The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1892-10-14
"MlRABlLE DlcTu."

The Force Bill Issue Is Dead-Alabama
Bourbons Solicit and Doubly Count Negro
Votes.
The peoples party has accomplished
b one short campaign what the repub-
1cans have been unable to bring about
N twenty-five years of strenuous eff
Tort. The negroes in Alabama voted
their full strength, dividing their vote
between the democratic and peoples
party. giving most of them to the demo-
:rats. The democratic party made
rantic appeals to the negroes to vote
their ticket, assuring them of demo-
sratic love, respect and fair treatment.
This practically eliminates from the
campaign the issue so confidently relied,
upon as potential factor by the bour-
bon leaders in the southern states. The
force bill issue is dead. While the ma
tional leaders of the democracy are
pushing the force bill issue to the front
the bourbons of Alabama are soliciting
the votes of the negroes and duplicat-
ing such votes in the count. Deserted
by large majority of its white voters,
The democratic party'in Alabama falls
back upon the negro vote for little
longer lease of life. Instructed from
headquarters to talk force bill and yell
negro supremacy, they attest their own
hollow insinccrity by voting the negroes
In full force
So astonishing and complete has been
this political metamorphosis that the
democratic party in Alabama is to-day
essentially a party of negroes, con-
trolled by few old line democratic
politicians. The rank and file of the
voters of the state, except the few who
are republicans, are now enrolled in
the peoples party, which has an over
whelming majority of the white votes
Of the state.
when Greek meets Greek, then
comes the tug Of war" So long as the
bourbon machine had only handful of
white republicans and ahorde of igno-
.ant, cowed and inundated negroes to
deal with, it was an easy matter to
show, as vas done in 1890, total vote
of only 1873, S41 with a democratic plu-
Fality of $4,000 in state which has a
voting population of 100000, at least
l25,o0C. of whom are negroes. But when
It comes to counting out or intimidating
almost the whole of the rank and file
Of the heretofore democratic vote, who
do not fear the scarecrow force bill and
who understand the hollow hypocrisy
Of the yell Of negro supremacy" we
ind the bosses frantically appealing to
the negroes to save the party from an
utilization and not only counting negro
votes, but counting more of them than
there are negroes to cast them.
When the smoke of the battle shall
have lifted, it will be found that the
peoples party has carried the state Of
Alabama and has accomplished that
which the republican party has pro-
fessed an earnest desire to have DONE
It has broken the phalanx of the solid
democratic south and has not only
caused the negro vote to be cast and
counted, but by dividing such vote has
destroyed the menace of NEGRO SUI
premacy." This should give republic
IN journals cause for jubilation.
Strangely enough, however, the parti-
san republican press prefers to belittle
and minimize the movement and sue
cess of the peoples party in the south.
ern states, for fear of stimulating to re
newed hope and exertion the populists
in the tottering republican states OF
The northwest Thus does partisan
ship smother the public conscience and
sacrifice principle for party advantage.
George C. Ward, in Kansas City MOI
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