Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-07-21

247 in 1884, TO lao in 1888, while the
Democratic vote rose from 62,529 to 1877,
367. And, strange as it may appear, the |
total vote of Louisiana in four years in
creased 10000, without the population |
having been materially augmented. We |
submit that the figures Justify the conclu-
sion that there is not to be hid in Louis
lana free ballot and fair count, and
further more that these facts justify the
assumption that the white Democrats do
su5vert the privileges and prevent the free
exercise of the suffrage rights of their
political opponents, since it is not true to
political experience that such results as
those gwen obtain where there is non-re-
straint.
If further evidence were needed to show
that ballot-box frauds and vote repression
at the South and in States uniformly Dem
ocratic are not merely occasional and To-
cally incidental to campaigning, it is to be
found in the fact First-That the South
ern Democrats do not only not advance
any reason why the black voter remains
away from the polls, but that they approve
his discretion, and in Congress and else
where declare that it is essential to the
peace and comfort of the social organism
that the whites-thereby meaning the
Democrats-shall maintain their domi-
nance. Unless we wholly misread, the Alta
but the other day had the temerity to ut
ter sentiment in correspondence with
that idea, and to add that the peace and
good government of the United States
might be menaced if the existing order of
things were disturbed.
1t is ungenerous and illogical to assert
that the Republican party, in protesting
where the Democracy is silent, draws the
color line If the assertion of 4 vital prin-
ciple of a representative form of govern
ment-that every citizen shall be secure in
his right to freely cast his ballot, and to
have it honestly counted-iS drawing the
color line, then it is full time that it be
sharply defined.
If the Alta were not so intent upon de-
NAL that subversion of political rights is a
fact at the South, it would recall it as
fact that Southern leaders no longer
deny that there is repression of the politi-
| cal rights of voters in many, if not all
Southern States, but admitting, Justify and
defend it upon the ground that the con-
troll of the Government in such States, in
the interests Of society, must be main
tanned by the Democratic white voters.
and that such condition is essential to
the social welfare. The plea is, indeed
advanced, that this must be So because of
the higher intelligence of the whites, and
that it is of vital importance that control
shall not come into the hands of ignorance.
Yet the theory of our government pro-
ceeds upon the doctrine that all citizens,
intelligent and ignorant alike, shall freely
participate, through the ballot, in the de-
termination of the political character of
the States and communities, and that only
danger and disaster will result from any
departure from that principle.
We submit to the intelligence of the
reader that it makes no sort of difference
whether the prepared vote of the South is
Republican or Democratic, whether there
is actual violence used to COW the voter. or
only political chicane resorted to to dis
courage his approach to the ballot-box, it
remains that non-participation by the great
majority of voters in the affairs of govern
ment is indicative of social conditions that
are unhealthy and abnormal
1t is not necessary to reply 10 the I'M
WORTH fling of the Alta concerning the
election of 1876, or to call attention to the
fact that even if it be admitted. to please
our contemporary, that all it says of that
event is true, it cuts no figure in the cues
ton of 1888, whether in the sold Demo-
cratic States of the South there is that
free exercise of the suffrage right con-
templated under our form of gorernment
and vitality essential to its existence.
Were we inclined to extend this article.
columns of proof of the repression
against which the Republican party so
wisely and strongly disclaims in its plat
form, might be cited from the history of
the past ard the present in many other
States, of political outrages, violence and
bloodshed, imprisonment and exile, tort
ure and assassination, prosecuted in the
interest of the Democratic party. But we
hesitate to invoke the anethemas which
the average Democratic journal hurls |
upon those who approach the subject of
the "bIoody shirt" Not but that the |
stained garment has cause and that
its dyes may be established in truth as the |
colors of organized crime, repression of
the rights of citizens of the United States, |
against which neither the Democratic |
platforms nor journals protest But it is |
to discuss these matters with |
our Democratic contemporaries when even
the more intelligent of them, like the Alta,
resort to the dogmatic and partisan asser-
tion that the aim of the Republican party
is to perpetuate political antagonism
on race lines" 1t is demanded that a
broader and more humane comprehension
of the purposes Of Republicans and of their
sincerity as lovers of free institutions shall
those who engage in the
debate of the question of free ballot and
fair count in every precinct of the Union,
North and South.
INQUIRING INTO EVASION OF THE
IMMIGRATION LAWS.
On the 18th Of July, in the House of
REPRESENTATIVES. the ouastion vas bafora tho |