The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1889-08-24
THE RACE ISSUE.

| Wulth wan hVit out "h'A
so much boast at the beginning of the pres
ent administration, that Gen. Harrison
would maintain such bearing towards
the south as would obllterate the race Issue
In that quarter, Is not apparently In hope
full way of being realized. The plan Il
Ignore negroes In the distribution OF OIL
ces, and to bestow them 10 such a way as Il
build up strong white mems republican
party by bringing over the protection
democrats, has not seemed to "pan out
very Well, and II now looks as II the ole
carpet>bagger plan of solidifying the negro
vote and making 1t fully and reliably avail
able, Is to he fallen back upon. This Ii
fairly inferable from the party movement
In Virginia, where, It will be remembered
there has been feud Of several years
standing between the Wise and Malone
factions, Wi Sc favoring the building up OF
Republicanism as essentially white
mans party, while Malone aimed entirely
at solidifying the negro vote, thus eklng
out majority with comparatively small
addition of riff,raff whites. The admins.
tration at Washington is understood to have
fallen Into the Malone scheme, and TO aid
him have made him the exclusive almoner
and distributor of government patronage
In that State. The Democrats, finding
themselves thus again confronted by the
race issue, instead Of, as they hoped, the
tariff and other questions of national policy,
which the adoption OF the Wise plan
would have precipitated, have accepted the
Issue as presented by Malone, and the
battle In Virginia this fall is to be fought
purely on the miserable race is lie.
There has also been q pregnant incident
In Alabama, which threatens TO bring the
race issue again to the fore In that quarter,
where 1t seemed but lately almost COM
pletely allayed. There had been no COM
plant, for several years at least, that the
free exercise Of the right Of the negro 10
vote had anywhere In Alabama been inter
fered with, and the feeling between the
races was 80 friendly that In mos. cases the
negroes ceased to vote "solid," and voted
like thinking men instead of machines
But there Is at Selma a self-constituted
Moses of the race, u colored preacher
named Bryan, publisher of newspaper
called the Independent, who is evidently
disguised with this state of things and
pines for a return to the halcyon days of
carpet Dagger regime and solid negro
vote, with all the corruption and prodigalty
which that implies. So he enters upon a
series of editorials conceived with diaboli-
cal ingenuity both to infame the negroes
against the whites and the whites against
the negroes. A few lines will show Its
spirit
"Were you the whltes) to leave this
Southland, In twenty years 1t would be one
OF the grandest sections Of the globe. We
would show you mOssback crackers how
to run country. You would never see
convicts half starved depriving honest
worklngmen of an honest living 1t Is
only matter Of time when throughout
this whole State affairs will be changed,
and l hope to your SORROW"
Its to be hoped, at least, that this incen-
diary effort will have no further effect than
what now seems most probable) the forci,
BILE silencing of the brsggart Moses" and
his expulsion from the community.
But the most bloody outburst of the race
war occurred week ago at Richmond, In
Fort Bend county, Texas. The county
has not over 10000 Inhabitants, of whom
two-thirds are negroes, Up to within a
year or two the whites, who owned 30 per
cent of the property and paid that proper
ton OF the taxes of the county, managed to
hold most of the local Offices and admins
tered the county's affairs In their own way.
But last year some Glow bred white dema-
gogues,' as they are called, entered Into a
coalition with the negroes, on the pre-.
tended basis of division of the spoils, and
got themselves elected to all the better
offices. What followed was easy to fore
see Taxes were doubled-the new Off
cials reveled In the spoils of office, and
lorded 1t over the beaten whites with all the
insolence Of born masters Naturally this
led to frequent hostile collisions, culminat.
Ing In pitched battle on the nth inst, In
which the sheriff and his deputy-of the
negro party were killed, and half dozen
of others on both sides were killed and
wounded.
These incidents point In but one d.
rection. The dread of the south Is the
restoration Of carpet baglsm and the hide
Gus saturnalia Of peculation, corruption
and political Generalization which tina,
implies, and their hope was that President
Harrison would adhere to his alleged prom.
ise to discourage negro qualification In the
south and to aim at building up a white
mans republican party there. In this the
recent movement In Virginia, as we'll al
elsewhere, show that there Is nc
ground for hope, but that the purpose of
the Republican party remains, what 1t ha,
been ever since the close Of the war, "a