The Opelousas courier., 1896-03-21
The Reign of Violence Inaugurated.
New Orleans Daily States.

When Capt. Pharr, in a speech in the
town of Washington, in St. Landry par
ish. advised the Republicans to 20 to
the polls armed, defend themselves
against fraud and tho negroes in their
right to vote, he turned loose the worst
and most feroclous passions that in
t1uence men in elections.
We do not really believe that Cap
tain Pharr intended to provoke violence
and boodshed; we do him that mucl,
credit. We think he was only deficient
in sense and judgment: We think
only that he was indulging in mock
heroics We think he was simply bluff
fling. But unhappily he was as a fool
ish boy lighting matches in powder
magazine. His advice or his order has
already borne bitter fruit right in the
parish in which he made it.
Blood has been shed in Opelousas
and more is likely to flow. The fac
tions are wrought up to the fighting
pitch. 1t will not take much to tnrn
hell loose over there.
The negro vote is the bone of cOnten-
tion. The white supremacy Democrats
are determined that the negroes shall
not control the elections, and they have
taken active means to deter the illite-
rate negro mass from registering. The
other faction, composed of self-styl led
Democtats, but who are largely for
Pharr, are resolved to register and vote
the negroes, and by their votes decide
the election In St. Landry. Thus the
war has begun just as Capt. Pharr di-
rected, and over the negro vote, just
as he suggested. For every drop of
Capt. Pharr is and will be responsible.
fThiS has paaco1 to ha on isouo hat
Foster and Pharr, and become an is
sue between the white and negro race.
1t is folly to think of permitting the
one hundred thousand negro votes to
hold and exercise the balance of power
in Nlis or any other election in Louisi-
ana! Every stream and valley will run
red aqe that can be done. Yet that is
what She Sugar Teat- Niger Populist
combine and its leaders, with Pharr at
their head, have set out to do and are
endeavoring to do. This is not d fact
growing out of any spirit of lawless-
ness, or violence, or brutality, or enmi-
ty to the negro race. 1t is fact that
grows out Of the infallible and irrever-
sible law of Almighty God who has
planted the race prejudice between
the white and the black, and who has
made the first the controlltfs and gov
ernors of men and the latter the hew-
ers of wood and drawers of water.
The Saxons, the BrtOns. the Nor
mans and the Scandinavians fought for
supremacy over every foot OF the
soil of England and stepped every clod
OF earth in blood, and the conflict of
races continued until the races were
amaIgamated into one homogeneous
body. But these were all of the white
race, and it was in accord with Natures
law that they should amalgamate.
No such ANAL gamation can take place
between the masses of the whites
and the masses of the negroes. If
it could, it would be calamity to civ
ilization and humanity. In such case
the Southern people would become
race of mulattoes, and civilization, pro-
gress and free institutions would dis
appear from our midst. In race assim-
iiatioDs the higher does not lift up to
it's own level the inferior race-it is the
inferior race that drags down the high
er. Hence, there can come out of our
Southern conflict of rsces no such re-
suit as was produced rn England, and
50 long as the negro struggles for social
equality and the political right to par
ticipate in government, until one or the
other is cxtinguished or driven out,
gle, extirpation or final banishmcnt
will inevitably be the fate of the unfor-
tunate negro.
Cruel, brutal in the extreme, then,
are those white men who, without the
slightest interest in or sOlicitude for
the interest or welfare of the negro,
seek, through his ignorance and pas
sions, to rally him again to active par
ticipation in a field where he Is infe-
rior, in which he can hope for nothing,
and in which he must excite the fierce
hostility of those who can and will
crush him at any and all hazards.
Men who tell us that the franchise
was accorded the negro to enable him
to protect his liberties, talk like fools.
The franchise in the hands of iIliterates,
especially iliiterate blacks, is certain
to InjIre, if not destroy, the liberties of
a country. The franchise was bestowed
upon the negro, not for his benefit, but
to enable the Republican party to
scourge, plnnder aud trample upon the
people of the conquered South. Ac-
cursed be the Southern white man
who forgets or ignores this fact. But
before the resolute hearts, before ehe
preserve his liberties and the party of
his birth and blood, the scourge has fall
en- impotent, and the poor negroes, the
poor creatures who were to be made the
instruments of this damnable scheme,
have beeu the real victims OF the ter
rible crime they were to be instrument
al in perpetuating upon the people and
the civilization OF the South.
Such talk is folly from another stand
point. Nojuster observation was ever
made by that Italian statesman, Machi-
avelli, than that it is as impossible to
educate an inferior and servile race in
to free people as it is to reduce free
race into il condition of slavery. There
is not one chapter or one line 10 the his
tory of the negro race to indicate that
he has any of the qualifications Of cit
izen OF free, enlightened, and Repub-
lican government. Hence, every effort
to force him into that position is u
wrong and a danger to him, and an out
rage upon civilization and free govern.
ment. All such efforts on the part of
the old carpet -baggers and scala
wags have long since proved the truth
ofwLlat we say and have been abandoned.
The only fruit they bore was sorrow
and suffering and bloodshed to the poor
negro and disorder to the business and
industries of the country. The effort
has been given up. in every Southern
State except Louisiana. Even many of
the leading men in tue Republican par
ty having seen the terrible mistake that
was made in bestowing the franchise
upon the mass of ignorant negroes are
in favor of the abrogation of the Fiji
teenth Amendment to the Constitution,
the worst and most disastrous of the
bayouet amendments.
The responsibility for the the trouble
and the blood that has been shed in st.
Landry the responsibility for the ex-