The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-03-31
NATIONAL EDUCATION.
Tho Blair Measure Considered from .
Broad Platform.


Tho Blair Measure Considered from .
Broad Platform.
The Blair Education bill has been de-
Dated in the Senate along lines of ar
gument which practically take it out of
the domain of party questions. 1t is
evident that it will receive the votes of
q large number of Democratic States
men who attach less weight to the con-
stltutlonal objections to it than to the
fact that is an urgent necessity of their
States that the Nation should aid them
in the work of educating their people.
We are not disposed to underrate the
strict constructionist view, which in
sists that education is matter that be-
longs to the States and ought to be left
in their exclusive charge. But the day
has long since passed when narrow
and rigid Interpretation of the consti-
tuition can be successfully invoked as a
barrier against measures that are in
the nature of imperious National neces-
sites. In the debate now finished in
the Senate, it has been argued that
Congress had no power to appropriate
the money which paid for the purchase
of Louisiana. Doubtless this is good
strict constructionist doctrine, and yet
President Jefferson approved that APP
preparation, and it was obviously justi-
fed on the ground that the National
welfare was the supreme consideration.
The facts of the present case appear
to US to constitute similar occasion,
where the good of the Nation ought to
override any finical and fine-drawn OBJ
jections, founded upon constitutional
hair-splitting. In the sixteen Southern
States, out of 4,154, 1875 males, of
81 years of age and upward, 1854 74
can not write-nearly one-third of the
whole. In the State of North Carolina
there are 145, 900 illiterate voters, more
than one-half of her entire electorate.
1t is maxim universally accepted that
popular government must be based on
Intelligent suffrages to be safe. In
communities where, as in Massa-
chusetts, the number of illiterates in
the total population is small, free man.
hood suffrage may prevail without any
great danger to good government, but
where the illiterate voters form more
than one-half of the whole body of
voters it is undeniable that free gov
eminent is exposed to serious peril.
And that is the actual state of things
which exists at this moment in many
of the Southern States. while in no one
of them is the number of illiterate
voters less than 80 per cent. of the en-
tire electorate.
1t is quite true that this dangerous
state of affairs in the South is one of
the legacies left to us by twenty-four
years Of Republican policy. It is also
true that the great mass of illiterate
voters in the South, for whose benefit
the Blair bill is designed, are Republic
an voters. These considerations ought
not, in our Judgment, to prevent Dem
ocratic Statesmen and Representatives
from dealing with the bill on it's mer-
it's. Indeed it would seem that if any
reason could be strong enough for
straining the constitution a little it is
found in the fact that the Republican
party has created situation so full Of
evils and dangers that the ordinary re-
sources of the States are wholly made
quate to meet it.
The Southern States, most of them,
are unable to cope effectively with the
mass of illiteracy which Republican
craftsmanship has injected into theil
citizenship. This being an unques.
toned fact there remains only one al
tentative offered to practical states
men; either to stand upon the propo
| sition that free suffrage in the hands OF
vast bodies of ignorant voters is not 9
source of danger to the Nation, or else
to admit that it is National evil fol
which, as the States can not, the Ma
ton must provide a remedy. We dc
not propose to waste any space, argu
ing the first of those two propositions.
We take our stand upon the broad
| platform that universal suffrage must
be based upon something like universe
education, and that where large sec
ton of the country is unable to furnish
its people with school facilities, ant
thirty, forty, and in some States owe
fifty per cent. of the voters are ignor
ant men, a grave National emergency
has arisen, before which strict con
structionist dogmas must give way
Boston Globe.