Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-04-04
1nG SOLID SOUTH.
Why 1t Can Never Regain It's influence IN
National Politics.

-NoIohaA IOhth'es
For twelve years the Democratic
party has been menace to the peace
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 153. These votes
were held with an iron. repressive
hand, and delivered in a bunch to the
National Democratic party, in return
for party support of Southern Demo-
cratic ideas and measures. Ali the
Northern Democrats were asked to do
was to furnish 4S more electoral votes,
out of total of 24S in the n Worth, 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 emoll-
lent influences of time. operating
upon the revengeful Southern dispo-
sition, would bring about the desired
change Failing in this. it was thought
an awakening of the public con-
science would within sew years Gre
ate 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. Tie South was as out
wardly as solid as ever. It turned
over to the Democratic party every
one of its electoral votes in 1888, as it
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 a 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 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 a |
million of inhabitants from the North |
since the solidifying process at the |
South began. Their admission gives |
the Republicans majority of ten in
the Senate at the outset. the largest |
any party has had in that
body in 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
l61 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 It's
rights will take up
very large proportion of the whole
growth of the country in the next quar-
5er century, and every days growth
will reduce the relative influence of
he South in the National government.
That growth will be largely Repub-
lean. The Republican party is des-
lined to control the politics of the
whole North, with the occasional ex-
,eption of two or three States. To
his result the solidity of the South
has largely contributed The South
has no such chance to extend the area
If its political domination. There
will be no new Southwestern States
or many years to come. and when
my do come they are more likely than
lot to be anti-Bourbon.
Time brings its own revenges. The
'olid South is a political failure. 1t
has lost, never to regain, its command
ng influence in National politics The
party can elect its Presi-
lential candidates hereafter without
New York, New Jersey or Connecticut;
md, if the census of 1890 bears out