Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-02

now sent by the white half, will that i'm
prove the position? No power can give
assurance that the black vote would be
confined to the federal boxes. If there
could be such assurance l believe two
thirds of the whites would be glad TO bar
ter their rights of representation in the
federal government for undisputed, CON-
troll of their states, counties and cities,
for the power other people have to di-
vide among themselves on questions of
local policy.
The educational qualification is pre-
scribed for our troubles. Its first practi-
cal effect is to add to the mass of suIlen,
resentful, disfranchised negroes a smaller
out more active and aggressive mass of
sullen. resentful, disfranchised white
men, the two together making majority
of the men of each state, and offering a
standard inducement to politicians and
parties to obtain permanent power by
bringing about the restoration of the
manhood franchise. Without that con-
sideration would il be wise or
humane TO establish by law what would
be practically race difference, TO leave
the negro, at this late day, entirely pow
erless, at the mercy of the white man,
without his former value as property or
his present strength as a political factor?
He would be as prey inviting aggression,
and the utmost efforts of the vast number
Of white Southern Democrats who wish
20 see him have fair play could not Sc
cure it for him where the interests or
sentiment of the time opposed it. He
would receive the same fair play the all
mastering, eager white man, unrelent-
ing i'll acquisition, has given the Indian
and the Chinaman.
If what l say is accepted for the truth,
the failure of the plan for dealing with
the'South indicated by General Harrison
is sure. The Southern white people do
not ask to be either petted or driven, be-
cause the two policies are equally power
less in releasing them from the hard po-
litical obligations to which they are
bound by necessity. They will not divide
on the tariff question They are already
divided on that and other issues in senti-
ment, but they dare not divide in action 8
To leave the situation undisturbed will
not be craftsmanship, good morals or
good politics. If every Democratic
officeholder in the South should oe left
unmolested during the coming four
years, the end of that time would find
the relations and membership of the
parties unchanged. Every negro would
be Republican, and not a white man
would have become one. The differences
and lines between the parties in the South
are deeper than any questions of policy
or principle or patronage. They are the
differences and lines between
Anglo-Saxon and Ethiopian, be-
tween former master and
former slave, between aggregated
capital and aggregated labor, between a
race kept down by sentiment, custom,
Inheritance and a necessity, and race
forced by sentiment, custom, inherit
ance and necessity to keep it down. The
evils Will increase with time. AS the
two races increase they will crowd each
other within their territory, and the
struggle for place and foothoId will be-
come stronger and harder; as the edu-
Gated class increases among the negroes,
its pressure against the confning, re-
pressive forces above will be more seri-
Gus, and the friction will be more irri-
tating to both sides.
Any scheme which contemplates the
amalgamation of the races may be re-
jected instantly 1t is an impossibility
because it is abhorrent to every nerve
and sentiment of white men. Those of
them who can bring themselves to cool
thought upon that subject are convinced
that the practical result of amalgamation
would be the merging both races in q
mOngrel, useless to itself and an eVerlast-
ing weight upon the country.
The situation is ,old here, as it appears
to one who is part of it and in it, and who
has tried to give intelligent thought to its
realities, stripping away the pretenses
with which it is covered by the politicians
and political writer's OF the respective
sides as sentiment, interest, and ignor-
ance suggest.
AS the personal position of the writer
may give some light to those who think of
the subject as it is here presented, ven
ture to give the information that 1 ain
the editor of a South Carolina newspaper
and a Democrat, believing with tbs
Democratic party in its every principle
and theory, and loving it, hoping to vote
always in the future, as always in the
past, u straight Democratic ballot.
As L love and believe in the Democratic
party, l love and believe in this republic
and its people, and in my heart there is
an earnest enduring faith that the Ameri-
can people, at the right time and
in the right way, viii find and use the
solution of the problem presented to
them here, as they have solved the many
dangerous and puzzling questions which
they have had to consider IN the past land
viii dispose of these troubles wisely and
justly. have written with the hope of
humbly helping to that end by directing
public thought to the two facts that %
there is distinctive "Southern situa-
ton, - and % that it is not to be dealt
with or disposed of by single expedient
or plan devised and executed 0ff-hand,
and will demand careful study, mature
thought, patience and mutual forbear-
ance, that right may be done on all
sides.
British Steamer Disabled.
KEY WEST, FLA. , Jan. The Brit