Morning journal and courier., 1888-02-06

pOI1tlcal courage. AIter InlS record we say 1 to our northern leaders aHands off, Let us alone. You do only harm
 As to what can be done when our white people are not driven together by outside in terference, look at Virginia under the brave leadership of Malone, and at North Carolina under the lead of her ex-Confederates. We beg the North to forget and not repeat their blunders
 The people of our section are alive to their pecuniary interests, and will divide on eco- homie issues if not kept together by outside meddling.
 There is no vote suppressed" There has been none since 1876. There will be none in the future if we are let alone.
 THE CoLoRED VOTE.
 We had something to say last week about the fsuppressed vote in the Southn-a ques- tion which is troubling our northern Repub- Hean friends, and we desire to say now that the best possible service those friends can render to the colored voter is to let the ques- tion severely alone.
 The only effective stimulation to anything like all interference with colored mans vo- ting is the belief that such voting is in obe- d1ence to influences outside of his State, and adverse to the interests of his white neigh- bor. Any attempt at such interference will consolidate the whites for what they con- ceive to be self-defense, and will be of no possible benefit to the cclored man. Keep hands off and our people black and white will divide their ballots according to their interests on economic questions. When two Democrats are candidates on local is- sues only the eolored man generally holds the balance of power, and votes for the candidate who is the most advanced and liberal in his views as to justice for the negro in local government.
 Twenty years of freedom and free scheels has qualified generation of negroes for an intelligent exercise of the franchise. The most of these men are laborers and mechanics, and when a congressional elec- tion is held upon the issue of free impor- tation of English goods or protection to American labor nothing more will be heard about the ''suppressed negro vote." They will hold the balance of power between the free traders, who were formerly slave hold CTS, and the progressive men who realize the needs of to-day for this end of our country, and they will not be slow to ap- preciate the necessity of protecting Ameri- can labor. Under the old system the black man never got beyond the blow, the shov- ell and the hoe, under the new system the the iron furnaces and the factories are crushed out by free trade. The colored voter is not fool, and on this issue his vote will hold the balance of power in every congress sional district in this and many other south ern States.
 Our northern Republican friends need give themselves no uneasiness about the colored vote being suppressed when we have an issue upon which white men can divide. The real question is whether northern Republicans have the courage to make 8 platform in favor of the complete repeal of internal taxation and the maintenance of import duties that will protect American labor. The Republi- can party has survived in spite of it's cow ardice by reason of Democratic blunders in the past. Shall we now reverse the thing and let the Democracy prevail because of our blunders9 They lack the courage to repeal the whiskey tax; shall we!