The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-17
DAKOTA AS A WONDERLAND.
Mr.. Spooner Runs Up the Bloody Shirt
for the Territory.

WASHINGTON, April 16.-In the Senate at
o'clock this afternoon the Dakota bill
came up, and Mr.. Spooner took the floor in
support of it. He spoke of Dakota as "the
wonderland of the continent and of the
opposition to the bill as UNJUST partisan
ship" In population, intelligence, morality
and all the qualities that make up a State,
the right of South Dakota to Statehood
could not be questioned. He could invite
comparison between South Dakota and
South Carolina in detriment to the latter
and to several Southern States, and yet, he
said, every Senator from Southern State
stood athwart the pathway of South Da-
kota. Alluding to the remark in
Mr.. Buffers speech last week TO the
effect that the precedent sought
to be established would justify 100000
Socialists or Anarchists getting together in
n corner of Territory and demanding ad-
mission as a State, he asked what was the
objection to their petitioning for admissionl 7
WHAT harm had petitioning ever done!
They had an inherent right to try to get
into the Union as a State, just as certain
States had claimed that they had an in
herent right to try to get out Of the Union.
[Laughter.l
NOT DENIED.
Mr.. Butler said that he had not denied,
and that nobody denied the right of South
Dakota to try to get i'll. What he had
denied, and did deny, was the claim set up
by Senator Platt that they had an inherent
right to demand admission.
Mr. Spooner referred to the suggestion
made by Mr.. Butler that $4,000 voters of
Dakota had been so Indifferent to the ques.
tion that they had stayed away from the
polls, and that, therefore, the vo,e was not
a fair expression of the popular will. Mr..
Spooner drew distinction between the
cases of voters in Northern States who
remained away from the polls through in
difference, and Of voters in Southern States,
who were kept away through intimidation.
In the former case there was no impeach-
ment Of the fairness of the election, but in
the latter case there was. If large num-
Der of men were kept away from the polls,
not because of their Indifference. but be-
cause of memories of outrages perpetrated
and tolerated by the intelligent men Of
whole communities, and who,e States, year
after year-Outrages by ku-klux clubs and
n:ght-riders; because of tissue ballots, blood
intimidation, fraud; because of memories
of the burning shanties of colored Repub-
licans driven into the swamps, laShed, ,exiled,
pursued hunted down; because Of memories
of Yazoo and Copiah then, the election was
not fair expression Of the popular will.
SOUTHERN INDIFFERENCE.
No complaint, he said, was made of the
smallness of tho votes in Southern States
although for the ten representatives from
Georgia, only $4,000 votes in the aggregate
had been cast-less than the average vote for
each of the representatives from Wisconsin
1t was not difficult (Mr. Spooner thought
to understand the real motive of the oppo-
sition to the admission of South Dakota as
a State. In the old days when slavery ex-
listed in this country, when il was bone of
contention, when there was a struggle for
political power between the forces Of slavery
and the forces Of freedom, it came about,
not unnaturally, that a slave State had to
come into the Union alongside Of n free
State And so it seemed that to-day las in
the ante -bellum days the exigences of the
Democracy demanded that no new State,
Republican in politics, should be
admitted unless alongside of it came in
State that was surely Democratic. He be-
lieved that South Dakota would not be
admitted into the Union by this Congress,
but he would bid the people of south Da-
kota to be patient.
Mr.. Vest obtained the floor in opposition
to the bill.
Mr.. Platt suggested an understanding TO
have the vote taken on the bill tomorrow,
but Mr.. Rutler said he could not agree to it.
The bill went over till tomorrow.