The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1897-06-19

Oft the remaining 81, 1Sa colored voters of
the State not resident in the counties above
enumerated, 1879 are in the city of Balti
more, where, having been held together as a
party machine to do the bidding of the white
bosses who have assumed the political pro-
prietorship of them, they have constituted a
dangerous factor in the problem of good gov
ernment in the city. But it is one of the
healthy and encouraging signs of the times
that these colored voters of the city, many of
whom have passed out of the class of litter
ateS and whose environment is such as not
longer to tolerate the false teaching of race
prejudice on the part Of their self constituted
bosses, are just now manitesting disposition
to assert their manhood and emancipate their
race from further blind subserviencv to the
selfish interests of few white men. This
movement is encouraging to the cause of good
government in the city and throughout the
State, and should have the sanction and sup
port of honorable men. Should the colored
voters of the city refuse longer to serve as a
catSpaw to further the ambitious and selfish
purposes of their white leaders and assert
their manhood es independent citizens. their
example would be encouraging 10 colored
men in the counties to break away from the
bondage of race prejudice which has been
fastened upon them to their own great injury
as we'll as the injury of good government in
the counties and in the State at large.
-
The extent to which the feeling of race
prejudice has been excited in the minds of
the colored people in communities where
they are thickly settled, and the measures
reserted to for that purpose might seem in
credible to many people i'll sections of the
State where the colored population is an in
significant factor; but the fact as well as the
means employed will be attested by reliable
citizens in the counties where the work is
done. The sentiment has been sown broad
cast that Negro who votes the Democratic
ticket is a ''traitor to his race T. This is the
ordinary expression, and il conveys to the
mind of the colored population in the rural
districts the idea Of an unpardonable crime of
high degree. This sen timent has been cul-
tivated at midnight meetings and the spiritual
advisers of the colored people are largely
depended upon TO give this kind of temporal
advice. This sentiment has taken an especial
hold upon the Imagination of the women, and
they evlnce the most remarkable and extreme
zeal in its enforcement, and their services are
relied upon for that purpose. So that 1t is
now a fact notorious enough to have come to
the knowledge of all, that the colored vote of
the State is to all iutentS and purposes ma
ing to represent the Republican party, re-
gardless entirely of the record of that party,
National State or county, or the economic
or other principles for which it stands. The
only exceptions to that rule have been pointed
out in the case of the we'll meaning colored
voters i'll many of the counties, who, yielding
to the influence of their white neighbors, had
become accustomed to cast secret vote for
the Democratic ticket, wholly unknown to
their partisan bosses, and thereby escape the
odium and the penalties of the crime of being
TRAITORS to their race AS has been shown,
this avenue of escape has been deliberately
cut off by a trick in the Republican election
law, which subjects the illiterate voters to the
unrestricted espionage of the Republican
leaders in every voting precinct of the State
A glance at the cold facts revealed by the
above statistical table proves at once that the
whole stock in trade of the Republican party
in Maryland consists of the unbroken ranks
of the fifty-odd thousand colored voters of
the State, maintained as political machine
This machine broken, and the Republican
party in Maryland, as i'll every other Southern
State would sink into immediate and absolute
insignfcance. Were the Negro vote divided
evenly, or at all, between the two political
parties, as it ought to have done long ago and
would have done under the normal condi-
tions and the II 900 white men in sixteen
counties, who are now vested with the power
ofnaming majority of the law making branch
of the State government, would at once be-
come an entirely insignificant factor in the
politics in which they reside. The untounded
and most unwarranted race prejudice against
the white men of the South, which has been
instiled into the minds of the coored popu-
laton, is the foundation stone upon which
the whole superstructure of the Republican
party of this State rests. No party resting
upon such an insecure and vicious Foundation
as this is capable of dealing with the affairs
and administering the government of a great
and progressive State like Maryland. When
we consider its composition and !he false
foundation upon which II rests, there is an
abundant explanation of the fact that the ad-
minstration of State affairs by that party has
proven to be so absolutely irresponsible to the
enlightened public sentiment which sustans
the material interests of the State. Its ire
sponsiveness is the natural and inevitable re-
suit of its responsibility. Deriving its pow;
er. not from the consent of the enlightened
public opinion or the material interests of
the State. but holding it IN defiance of both,
the rule of the Republican party in Mary land
must be, as it has been in the other Southern
States. simply ruinOus.