The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-08-15
The Color Line in Politics.

ican party So far as Ohio is concerned we
have no fault to find with his advice, for the
republican party there in the present cam
paign stands upon honest principles and OPP
poses a very dangerous as well as dishonest
financial policy, which deserves the help OF
all good men to defeat it. But Mr. Lang
ston's advice is general it will be quoted
everywhere in the Southern States, and it
will help to perpetuate there evils which the
wisest and best white men are trying to cure,
and of which it is quite clear that Mr. Lang
ston has no knowledge or conception He
has evidently no personal knowledge OF the
cotton States where the negro vote
is the most powerful If he had
he would be far from giving such
advice as we find in his speech; for he is, no
doubt, an earnest friend of his race, and an
honest citizen, DESTROYS of good government.
The colored people in the cotton States are,
for the most part, lamentably ignorant,
which is not their fault; they are easily mis-
led by bad men, who either cajole and hatter
them or impose upon them. Political dem
agoguery of the lowest kind has, probably,
never gone further anywhere than among
the negroes in those States The attach
ment of the negro to the republican
is made use of by designing whites for
the basest purposes and in the most au-
dacious and shameless way. To ''mass the
negro vote" is, unfortunately not difficult;
and in many States and in hundreds of
counties it is so massed by men who use the
predominance it gives them to rob the COM
munity. 1t is notorious that if white man
will only call himself republican and stoop
low enough he can easily control the
colored vote, no matter how bad his charac-
ter, what his political antecedents, or how
wicked his purposes. It is no uncommon oc-
currence to see a republican convention, COM
posed almost entirely of colored men, nomi-
nate to responsible offices notorious thieves,
and even persons who are at the time under
Indictment for public robbery and breach of
trust 1t is no uncommon thing for colored
speakers in canvass to threaten the lives of
negroes who should dare to vote any but a
straight republican ticket. In Southern
Louisiana to this day colored field laborers
are summoned from their work to attend po-
litical meetings ''by order of General But
ler" We have seen printed notice, circu-
lated by white republican candidate for a
local Office, ordering all colored men to vote
for him, and signed ''U. S. Grant, President"
and another in which the prosecuting officer
of a county threatened every negro who
voted against him with the penitentiary- and
he received the solid colored vote. There
are hundreds of cases where men VIGOROUSLY
corrupt attain and retain Office, by the help
alone of the colored vote, in spite of their
known i'll deeds, because they assume the
name of republicans. Nor Is this all, for it is a
common occurrence, in strong negro counties
in the South, for colored demagogues to sell
the votes they control to the highest republi-
can bidder and even to go about before cleo
ton, asking men to become candidates for i'm
portant offices, in order that they may make a
better market Of the voters. In those parts
where the colored leaders control so large a
majority that they put themselves forward for
Office it is notorious that only the most
1GnOIdHb, QtDdSSQ dI1u COIIuPb buCCCGQ- IOI
instance, negro treasurer of Mississippi
county did not know how to read, and was
killed few months ago while in Office by
another negro for disreputable intrigue
The negro State Superintendent of Public.
Instruction in the same State is a known
thief, who was covered with indictments but
a few months ago. Yet at this time he is
struggling for the control of the republican
party in jackson and Vicksburg and honest
republicans can only with difficulty
keep him down. negro State Senator in
Louisiana, who Yields a great influence in
the politics of the northern part of that State,
is the open ally of men convicted of a shame
less robbery of the school fund. Another
negro, member Of the State Board of Edu-
cation and lately member Of the Legislature
in the same State, actually gave a written re-
ceipt for a bride Such is the character,
too often, Of the negroes as well as the
whites who come into power by the help of
the colored voters and under the plea that
the republican party must be supported by
the blacks, and that, of course, they are the
ASPuOiStAh P1AbJ'
Honest republicans, white or black, have
very little influence in the conventions
where these are composed mainly of colored
men. They are powerless against the ap-
peals of denagogue who hatters the ignor-
ant negro and in the same breath casts sus-
picion upon the motives Of the honest adj
wiser. If Professor Langston and Mr.. Fred
erick Douglass viii take the trouble to visit
Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana they will
see that it is real and serious calamity that
the colored people stick so ignorantly to the
so-called republican party there, and they
would be the most earnest TO advise them
differently. What Mr.. Langston ought to
tell his people in the South is tc vote only
for honest men, no matter what they call
II.