The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1882-04-22
NATIONAL EDUCATION SERENE.

i NATIONAL EDUCATION SERENE.
We are in receipt of petition, emanatinl
from the Department of Superintendent o
the National Education Association" Wash
ington, d. c., with request to insert il IN oul
columns Said petition is is endorsed by three
state school superlntendents, and city ant
county superintendent from 90 different states
and asks congress to make liberal appropria
tons of money ITO be distributed to the com
mon schools of the states and territories on
the basis Of illiteracy," ito stimulate their eff
forts towards removing the appalling llliteracy
OF the voting population of the country, as re
vealed IN the last census"
We must decline the request. AS attached
to the Jeffersonlan.democratic school of poll
tics, maintaining as one Of its cardinal prin
cIples that "rhat government Is best which
governs least" the FREE TRADER sets itself
against all forms of paternalism In govern.
ment and of all paternalstic schemes yet
Matched in the fertile brain of republican reck.
lessness and desperation, this Logan national
educational scheme IS the most audaclous 1t
is not only paternalism run mad. but is doubly
Objectionable to Jefferson,an democrats as the
bOldest stride yet ventured upon In the direc-
ton of Capitalization, towards which republi.
canism has been so rapidly and recklessly
hurting this government for the last fifteen
years. To the scheme of our national govern
nent as founded by our fathers, nothing can
be more foreign than this project to educate
the voters. The constitution knows nothing
about voters; SO far as the federal laws are
concerned there are no voters. Voters are
made by tho states, which prescribe their
qualifications and extend or limit their num-
Der at will. The voters thus made created and
are the masters of the federal government, and
1t will be sorry day for the nation when 1t is
allowed to take its own masters under tutelage.
OF course the scheme has its origin In the
supposed ignorance of the negro voters Re.
publlcanism did not regard them as too ignor-
ant to vote when but year out of slavery, and
when not one In q thousand was able to read
or write. Placed under the care and domino
ton of federal officers and northern carpet
bsggers and southern scalawags, and thus led
like focks OF sheep to the polls and made to
vote the republican ticket, no voters on earth
were better fitted, lii republican estimation, for
an intelligent exercise of the elective tran
chise. But In the ten or fifteen years that have
elapsed since then the negroes have become
partially educated and have escaped from this
domination, with the uncomfortable result
that they refuse longer to vote the republican
ticket en- masse, and now this Logan scheme is
Matched to bring them back into the carpet
bag pen. To be logical, however, the scheme
INVOLVES something besides educating the ne
he Is unfit to vote, and must therefore be dis
franchIsed until educated This IS the
ground on which the republican party put Its
late action In congress IN excluding the Chi
nese. Speaking for the party, or at least that
wing of it IN possession of the government,
senator Jones, when reminded that the China
man Is more intelligent than the negro was
when made voter, boldly declared that in his
lhCH CNcH picScut Souuilou uC
the negro equally with the Chinaman as unfit
for the control and management Of institutions
created by and tor the white race, and looked
upon his unrestricted admission to the ballot
box as an Extremely foolish sentimental err
ror." Fully organized and In operation, then,
the Logan national voters education scheme
logically contemplates the disfranchisement of
the voters until educated up to certain stand
ard, that standard being sufficient compre
henslon OF political Issues to be ready TO vote
the republican ticket, or something to that
effect But it won't work. Men who have
been voters once will not submit meekly to
disiranchisement, and the party that under
takes the job, whether the voters to be dlsfran-
chlsed are black or white, will assuredly come
to grief.