The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-09-11
THE REPUBLICAN SCARE CR0W7-THE LAW
ON SUFFRAGE


publican managers and their allies.
Their exposure in one false statement
has no effect whatever except to cause
them TO invent another lie. which they
hone to make uneducated voters accept
as the truth.
Jnon the issues of the campaign the
managers already see that they are de-
feated, and they have been driven to
their wits end to shift the issue to some
false plane upon which they can deceive
the people.
They no longer appeal to men who can
read, because they know that all who
have read the details of the infamous
record they have made will vote for a
change. but they insult the intelligence
of those men who were denied the adj
vantages of an education by presuming
that they can be induced to vote to con
time negro rule by falsely telling them
that if the Democrats win this year they
will never he allowed to vote again.
They have scattered this lie broad cast
over the State, and in every neighhor-
hood they send their agents to the
homes of the unlettered and say: IF
the Democrats carry the State this year
they will disfranchise every man who
cannot read and write" They presume
that the man who cannot read has not
had access TO the usual sources of in
formation and that this false plea will
be difficult to counterfeit, because the
uneducated man has not read the papers.
They also argue that the unlettered man
is very jealous of his political privilege,
and that if they can make him suspect
any attempt to deprive him of his rights
to vote. they can, by an appeal to his
desire for the political rights that in
here in his manhood, secure his vote for
negro domination and continued corrup-
ton in government.
The Republican leaders are spreading
broadcast this latest lie in the vain hope
that the unlettered will believe it. They
show thereby that they do not under
stand the intelligence of the uneducated
voters in North Carolina. The late la
mented. Hon. Joseph j. Davis, one of
the best and ablest men of his day, al
ways maintained that an uneducated
North Carolina voter understood the
principles of the government, and the
questions at issue better than many
well educated men in other sections. He
attributed this to the fact that in hardly
any other State did the people attend
courts and public speakings so much as
the people of North Carolina, and listen
so attentively to the discussions. He
said that this habit sharpened their in
tellect and made them much better post
ed upon public questions than Northern
men who knew how to read, write and
cipher. The Republicans who arc now
appealing to the unedueated upon the
know lie from the truth are preparing
themselves for a rude awakening in No
vember Though deprived of the priv
iIege of reading of the crimes and incom-
potency that mark this administration,
the unlettered voter is very far from be-
ing ignorant In most cases a son or a
daughter reads the news to him, and
when that is not the case he hears 1t
talked among his neighbors and ac-
quaintances, and he has treasured the
facts in his mind and knows more of the
scandals and shortcomings Of Radical
Gated white neighbors. He knows, too,
that his interest and his destiny are
linked with his own, and not the negro
race, and that the future of his children
is dependent upon white supremacy. dc
knows that this is true of the unedu'
Gated white man even more than of hie
more fortunate neighbor, for if bad ne
gro rule continues the scholar can leave
the State and go elsewhere, while the
poor and uneducated have not the means
with which to seek new homes.
The Republicans have forgotten anoth
er thing when they appeal to the unlet
tered men by false threat to vote fol
negro domination. They have forgot
ten that in almost every instance the
uneducated man is ambitious in life
chiefly for his children. He will make
sacrifices for their education, of which
the wealthy know little or nothing
They have forgotten that he is bearing
burdens to educate them and give then
a position in life which has been denie'
to him. He knows that their chanc'
to rise in the world is impeded by negr'
rule or by the rule of any party tina
relies chiefly upon the negro vote. And
| if he had. no other reason for support
ing the Democratic ticket, his ambition
4 4 e.:..ka do haks xdQrE