Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser., 1889-11-22
The Mischief and the Remedy.

As appears by extracts from the
Prince Georges county papers, publish
ed elsewhere, the people of onr sister
county are now thoroughly aroused to
the necessity of taking steps to pre-
vent the future colonization of color
ed voters from Washington into their
county. In this county, to-, if we
may judge from the earnest and al
most unanimous expressions of peo-
who have visited town during court,
the popular Judgment is very decided
upon the question. There is very
little doubt that the balance of power
in popular elections in both of these
counties. and in St. Mary's as we'll,
now lies or in the near future if the
present state if affairs continue, will
most certainty lie Ia the suffrages of
the colored residents of Washington
who have no homes here and no man
ner of interest in our local AFFAIRS
AS the Marlboro Gazette Justly re-
marks "no people can be ex pected to
stand or tolerate such an outrage up.
on popular suffrage"
This is the great mischief; the next
question is where is the remedy? II
has heretofore been intimated that the
remedy may be found in an appeal tc
the Court of Appeals, while Others
think that the Legislature should bt
invoked, at the coming session. to pro
vide a remedy for the evil. Al
the TINES has heretofore stated, thii
question is of too great Importance tt
be left to depend upon any contingen'
cies. While test case ought to bs
made up for the Court of Appeals. the
Legislature ought also to be invoked
to take some definite action to relieve
us from the great evil. But, unfortu
nately, these counties, where the evil
exists, will be represented in the mex,
Legislature by Republicans, who will
De interested in continuing the evil il
they can. This State of affairs de.
mands that the people should take
some action to have their grievance,
presented to the next Legislature.
With this end in view, it has been
suggested that mass meeting of Dem
-ocrate should be called in each of the
three counties Of Prince Georges,
Charles and St. Mary's, which shoul d
appoint committee of leading citi-
zeDs to go to Annapolis and present
our grievances to the Legislature
and urge the adoption of the
remedy. The election and registra-
ton laws of the State will be under
consideration this winter, with view
to amendment; and it is of the highest
Importance that the interests of our
people should be represented at such
an important time. As our color
d friends have denied us the privilege
OF being represented in the usual way,
it is desirable that some other method
of psesenting our grievances should be
adopted; and we are assured that q
representative committee of our citi-
zens thus, chosen would. receive full
credit and consideration at Annapolis.
Such . movement in these three
counties whould be set on foot at
ence. We understand the matter is
already being agitatei to some extent
in the other two counties. A call
should be issued by the Democratic
Central Committee and leading citi-
zens Of the county. requesting the
people to assemble in mass meeting at
Fort Tobacco, at some early day, to
take action in this matter. We know
the temper Of our people on this vex-
ed question, and that they will not be
slow to respond to call designed to
precare remedy. There is some diff
ference of opinion among onr think
ing people as to whether an entirly
new registration should be resorted to.
This and other kindred matters should
be duly considered in the meantime
and fully discussed at the meeting.-
We hope to publish call for such
meeting in next weeks paper.
ReVOlufiOu an Rpozfl