Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1884-12-20
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR COLoRED Vo-
TIERS SOUTH.
From the n. Y. Helald. I

In Richmond, Va, few days ago
there was public parade to celebrate
the election of Cleveland and Hen
bricks, and number of respectable
colored voters, ,lncluding political clut
from Halifax county, and another from
Charlotte county, took part in it.
What betell them! We will not go to
democratic sources for a report, but
will quote from the local Blaine organ,
the Richmond Plant, paper edited
and published exclusively by Blaine
colored men. The Plant says:-
"The democrats paraded here last
Tuesday night. Clubs from all parts
OF the state participated. Luckily it
drizzled and rained all during the day.
The drums gave sick sound. Thous-
ands Of people witnessed the process
sion; among them were small num-
| Der of cOlOred men. These had to be
guarded by white men to such all ex-
tent that the outside protecting line was
made up nearly entirely by white men.
at each corner reserve force of pO-
lice added double protection from any
possible attacks from those quarters. -
Then the Plant expresses its editorial
opinion that these democratic colored
paraders would have been killed if
they had not been guarded as above
described, and intimates that ii would
have served them right. Here is its
language
''The part taken by those negroes in
that democratic procession OF last
Tuesday night was humiliating to
themselves in the extreme. The indig-
nation of the colOred people was plain
ly visible, and had they not been SO well
guarded by their white captors they
would have Gived hard"
We agree with Blaine and his Or
gans hereabouts in saying that "color-
ed voters south ought to be protected
in the freedom of their political pref
erences." But, nevertheless, there is a
difference between us on the one hand
and Blaine and his organs on the other
hand upon this subject. We mean
what we say, no matter what the COL
ored voters preference is. They do
not mean what they say unless his
preference happens to be for Blaine.
The Tribune, for example, ,delves dai-
" through its southern exchanges in
each OF paragraphs or sentences to
propagate false, mischievous, unpatri
otic belief here that colored men were
ssolid' in preterring Blaine to Cleve-
land, and were bulldozed all over the
south by the democrats in the recent
election. These it republishes assid-
uously, and at the same time suppresses
the abundant evidence to the contrary
which comes to its notice in its very
search through the southern press.
No reader of the Tribune, for any in
telligence he gains from that journal,
would suspect that Blaine's partisans
in the south exercise any terrorism
anywhere over colored democrats. All
such news as the periIs the democratic
colored paraders in Richmond ran the
other night is carefully stifled by the
Blaine organs north. But if the Rich
mond parade had been in honor of
Blaine instead of Cleveland, and the
Richmond Plant had been Cleveland
paper, and its talk about killing had
been directed against colored voters for
Blaine, they would go into fits at its
atrocity.
equal rights for voters every
where," whether they are white or
black, democrats or rcpublieane-that
is our doctrine.