Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-06-12

phftntnttlcdiiy, tHdt Wncu we 90 so, we
are travelling over ground to which We
are not a STRANGER, having passed over it
in the face Of musketry, amid the blaze
Of sabers and the roar OF artillery. to the
origin OF that party, and let us trace
briefly its written history on the particu-
lar points relied upon by him in his inky
efforts to mislead
The Republican party made the solid
South, and will continue to keep it solid
Just so long as it shall continue 10 exist
as a National party with any hope Of
political ascendency; but in 80 doing it
has failed to preserve q solid North.
A new generation has entered the poll
tical arena since the close Of the war,
and to that element the spectacle OF a
united people seems grossly inconsistent
with the continued haunting OF the bloody
shirt, particularly so when it is apparent
to all that those inclined to fiaunt it the
highest and longest are always found
among those who kept farthest from the
spot when it incurred the danger of being
bloody. To those who have only studied
the subject from afar it may seem strange
that the negro should have SO early re-
pudiated the claims OF the Republican
party upon his vote; but to those at all
familiar with the real facts and unhlind-
ed by party prejudices, the reason is
patent
That party never kept faith with any
body. 1t began by breaking faith with
the seeded States when it planned its
reconstruction policy and it continued by
a series of promises to the negro in the
shape Of land and mules that it never in.
tended to fulfill. 1t assumed that its
enfranchisement of him was sufficient
recompense for his perpetual fealty to
the party, occasionally foisting an ig-
norant and incompetent one into office
in the South under the reconstruction
acts, but for twenty years never per-
mitting one of his race in the strongly
Republican States OF the North to hold
position of trust and profit, no matter
how strong his competency. A superior
man than he could readily see that all it
wanted was his vote. 1t took him
but a few years to learn that
the loud mouthed protestations of the
Republican adherents in the South about
his social equality was simply political
clap trap, and that their preaching in no
manner accorded with their practice
either there or at their homes in the
North or in Washington City.
Yes, the enfranchisement OF the Negro
by the Republican party added forty-two
ELECTORAL votes to the solid South, and
more than once has the question been
mooted in Republican councils, since
they found it impossible to control that
vote as to the advisability or possibility
OF undoing their work. Home to the
mouths OF more than one of its leaders
can be traced expressions OF regret that
the Negro had been unfranchised.
| An attempt was made some years ago,
headed by Window, just before the tax
ing Of the census OF 1880, to destroy the
force OF these forty-two electoral votes
by colonization scheme which should
decimate the ranks OF the negro in the
South and augment the population of al
ready overwhelmingly Republican States,
such as Kansas, in the North This also
proved a boomerang, for while it did to
some extent increase the population and
augment the representation from Kansas,
Notwithstanding the elittering but basely
false promises and inducements held out
to them to emigrate to this promised
laid, not enough could be influenced to
go from any one State to affect its rep
resentative strength.
Oi that unholy attempt and base i'm
position on an ignorant people something
more should be said The writer was in
the south at the time, and cognizant of
many OF the tricks and falsehoods re-
sorted to to carry out the scheme, a re-
capitulation OF which would occupy too
much space here, but which can be sub
stantiated when necessary.
When some thousands of them had
been deluded into leaving, and had
reached the end OF their journey. by
steamboats,, Kansas City, the few that
were able to write communicated back
to their friends the facts, and the
work ceased. In May, 1879, /
saw their camp at Wvandott
just across the river from Kansas CITY,
which then contained some five thou
sand men, women and children in the
most hopeless condition of want and des-
titution that it is possible to imagine.
Finding among them many to whom |
was personally known, they appealed to
me to aid them to return to their former
employers, some even promising to work
for their victuals and clothes as long as
they lived for the means to pay their
way back to their homes. Many did re-
turn and thus ended one OF the most
damnable political plots ever hatched in
the brains of scheming demagogue,
and these unsuspecting and ignorant
colored people were the deluded victims.
Do you wonder now why they don't vote
the Republican ticket?
/ deny the assertion that the total col
ored vote of the South is "almost unani-
mously Republican" Permit me to say
am not grossly ignorant" but, on the |
contrary, from q residence of fifteen
years in the South, tolerably well in
formed, and the charge of political dis
honesty | fling back into the writer's
teeth and challenge him to escape from it. |
The mass of the colored people of the |
South vote as intelligently and as nearly |
in support Of their own interests as do |
those of similar mental capacity else
where, and the statement that where |
they, as is the case in some localities, |
outnumber the whites twenty to one, are
intimidated, is Falstaffian lie.
When the author of the Ttibune's arti- |
Gle shall have finished with dead and |
buried issues and shall attempt from a |
Republican standpoint to handle the real |
and living ones OF this campaign, he will
find us ready to meet him on them as
well. o. II. VIoIET.
Coal, Wood, Charcoal and Coke.
Wellington coal $16 per ton; Coos
bay coal $ll 80 per tom Welsh steam
coal $3.50 per ton; Screenings 81 per
tor. Special rates for the above in ten
ton lots. Charcoal from 60 cents to 75
cents per sack. Reduced prices for oak
and mesquit wood for brickyards in car
load lots. Walter s. Maxwell, Office No.
s Court street, telephone SO; yard Ala
media and jackson streets, telephone
917.
= Reliance Lumber Co., OF Beaumont,
Texas, manufacturers of the famous long
leaf yellow pine lumber of all sizes and