The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-06-05

CI44
b,,t after the platform is made and the
nominees have been dictated to you,
the South has to come up with the Loo
votes and furnish more than half OF
the number which elects the President.
You cultivate the crop with hard work
and the North and East does all the
reaping. That is the fact, just chew
il I'D gradually. Oaughter.)
You tell me that the West and South
ought to act together. I say so too.
Rnt the West is Republican and the
South Democratic, upon old party
lines. Would you ever join the Re-
publican party9 No. Would they
ever join the Democratic partyG No.
Why3 The same reasons that keeps
YOU from ever being a Republican will
keep the Western Republican from
ever being a Democrat Therefore,
whatY You have got to found a new
party which neither has been educated
to hate, which neither does hate; a
new party which both helped to form
and to dedicate to the grand old Jefer-
sonian doctrine of equal and ecoct Jus
tice to oil men and special privileges to
none. (Applause.)
Now, there is just another question
before I close. That is this color ques-
ton. We have been scared to death
about the negro question. We have
been led to believe if we did not vote
the Democratic ticket some negro
would catch us before we got home.
The color question has been the instru-
ment of our political enslavement. The
North uses it to compel the South to
accept economic doctrines we abhor.
The Northern Democrat is az ready to
threaten you with negro domination
as a Northern Republican. I was
present in Congress when you were
threateded if you voted for free silver
you would lose their help in keeping
negro domination from the South.
Let us settle this negro question.
There is no subject upon which you
have been more misrepresented inthan
this, and there is none in which I have
been more misrepresented, and there
is none in which I have endeavored to
be more reasonable, more conservative
and more sound.
Why should there be conflict be-
tween the two colors in the South7
Why should not the Southern blacks
look upon the Southern whites as their
best. friends. (Cries of ''we do" from
the colored people presently These
people are here and they are here to
stay. They are vested with certain
rights and they are the best labor that
the Southern sun aver saw in our fields.
A negro and a mule car ONE nearer
finding a gold mine on every old
bleached and rocky hillside in Georgia
than any laborers you can bring from
Europe or the islands of the sea. A
black tenant works in the same sun
that the white. tenant tolls in; is
drenched by the same rain; is whipped
by the same winds; is chilled by the
same cold; suffers from the same dis
couragement; makes the same crops;
sells them in the same markets.; gets
the same price, and comes out at the
little end of the horn every time the
white man does. (Applause.) I can
convince every reasonable colored man
that his interests as a laborer and ten
ant and farmer are the same as those
of my white friends. The good law
that helps me will help you. The heavy
taxes that bears you down bears us
down. The low prices that leave no
money in u pockets leave none in
yours. We have grown up in this land
together; we have worked together,
suffered together, and in the days of
the war, the Southern slave took his
axe and his bed-quilt and slept before
the door of the "big house" and
guarded the ir temple with his own life.
Oheers.) If we do not teach these peo-
pie that we are their natural friends
some scalawag carpet Dagger or dema-
gogue will tell them we are their enc
mics. If we do not talk to them in
public, in the broad light of day, face
to face and foot to foot, they will be
talked to behind closed doors and their
ears filed with falsehoods to which we
have no opportunity of replying.
Let us talk to these people; let us
reason with these people. You tell me
that 1 want their votes. Grant it.
Don't you want them! daughter and
applause) Say ''yes" if you like and
then quit abusing me. Say no, if you
| dare and Won will never get any nnnro