The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-01
A NEGRO CANDIDATE.

From the Harrisburg PATRIOT
The radical list of candidates for State
Senator in the First district has been in
creased by a negro who longs to distinguish
himself in the legislative halls of Pennsyl-
vania. To the names of Morris, Moran,
Lyndall, Tittermary, and9a dozen of others
must be added that of Octavius V. Cato. If
there be anything in a name, and there is
certainly nothing in his color, that prevents
him from being a radical candidate, he is
just the man for State Senator. The radicals
in that body have great need of statesman
OF the stern Roman virtues of a Cato. In
the resolutions presenting Mister Cato, the
colored suffragans of the First district init
mate that they will no longer be hewers of
wood and drawers of water. By this they
do not mean that they will cease to chop
wood, tote water, dump coal, black boots,
and do other chores for their white fellow
citizens of Philadelphia. 1t is q figure
of speech by which they convey the hint
that they will not be used merely to vote
the radical ticket, but must have their full
share of the honors and emoluments of
Office. This is Congo gratitude towards
those who have bestowed the boon of the
ballot. The glorious privileges of suffrage
conveyed by the fifteenth amendment are
contemptuously described in the figuratiye
language of South street as the hewing of
wood and drawing of water. The negroes of
the First district basely fly in the faces of
their white brethren and demand the nomi-
nation for State Senator. If this does not
fill the heart of every radical patriot within
the bounds of that district with disgust we
have utterly failed to comprehend the nature
of the animal. That the negroes of Phila-
delphia, to whom the ballot was given that
they might swell the party vote, should insist
on holding the offices into the bargain is
more than the good temper of the politician
of the radical persuasion in that city can be
expected to bear. But he will soon discover
that he must grin and bear it.
In South Carolina and other portions of the
reconstructed South the negroes have pretty
nigh ceased to hew woed and draw water in
the political camp of their allies. A negro
Secretary of State, three negro members of
| Congress, and negroes in numerous other
public positions, show their understanding of
| the fifteenth amendment in South Carolina.
| This was not the programme of the carpet
baggers, who expected life estate in the
offices of that State by means of negro votes.
In their disgust at negro ingratitude and
| white superciliousness, many of them are now
leaving that country for that countrys good.
Candor compels the admission that the blacks
| who have been elected to Office in South
! Carolina are the superiors of their carpet-bag
rivals. Far be it from us, however, to insti-
! tute q comparison between Octavius Vespa-
slanus Cato and his intelligent and distin-
! guished white competitors for the radical
nomination for Senator in the First district
of Philadelphia.
! The eyes of the country are now fixed on
the First district. Here is an opportunity
for the radicals of Philadelphia to give sig
nal test of the sincerity of their convictions.
If negroes are good enough for voters, let
the radicals show that they are good enough
also to represent Philadeiphis in the State
! Legislature. There should be no wriggling
in the Loyal League on Broad street. The
members of that political association cla-
mored loudly for the ratification of the fif-
teenth amendment in this State. They sent
representatives to the capital who violated
! their official oaths and trampled on the Con-
stitution of the Commonwealth by voting
| for the ratification. The mutilated Constitu-
ton stands to-day with the word white
written all over it, as a monument of the per-
fidy and obsequiousness of the representa-
tiyes of the people of Pennsylvania. But
that is past. The revolution has been
effected by fraud, but it is none the less a
! revolution. 1t has all the virtue and validity
of the solemn and deliberate deere go of the
people.
Let the white radicals of Philadelphia ac-
cept the situation with the best grace. A
negro demands, as proof of their sincerity, a
seat in the Senate of Pennsylvania under an
amendment which was ratified against the
will Of the people. The claim of the negroes
! for recognition at the hands Of the Broad