The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1884-06-21
MINORITY Report on Danville.
A Terrible A1raignnlent of Republican Meth.
DDS and Morals IN the Rdrty's Dealings sciM
Southern Political Erents- Interesting Read
ing for tile Campaign Year.

y ne w douluSJOu COllCopOhNChb vi tAiO A'O"
York World, gives the following report of the
Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections
upon the Danville riots investigation submitted
| to the Senate on June 8. The preamble of
the resolution under which the committee
acted is quoted, upon which the minority COM
ments, declaring that any lawyer with an hon
est disposition to ascertain the truth would see
that, taking all the facts asserted in this pre-.
amble, Congress was clearly not authorized
by the Constitution to interfere, but would
conclude at once that it was purely a State
affair.
The allegation, too, that none of the often
ders had been brought before the courts was
untrue because of the omission to say, doubt
less with a view to deceive, that the State au-
thorities, from the Governor to the corpora
| ton scavenger of Danville, belonged to the
same political party which was responsible
for the resolution and in whose behalf the in
quiry had been conducted. The fourteenth
and fifteenth Constitutional amendments are
quoted and further arguments are based upon
them in support of the theory that the general
Government had no right to interference in
the premises.
'.But it is indirectly said, ~ continues the re-
port, ''by the committee, that they propose no
interference by actual legislation further than
| by investigation to expose to public condemna-
ton the action of the rioters in Danville, and
it is also intimated that should the people of
Mississippi not vote for the candidates of the
Republican party in the pending Presidential
election then the committee recommend a
further investigation of the whole people of
those States, with view to depriving them
of representation in Congress under section
of the fourteenth amendment. The latter the
undersigned regard simply as partisan threat
in itself strongly interfering with the free ex-
ercse of the right of suffrage, which it is be-
lieved the manly people against whom it is
directed will treat with the contempt it so
richly merits and the former would seem TO
be simply proposition to shift the expense
of printing u campaign document from the
pockets of the Republican National Executive
Committee onto the public Treasury"
"A decent respect for the opinions of man.
kind, the report asserts, "should have i'm
PEELED the Republics to conduct the investi
cation with fairness and set forth its results
with judicial impartially. A glance at the
majority report would satisfy every just mind
that this has not been done. The examina-
ton was conducted with all the sharpness,
the rigor, the shutting off of unfavorable testi-
mony, the leading up to and solicitation of
that which was favorable, which usually char
acterize the trial of criminal case in the
Hastings court. The people of Danville,
all the way through, were treated as though
they were on trial, with Republican Senators
acting as prosecutors. Things were assumed
to be true on the rambling statements of ig-
norant negroes, though disproved by dozens
| of witnesses of greater intelligence, both white
and black.
| The minority present resume of the poht-
ical history of Virginia, from 1879 to 1888, in
order to show the condition of affairs which
/ existed at the time of the riot in Danvile.
/ The bitter feeling between the adherents of
the Coalition and Democratic parties they
point out was intensified in the city of Dan
| Vile, where large numbers of negro laborers
had been drawn by the tobacco factories, and
where outnumbering the whites they had Sc
cured control of the municipal government,
the result of which had been that outrages and
indignities had been committed upon the peo-
ple They speak of the address to the people
of the Southwest and Valley of Virginia issued
by citizens of Danvile, setting forth their
grievances and appealing for help at the ballot
boxes, and say of it that sit was u partisan
campaign paper that sit did not profess to
| be anything else,i and that ''while it con-
tanned the usual amount of eXaggeration and
heated expression its statements were proven
/ by many most respectable witnesses to be in
/ the main correct, especially in regard to those
grievances which were most irritating and Of
iensive to the sensibilties of their people"
/ This circular, the minority say, gave great
offense to the Coalitionists, and they then
come to the speech made by Col. Sims, de-
nouncing the authors of the circular as liars,
scoundrels and towards, which they assert in
famed the already greatly excited negroes to
the point of threats and violence. They dwell
ut length on the occurrences of the day follow
ing the delivery of this speech and the en-
counter between the young white man, Noel,
/ and the negroes, Lawson and Llewelyn, which
precipitated the riot. They insist that the
testimony taken by tire committee shows that
many of the negroes engaged in the riot were
armed and 1ourished their weapons threaten
ingly and that after the whites fired in the air
to scare them away they fired back as they
retreated.
They also deny that there was any evidence
to show that the whites fired upon women and
children, as asserted in the report of the ma
jority. They say that Sims was more to blame
for the bloodshed in Danville than any other
man, and they condemn the majority for re-
fusing to hear the testimony of citizens of
DanviIe as to his character. They critieise
the report of the majority as '.still more un-
fair, more partisan and disingenous' even
than the examination of witnesses, and say
1--WE challenge all just minded men to exam
inc it, confident if they do that they will con.
clude that the committee did not want the real
facts, but were searching for material for IL
political campaign" They say further that
the proof is overwhelming that the riot was
not premeditated nor the result of n conspra-
cy of the Democratic party of Virginia.
Referring to the charge that the Democratic
party of Virginia sought to disfranchise the
negroes of that State by the imposition of the
capitation tax and by other methods they en-
ter general denial and then enter upon an
elaborate exhibition of the methods by which
the right of suffrage is abridged at the North.
They point to Massachusetts, where, they say,
under the law forbidding the right of suffrage
to illiterate persons and paupers who are I'M
able to pay certain taxes, IA, 500 persons arc
DISTINGUISHED for ignorance or poverty; to
Rhode Island, where, they say, the restric-
tons on suffrage are still worse, not more
than 40 per cent, they assert, of adult males
being entitled to vote, the remainder being
DISTINGUISHED not only for crime, but for ig.
norance, poverty or foreign birth, aud to the
District of Columbia, where they say the Re
publican party has abolished the right of sui.
frage altogether, and where III 900 persons
aye governed as ''satrapy," Under the
very shadow of the dome of the Capitol of d
great Republic, the corner stone of which is
the suffrage Of the governed, say the minori-
ty: THAT great first principle is denied and
spit upon for no other reason than because 81
per cent. of the population is composed o.
negroes, who could WELD the balance of power
in popular elections"
Coming to the discussion of the charge
made in the majority report against the Dem
npraey of Virginia of melting the race issue
the minority says the boot is on the other leg;
that it is fact notorious in the history of the
negro states since reconstruction that the race
issue was begun and has been continued il
: them all by the rigid banding of the black
race everywhere for the support of the Re
publican party in open and fragrant hostility
10 the white race; that care is taken to Sc,
: that colored man is rendered odious and
. denounced ~ traitor to his race if he dare
to vote the Democratic ticket; that in theil
societies they are sworn to support the Re
publican party; that their preachers exhor
them to support it, and that the general rule
is expulsion from church membership fol
failure to do so.
5 The minority here enter into long anC
bitter denunciation of the reconstruction
mea snras adonted Inv the Renuhlican Marty