The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-04-05
~. SOLID souTn.
Why II Can Never Regain It's InAsaaco
National POlltiea,

~. SOLID SOUTH.
why It Can Never Regain It's Inassses b
National Politics.
For twelve years the Democratic
party has been q menace to the peact
and good government of the Nation
through the Bourbon solidity of the
reactionary South. By what means
the South was made solidly Democrat.
ic we need not here inquire or discuss.
OF the POI electoral votes necessary
to secure the Presidency in recent
years, it supplied 1853. These votes
were held with an iron, repressive
hand, and delivered in bunch to the
National Democratic party, in return
for party support Of Southern Demo
cratic ideas and measures. Ali the
Northe Democrats were asked to dc
was to furnish 4S more electoral votes,
out of total of 24S in the North, to en-
able the coalition to gain control of the
Government.
The hope of Republican statesmen.
and in fact OF all Republicans, has
been to break the solid South. 1t was
hoped in the first place that the enroll.
lent influences of time. operating
upon the revengeful Southern dispO-
Isition, would bring about the desired
change. Failing in this. it was thought
an awakening of the public con-
science would within sew years ere.
| ate a revulsion-a revolt at the
bloodshed and electoral debauchery by
which that solidity was maintained.
The final hope was that self-interest
would lead large proportion Of the
Southern whites to break away from
the Democratic party and fall in with
the Republican progressive policy.
None of these hopes were realized.
The signs did not wholly fail, it is
true. An appreciable tendency in the
hoped-for direction was apparent.
But the rate Of progress in that direc-
ton was too slow to promise any
practical result in this century of the
Christian era The South was as out
wardly as solid IS ever. 1t turned
over to tho Democratic party every
one of its electoral votes in 1888, as 1t
did in 1884 and 1880, and as it desper-
ately tried to do in 1876. The South
ern leaders were evidently inspired by
arelentless purpose to maintain at all
hazards the political solidity OF their
section, and cherished hopes of dictat-
ing the policy of the nation for an in
definite period.
The Solid South could not be broken.
At least it was not But Solid South
created Solid North. In the Fifty
first Congress the sixteen Southern
States will show only one Republican
Senator. from Delaware, it is true.
But the Democrats will have only six
Senators from all the twenty-five
Northern States in the same body.
whereas ten years ago they had
twelve That, however, feebly ex.
presses what has been going on in the
North during the past ten or twelve
years to reduce the proportion ate
power of the South in Congress. The
Northern States have not only devel-
oped a marked tendency to Republican
solidity. but have also planted and pop
ulated new States, strongly Republic
an. and four of them have just been
admitted to the Union. These four
new States nave received nearly
million of inhabitants from the North
since the solidifying process at the
South began. Their admission gives
the Republicans a majority of ten in
the Senate at the outset, the largest
majority any party has had in that
body lin many years, and is an as
surance of Republican supremacy for
a generation to come. But the imagi-
nation is hardly able to forecast to
what an extent the South is relatively
dwindled by this extension of state
hood and representation in Congress
to North and South Dakota, Montana
and Washington. Unitedly they have
an area equal to that of Ohio, Penn
sylvania New York. New Jersey,
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont. Con-
necticut. Massachusetts. Rhode Island.
Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, West
Virginia and Maryland combined,
which are represented in the House by
161 members, or just about half the
whole number of Representatives.!
They are only allowed five Represent
atives at the outset. but the census of
1890 will give then ten, and twenty
years hence they will elect an aggre-
gate of fifty to sixty members. perhaps
more. That great empire. territorially
speaking, that has just come into Its
representative rights will take up
very large proportion of the whole
growth of the country in the next quar-
ter century, and every days growth
will reduce the relative influence of
the South in the National government
That growth will be largely Repub-
lican. The Republican party is des-
tined to control the politics of the
whole North, with the occasional ex-
ception of two or three States. To
this result the solidity of the South
has largely contributed The South
has no such chance to extend the area
of its political domination. There
will be no new Southwestern States
for many years to come, and when
any do come they are more likely than
not to be anti-Bourbon.
Time brings its own revenges. The
solid South is a political failure. 1t
has lost, never to regain, its command
ing influence in National politics The
Republican party can elect its Presi-