The St. Johns herald., 1890-07-24
The Federal Election Bill,

gives weight and edge to all the per
 ills that the reckless legislation O.
 this Congress has heaped together
 It should be called "A bill to pro-
 mote sectional strife" In that di
 rection lies its only power, and pos.
 sibly great power for mischief. Its
 operation will create an antagonism between Federal and local authori- ties at hundreds of polling places, which is sure to generate bad blood, mutual accusations, bitter hostility and suspicion. It will solidify the whites and the blacks against each other. It will breed quarrelS of which the rancors and confusions may very possibly embroil the coun- try. We are in no danger of an- other civil war, but if this bill be- comes a law we are in danger of such widespread and complicated exasperations as will jostle the Ma tion out of its wonted order and peace, and change political debate into furious wrangle. We speak of facts as they are. If there were no prejudice and injustice among Southern whites, if Southern blacks as class were intelligent citizans- if, in short, the mischief bcaueathed by centuries of slavery had been cured in quarter-century-then this bill might be comparatively harmless. But the South has lin- gering and obstinate maladies-and this bill, pretending to cure, exas- perates them afresh. It Is not pat riotic in it's inspiration or it's pur- pose. It belongs to series of meas ures by which a faction is usurping the government of the country. That faction has enacted system of oppressive taxation and extrav- agant expense. It has broken down the Constitutional defenses of the minority. It has allied itself with the most mereenary forces. Ii has offended the moral sense of the peo- pie. And now it proposes a meas ure perfectly calculated to reawaken all the bitterness of race and sec tional hostility. Let that measure be enacted, let it work its natural result, let the next National election day yield a harvest of angry dis putes at the ballot-boX between | State and Federal officials, and in the rekindled animosity of North and South the peoples attention may be successfully turned away from the issue of finance and ad- minist. ation. "We have taxed and | misgoverned the people until if we give them a chance to think about | 1t they will send us flying. Divert them, stir up the old Southern ques- ton, put the screws onto the South until it breaks loose and gets the North mad again, and we may get another Presidency out of it! !" Is that programme to succeed? Is the economical issue to be thrust out by the sectional? Is the negro 10 be again made a cat's-paw for the i politician? Do not leave the ques-i tion to be settled wholly by parti- sanship and passion at Washington. Let the larger mind of the country be felt. Let the press speak for the people.-Springfeld (Mass.) Re- publican.
 To secure a result which cannot be attained by the enforcement of any law, the Republican party pro- poses to overthrow the most vital tradition of the American system of government-the local control of elections. The destruction of that cardinal condition of our Govern ment would be an evil much more radical and alarming than the SUD- pression of the vote which the meas ure professes to aim to correct. The bill commits the result of Congress Sional elections in any district where