Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1890-12-11
Sound Talk.

Senator Turpie, of Indiana. spoke the fol-
lowing in opposition to the Republican
Election bill, known as the Force bill, in
the Senate chamber on Wednesday last. His
speech was full of meat, and hard nuts to
crack, which made the Republicans vince.
and won congratulations from his Demo-
cratic colleagues:
The substitute measure. he said, rested for
its support on what was called the suppressed
colored Republican vote in the south. The
returns of the election showed an abstinence
from voting-an abstinence much greater in
Massachusetts and other northern states
than elsewhere. The extremists, with a
meagre majority in both houses, said that
this was proof enough of the suppression of
the colored vote, and thereupon proceeded to
revolutioniZe the whole method of congress
sional elections. There had been suppress
sion--a suppression patent, we'll known, un-
deniable and widely prevalent The recent
census would show that in the states of
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois there were
about 250,000 colored people, yet in those
states no colored man had ever served as gov
ernor or been elected to any department of
the state government. There had been not
only no proportional division of the Offices
there had been none at all. The colored man
in those states had no more chance Of prefer
ment than the Roman Catholic had had in
dred years ago. The suppression of the
colored vote in the south was thing mani
festly question affirmed on one side and de-
MED by the other, but the suppression of the
colorsd voter of the north was thing with
out question, actual absolute, uncondition-
al. The supremacy of the white race was
not peculiar to any portion OF the United
States. South Carolina was not more COM
pletely under its sway than was Pennsylvania.
Its supremacy was not one whit more firmly
established in Texas and Arkansas than in
Illinois and Ohio. Much might be said Of
the injustice of this supremacy. IL was easy
to write and print aphorism, even to give
them shape of legislative formulas that all
citizens are equal. Political rights as be.
tween races might be granted, defined and
decreed. but political equities could only be
adjusted by action. That action was every
where wanting; it was everywhere withheld.
The
SUPREMACY OF THE WHITE RACE
had not been brought about by force or fear.
II had not been rested or seized from Others,
but 1t had been given, granted, voluntarily
ceded to those deemed for the time most
worthy, of its possession. The man (espeo-
tally the man of the white House) who
sought to embroil the white and black races
for purpose he could not conceal, and dare
not avow, was guilty of an outrage ten-fold
greater than any of those he invented or de-
scribed. The solution Of the race problem
was process. not Of abstract speculation,
but of real experience. Wherever the peo-
pie of the different races were living peace
fully together under the same laws, members
of the same body polite, without any other
thoughts than that some must command and
others must obey, this problem was being soly-
cd. The purpose of the national election bill.
(so-called) was, 30 far as related to the south,
to wreck and destroy this pending condition
of inter radical adjustment. It proposed not
TO maintain the will of the majority. but to
overthrow it on the single issue OF race-to
make a majority of black men because they
are black; to establish government Of COM
plexion, not Of opinion. The kernel and
purpose of the pending bill was that the Law
Of the land must be suborned TO set enmity
between the white man and the black man.
The bill was not artfully framed. Its only
art was its absolute malignity. Pass this
bill and the right of the people to choose
their re- rresentatives, that right so precious
and peerless to every lover of liberty was
lost-lost beyond recovery and beyond re-
cali