Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1893-11-04
REMEMBERING THEIR PLEDGES.
The Democrats Are Keeping Faith with
the People.

The Democrats Are Keeping Faith With
the People.
The severest critic of the national
house of representatives cannot say
that the party in control is not prompt
lv tr~ansacting the business which re-
ceives its attention, or that it is show
ing any disposition to avoid q fulfill
ment OF the pledges made to the coun'
try when soliciting its Endorsement at
the polls. There was a divided senti'
ment in the house as to the disposition
which should be made of the silver
question. but a fair test of strength was
made, and, after the full hearing of
every interest, there was y vote in favor
Of repeating the purchasing clause OF
the sherman law. The Tucker bill
has also been passed by the popular
branch of congress.
This also is in pursuance OF a party
pledge, and but another evidence of a
democratic purpose to keep faith with
the people. BY over a million major
ity at the last national election, the
voters declared for that party and the
declaration OF principles embodied in
its platform. To depart from those
principles or 10 fail to give them active
operation through the laws of the land
! would be such a breach of trust as the
democracy is incapable of committing.
Aside from the fact that the party is
committed to such action, the repeal OF
the federal election laws, in so far as
they give national control in the con-
duet of state elections, is n matter of
right. ii not of constitutional require
ment The conditions which impelled
the republican party to the enactment
OF those laws have long since changed.
They have been in force for nearly a
quarter of a century, and there have
been no results to justify their exist
ence.
The republican party has been in con
troll during nearly all Of that period,
yet the unbroken testimony of their
leaders and their organs has been that
the laws were a failure. Year after
year they have proclaimed that the
negro in the south was without protec-
ton in his rights of citizenship and
have used his alleged grievance for no
higher or better purpose than cam
paign thunder. With federal control
at the polls and with the republican
power to enforce the laws, why have
these alleged outrages been permitted,
and who is to blame because they were
not suppressed? The plain truth is
that the republicans have had no use
for the colored citizen save to use him
as voting material, and if he has suf-
fered ever since the war, as they repre-
sent, it is simply that they did not care
to protect him so long as his alleged
wrongs could be thus proftably utilized.
The republican party has done prac-
tically nothing for its colored members
in the north. They are brothers and
friends only along about election time.
The great mass OF the negroes prefer the
"outrages" of the south to the repub-
lican fellowship of the north, and re-
main in that section of the union. If
the picture were as it is industriously
drawn by the republicans, this state Of
facts would not exist. The s.. o. p. has
simply used the election laws, as it has
every other element of power, to
strengthen itself in the possession of
governmental control. 1t has used an
army of men of the Davenport stripe to
man the polls and serve the party at
national elections. If such laws had a
right to exist at all it was during the
troublesome days of reconstruction,
but now all the states are upon an
equality, each is guaranteed the con-
stitutional right of conducting its own
elections, and federal intervention for
political purposes should never again
be permitted Detroit Free Press.