The Forrest City times., 1892-07-08
The South and the Force BIn.


 Exchange.
 The New York Sun has a tolerably clear perception of the issues of this campaign, for all it's political eccentrici- ties and the savagery of it's personal hate for Mir. Cleveland. It says:
 The tariff is very important subject, no doubt. So is silver. So is the civil service. So, too, is liquor prohibition. So is the personal character of the re- spective candidates; and so are their antecedents and peculiarities.
 But there is another issue so much more vital, so much more important, so much more inevitable in it's opera tion, so much more effective in it's ap- peal 10 the intellect and the heart of the voter, that while it remains alive it towers above all other issues, actual or even possible, as the highest Andes towers above the sea beach below their base, or the poison of the rattlesnake surpasses in deadly menace the infec- tion Of the itch.
 Shall the white people of the South ern states be subjected, through q Force law, to the horror and the humiliation of negro rule?
 Shall the elections everywhere be controlled by federal overseer5 backed by federal troops?
 These are the two sides of this all- absorbing, all-overshadowing question. Beside it the tariff is trifle, the silver question a farce, the qualifications of the candidates mere meaningless fig ment.
 No more momentous, no more peril- ouS issue was ever rendered to the American people by bes0tted and de- luded party. Secession itself was not more pregnant with mischief. Noth- ing else should be thought of until this supreme issue framed by folly and pro- posed by madness, has been killed at the. polls and put to rest forever!
 To the people of the South there is no question which in it's importance approaches the deadly peril which menaces them in the fixed determina- tion of the Republican party to subject them by force bills to the ignorant and vicious rule of the negro. To the peo- pie of the whole country, indeed, it is q question of the greatest importance, one which should dwarf all others into insignificance, because it means the rule of bayonets instead of ballots and the death of liberty in this country. But it is brought home to the people of the South in way that makes them peculiarly alive to the dread signific- ance of republican victory.i in this campaign. The force bill was con- ceived and framed as a measure of hate against the South and as a meas ure of greed for the tariff barOns of the North. It has behind it all the inspira- tiOn and all the force and power that slstains republicanism: all the sectional malignancy which seeks to s'pinish," !" humiliate and degrade the Southern people and all the greed of corporate monopoly which hopes thereby to dis arm the intelligent voter of the South who stands in powerful rebellion against this rule of robbery. It is the first-named motive which is the most obvious, but the second is none the less present. The New York Tribune, while the bill was under consideration. declared that there was the potency of a hundred tariff bills' in such a law. And it spoke the truth. Let the South be thrown prOstrate and bound hand and foot; let the Republican party be armed with the machinery provided for in the force bill, and it will bo ready to meet and overcome any popu- lar protest against it's policy. The pro tective tariff will fasten it's bloody fangs yet deeper into the peoples flesh. and every form and method of plunder- ing the many for the few will be f0rti- fled behind law which will make popular majorities an object of con- tempt. The force bill has in it the potency of woes unnumbered for all the people, for it means the destruction of self-goyernment.
 But we doubt whether it is possible to make people in the North. even those who are friendly disposed to the South, understand the oyershadowine importance of this issue. They seem to regard it as matter which concerns only the Southern people, and any Op- position upon their part is given as matter of sympathy. They could not be trusted to unite with the South in common effort to defeat this iniquity if their own interests were supposed to be put in peril by another issue. It is this consideration which makes it necessary for the Democratic party to proceed circumspectly and with caution. To the South the defeat of the Demo- cratic party means something more than the defeat of policies of finance or of reforms in taxation. 1t means the passage of laws for the overthrow of white supremency and the extinction of political freedom. It means a con- dition of political, social and industrial confusion, in which the hope of material prosperity will perish with the liberty of the citizen. Democratic victory, therefore, is for the South supreme necessity; and what amazing folly, to call it by no uglier name, it is for Southern men to seek to defeat the Democratic party because it has re- fused to burden itself with an issue which would mean certain defeat. No candid, well-informed man doubts that for the Democratic party to under take to carry free silver coinage would be for it to throw away all hope of vic- tory. It would accomplish nothing for the party, nothing for free coinage, nothiQg for tariff reform. The Demo- cratic party might as well enact force bill at once as to go into this contest handicapped by such an issue.
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