Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-07-01
POLITICS IN THE SOUTH.

POLITICS IN THE SOUTH.
 There can be little doubt that under the present administration attention is
 being paid to the southern question so- called on lines different from those on which it was studied and proposed to be
 settled during the later republican ad-
 ministrations that preceded that of Pres ident Cleveland. Recent developments, such as the utterances of President Har- rison referred to on Saturday in these col
 umns and the investigations of Mir l.. Edwin Dudley of Massachusetts into the workings of politics in South Carolina, give substance to the charge that an en- tirely new departure is now proposed, with the hope of dividing the solid south
 by catering to the prejudices of the white men. In other words, it is proposed, by keeping the negro in a condition of rec ognized political inferiority, to win over enough white democrats to the so-called independent movement to take some of the southern states out of the democratic column. The plan is interesting, and none the less so from the results it's op- eration may have on politics elsewhere than in the South.
 MT Dudley, who in his investigations
 in South Carolina acted as the agent of number of prominent Massachusetts republicans, went about his work ap- parently with preconceived prejudices and impressions, and the results as he reported them are such as might be expected from strongly par tisan republican. According to his find ing, the prejudice of white democrats in South Carolina is rather against the politics than the color Of the negro, and so long as negroes will persist in being republicans they cannot look with hope for political recognition or advancement. To this condition of race hatred he attri- butes the lack of material prosperity that he professes to have discovered through the state, in which conclusion he differs shouters who have found profit and votes in holding up the same mirror at the north. The studies of Mir Dudley have little value as reaecting sound inquiries or conclusions for the reason that they were not started or conducted from an impartial basis. But they have a certain significance in that the suGges- tions which he ventures seem to run in a line with the statements of President Harrison to which we made reference on Saturday. Like the latter Mir Dudley admitted that the white men of the south must be catered to, that it is a
 mistake to contend for negro equality
 and that the republican party can make no progress in the south until it succeeds in dividing the white men by admitting and subscribing to their notions negro inferiority. It is necessary, according to Harrison and Dudley both, if the past mistakes of the republicans are to be corrected, to recognize that the negroes are all abject race. MT Dudley says that certain offices may be accorded to them in view of the necessity of enlisting their support, while President Harrison says there are department clerkships and isolated branches of the eservice-crumbs, so to speak, which fall from the table of patronage-that the good and deserving colored man may hope to obtain if he faithfully supports and votes for republican candidates. This policy may commend itself to MT Harrison and other republican politicians who believe that the negro is the prop erty of the republican party, but it may also strike some of the more intelligent black men as smacking little too much of the wolf's generosity to the lamb.
 Perhaps, if the republicans inaugurate the policy which President Harrison and MT L. Edwin Dudley have suggested, they may be successful in making a di- vision of the white men ill the south. But we are very much mistaken if they do not also succeed in making such a division among the black republicans of the north and west that for every south ern state which they may gain by their tactics they will lose northern one to the democrats. Perhaps such consum- nation would not be wholly undesirable, but when it looms up as a possibility we look to see the Harrison-Dudley scheme dropped as quickly as a hot potato is dropped by mealy-mouthed tramp.
 LAKE, STROBEL & Co have received a fine line of horse timers. price from $35 to $500.