political feeling
were given. But only great statesmsnship
could have accomplished that in the face Of
all party cries that were raised over il. and
statesmaDsbip was not at our command. There
is feeling implanted in the breasts of people
long accustomed as ours have been to self
government which makes military rule OdiOus
even when military rule is necessary, and
that feeling carried the day and hurried the
reconstruction acts upon us before we were
prepared lOf lnelns IL Is 100 lAL6 10 take an
other course now the ballot is all that is left
to us.
But the ballot i5 no panacea for political ills.
1t has been proved as well as anything can be
proved in politics that a whole class or a
whole race may be enfranchised, and yet in
justice and oppression remain in force as
before. The French have voted for half a
century, and yet their sufrages are cleverly
manipulated i'll the interests of q despotism at
overy election. A large class in England was
enfranchised by the law of last year, and yet
we hear complaints every day that the new
voters have not learned the extent of their
powers, and that they vote against their ulti-
mate advantage in support of wealthy caDdi-
dates who seek an entrance to Parliament to
represent not their constituents, but their
own class; and that the voters do this in the
teeth of the most active attempts to persuade
them to the adoption of a more far-sighted
policy Is undeniable. In Jamaica the negro
himself has long had the right to vote and TO
hold office, but events which occurred in that
island not very long since might teach any
one who needed the teaching that the right
was of itself of little value to them. But,
slight protection as the ballot affords the freed
man, tbs the only protection in our power to
give, and we have always maintained that
such value as it might yield was Justly his
But we repeat that very little good will come
to him from laws or constitutional amend
ments unless supplemented by what in other
cases has given newly. enfranchised classes
influence among the communities which gave
them the suffrage. What makes the German
and Irish emigrant dreaded if not a respected
member of society in America! 1t is Certainly y
not the ballot, but the fact that he uses the
ballot intelligently as weapon against all
| who would trtle with his liberties. He edu-
Gates himself; he earns wages and saves them;
| he makes bargains which conduce to his own
| benefit as much as to that of the other party he
is honest and does not get into Jail; he is sober
and thrifty. When he is not, he imme-
diately loses his rights. In this city
the Irishman has no rights which
| his governors are bound to respect,
is ignorant, and neither Industrious, sober,
nor thrifty. The politicians whom the ballot
gives him, whom he himself elects, grind him
to poverty by taxation and wax fat over his
misery, and the more they batten on him the
more he adheres to them. The ballot does
not protect him, but the semblance of power
which it gives makes him facile in the
hands OF his oppressors. II the negro will
work and earn money, if he will put it away
in banks and not squanderit it in riOtous living,
if he learns to make as sharp bargain as his
white neigbbor, then the ballot will be ol
some use to him, but not otherwise. Every
deposit in a savings bank is worth ten votes to
him. His color will be forgotten as soon as he
! is respectable" " and to be respectable" in
modern times means to exhibit the faculty Of
acquiring independent wealth. He must find
! some means of making his Southern fellow
! citizens look upon him as an equal, and this
| he will never be able to do by merely being
able to produce copy of the Constitution o.
! the United States and refer the usurper to the
| Fifteenth amendment.