The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-09-05

GERS. Salaries have been increased and
offices multiplied. Political railroads
have dominated legislation, and secured
all they wanted. There hasn't been IL
measure that approaches reform that has
been the product of the parties now in
control of all departments of govern
ment. When we turn to the admn;stra-
ton of Federal affairs in North Caro- ina,
| the condition is even more disgraeefu
No man of the dominant party can get
even tenth rate postoffce unless he
wears the collar of the Southern Rail
way, which political corporation domin-
ates the dispenser of patronage for North
! Carolina. Honorable high toned men
are turned out-and we do not com
plain of that-to make place for men
who, as rule, have no other fitness
than subserviency to Pritchard and the
corporation that made him and elected
him to the Senate.
1t is impossible to overstate the de-
plorable evils that hang like pail over
triotic man in the State who Is not
ashamed Of the evil conditions that have
fallen upon us. IL it continues, tn,
bankrupt State Treasury will greatly in
jurc the standing of the State
in the whole world. Bad, how
ever as is the extravaganza
and bribery, these are small things
compared with the lowering Of our civil
izaton to a plane that makes woman's
lives a dread and emboldens brutes to
nameless deeds of outrage. Whenever the
ignorant, brutal negro thinks his party is
i'm power, he thinks he has license. There
is no permanent quiet condition possible
in the South with the negro, or the negro
party in power.
1t is not because any man or set of
men want to raise the race issue that
white Supremacy" is the foremost is
sue in North Carolina. 1t has not been
raised. 1t has raised itself in the pres
ence of the menace that rests over
Anglo-Saxon civilization. 1t is not d.
rected at Furnishing anybody. 1t does
not seek to injure any negro, but to
help the best Of the race 1t is not to
delay any reform, but to open way
for real reform. 1t is not a proscrip-
tive but a cry of general
amnesty. 1t is not even po-
litical. in the strictest sense of
the word. 1t is merely a question of
self-protection, and the continuation of
Anglo-Saxon civilization. 1t cannot be
side-tracked, or put one side, or delayed.
1t forces itself to the front because the
evil of negro government already has
it's deadly hand upon the throat of the
Commonwealth. Until that hand is re-
moved and the State can be freed from
the debasing grasp of bad government,
it is idle to talk Of securing any re-
form or any betterment in government.
Men who depend upon negro votes for
election are almost always the tools of
corporate power, or any other sort of
power that pays for votes. The man
who wants to effect reforms and the
man who wants justice done alike to
corporations and individuals, is COMPEL
ed to appeal to the white voters of the
State to bury the past and regain con-
troll Of government. 1t is the only
hope of decent, fair and honest rule.
He is the wisest man among US who
can secure the unity Of the white men
Of the State. For ourselves, there is
no sacrifice consistent with honr we
would not make to weld together again
the men who stood shoulder to shoulder
from the day they responded to Vance's
appeal to the evil hour of division in
1892. There must be way. 1t will
open to us if we seek it for the redemp-
ton of the State, and not for selfish ad
vancement of offce-holders.
1t has not escaped public attention
that, not content with enjoining the
strikers from free speech and free locom-
I'D IN ;,so