The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1898-03-10
SUFFRAGE.

most important subjects which en-
cages it's attention is that of suff-
rage 1t seems probable that there
will be adopted an ordinance restrict
ing the franchise to those who can
read and write, or, in case of litter
ates, to those who own in their own
name, or who represent in behalf OF
their wives, children, or wards, tax
able property assessed at from three
hundred to five hundred dollars, thus
providing educational or property
qualifications, one or the other, as
prerequisites to the exercise of the
franchise.
The agitation of the subject by the
Louisiana Convention is attracting
the attention of some of the North
ern papers, who see in it an effort to
curtail negro suffrage and who are
/ always ready to gush over anything
which, in their conception, tends to
, abridge the privileges of the negro
| that is so long as these writer's are in
one end of the country and the negro
is in the other end. Whenever Sambo
pushes his privileges to the extreme
limit, however, at the North, it
| brings the matter so close to these
distance-sympathizers that now and
| then they are unable to restrain a
protest. 1t always makes a differ
ence as to whose OK has been gored.
These "Uncle Toms Cabin" fellows
| put us in mind of the Southern Re -
publicans, who delight in prating in
| forensic style that all men are born
free and equal aud entitled to all the
rights of citizenship without regard
to race or color or previous condi-
| tioa of servitude, and all that, and
yet when all this blabber is sifted
through the sieve OF truth it is found
that they mean that the negro
should be permitted to vote to his
hearts content, "early and often,"
in lifting the white Republican to
good seat at the pie counter, but
when it comes to giving the negro
office line is drawn there against his
freedom and equality. He isn't in it
then. Oh, mol It would injure the
party to place a colored man in this
Office or that and nothing must be
done to hazard the future of the
party-to hazard the chances of the
white Republican again riding to the
emoluments of Office upon the
shoulders of the negroes. And the
, negro, in his blind devotion to party,
continues a newer of wood and
drawer of water for his oily tongued
political task master.
Upon the subject of the curtailment
of negro suffrage, the Boston herald
comments at length and among
other things declares that the estab-
lishment of negro suffrage after the
war was designed for the protection
of those who had been In slavery.
The Richmond Dispatch fatty con-
tradicts this statement in the follow
| ing forceful words:
''Negro suffrage was the offspring
of malignity and greed. 1t was put
| upon the South in order to perpetu-
ate the power of the Republican
| party and enable the cormorants of
that party to glut themselves on
what of substance the war had left
US. Its authors cared nothing for
the protection" OF the negro then
and they have cared nothing for it
since. They know that the southern
whites were the negroes best friends,
yet in order to the carrying out of
their programme of keeping the Re-
publican grip on the throat of the
nation and sucking the life blood
out of the South, they labored in
season and out of season to stir up
and keep alive race feeling.
The entire history of the Republic
can party's dealing with the negro
brands as the veriest hypocrisy the
contention of that party that the
negroes were given the ballot for
their protection in any manner,
shape or form. 1t was given to them
in order to make them slaves of the
Republican party, humiliate the
| southern whites, and make the work
of carpet-bag and scalawag plumber
ing the easier. Whatever may be
the future OF negro suffrage, it's past
is written down indelibly as one of
the greatest travesties upon states
manship the world has ever known
and as one of the greatest political
crimes eyer committed"
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDING
A feature of the New Orleans Carni-
val which attracts the ''trippers of
the light fantastic" as well as many
admirers of gorgeous, spectacular
scenes, are the balls connected With