Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-01-29
WASHINGTON LETTER.
The Negro Suffrage Question in the Dis
trict of Columbia.
Putting the Chalicc OF Reconstruction TO
the Nations Lips.
Republican Hesitation to Inauguratc
Ethiopian Ascendancy.
special Correspondents OF tho Gazette.

Special Correspondence ofthc Gazette.
Washington, January 2i.-For many
months, until congress was convened,
Mr., Clapp, Judge Mackey and other
leading Republicans were active or
ganizers of meetings and conventions,
demanding from congress the conces-
sion of suffrage and self-government
TO the people of Washington. But
when the great leaders of the Repub-
lican party and its wisest counsellors
were gathered here, Mr.. Clapp, former
editor and proprietor of the Republic
can and his vigorous coadjutors in
this scheme of municipal
reform abandoned the task they had
undertaken and IL was agreed that no
illustration of negro fitness for duties
of citizenship was desirable in this or
any Eastern city. II was stated, am
told In these recent conferences among
the Republican party leaders that they
had gone far enough In this matter
and that hereafter their advocacy of
the deposition of the triumvirs Of this
district and substitution of negro and
mob despotism should be wholly
Fictitious. They would pretend but
never practically favor the subsection
of the capital to African domination.
But the Republicans having commit
ted themselves TO the proposition to
restore the "republlc" in the capitol.
and Clapp and Mackey and Fred
Douglass and Bob Ingersoll having
been especially demoastrative In this
direction, the Democrats In congress
propose TO compel Mr..
Clapp's party in congress
either to stultify themselves or coneede
the privilege of suffrage to the blacks
and whites of Washington. OF course,
every Southern citizen of Washington
and every Southern member OF con-
gress confesses that the city will be
| financially wrecked and that elections
| will be worse than farcical. Samson
street, the seat of ETH jpian aristoc-
racy, and Hell's HalfAcre will be
seething caldrons, and the city In Il
fearful stew, and odors of elections
will outsmell easements and Railways
of the Oldest boarding houses. But To-
cal Republicans are committed to the
proposed reform, and the Democrats
are eager for the experiment God
pity the capital; but the whole country
viii be the gamer, and, for the reason
that the whole country will discover
in the fortunes OF this city the miser-
les of n people subjected to the sway of
negro.chosen rulers.
suppose the white
and pluguglies, q
phis. conspire ind frst-class table at
societies and opt
churches, with tlar MTE
plumber the city---l
kee taxpayers In Wa-anpiAfOP
the remorseless despot
ing knayery and stuI--.--'-----
| means let ia ,.u
people of Washington, %su, wnus
black, enfranchised. ByaIl si"""'
the North see, through facts de
even here under Its nose, in thee The
try's capital, how lovable is Samnnt-
n dominant practical factor in gov'to
ment. Let the country see howe
happens that, though there be only
GO, 200 negroes in Washington, they
VIII outyote, in an exciting
| contest, when rich knaves
want places and power,
The 100 600 white people. Let ii be
seen how negro voters are all as much
alike rs "black-eyed peas.O and that
the detection of black "repeaters, is
everywhere impossible; and then let
the country learn that rebel vices do
not cause rebel resistance IT, negro
mastery, and the greatest possible ben
eiactioh "ill have been done
the South. Intolerable and
hateful as is this triangular
despotism governing Washington, Mr..
CIapp and his Republican coadjutors
have called "a halt, and the Repubii.
cans In congress dare not turn over the
country's capital to the mastcsy OF the
"nations wards.r
THE INTERVIEW.
VIII somebody let the public know
view with Mr.. Clapp at the senator's
private apartments last Sunday even
Ing, did not tell Mr.. Clamp
almost In words above used, that II
negro suffrage be conceded Ia this
city the bloody-shin VIII have lost its
flavor, and did not Mr.. Clapp's under
jaw, therenpon, drop down 10 its full
est extent upon his keaving bosom,
and hasn't Mr.. Clapp been silent and
solemn, as nm owl ever since? And
then what are the women sufIiaulsts
going TO do abollltt?