The San Francisco call., 1898-11-15
THE RACE RIOTS.

TT HERE are ten millions of negroes in th l United States The amended constitution give
 them equality of civil rights and the franchise Whether this gift to a ong-subject wise o unwise need not be discussed now The act is fac and must be reckoned with fact
 It fact too, that IS full of present and future portent. The result of our with Spain is to give Cuba negro government Il she is to be self-govern- irg at all After the Spaniards have withdrawn three fourths of the people left will be negroes and their congeners We have sent negro regiments of our regular army a significant part of our invading force to expel Spain from the island These black regulars have risen in the scale of intelligence by the dril discipline and esprit de corps of the army. They return with their commands to their country to find their denied here the independence and equal ity which they fought to gain for it n Cuba They find stubborn rejection of the negro a voter and an offce-holder, while he is called soldier to bleed and die for these very rights of his people abroad The situation is startling It cannot be met by shutting our eyes to it. Children afraid of the dark shut their eyes, but that does end the dark ness.
 The leaders of the Cuban insurgents have been ne groes. Maceo of that race and Gomez IS San Domingo negro. Seen through the lens of our own situation the instruction in Cuba appears every day more clearly
 
 Maceo or Gomez arise in the South, at the head of armed force, proclaiming the world that they are ready to wade through slaughter to get the full rights guaranteed to them by the constitution of the United States, what we make to them and to the world?
 We do not say that white men, when they are in a minority in any State must submit patiently to the rule of black majority. We do not say that States can progress and prosper in this country under such rule But we do say that the Federal constitution gives to negro majority, everywhere n the republic the right to cast its vote, have 1t fairly counted and take and exercise the power and authority which that vote gives
 Armed intervention to establish black govern ment in Cuba has been like sun glass focused on finder throughout the South. The whites have met the issue with relentless frmness. Any of them who have not aligned with their race have been for ciby exiled from their homes and driven out of any community in which they seek refuge. These indicative of the desperate nature of the conflict What going to do about 1t? Having gone abroad to enfranchse the inferior races, going to dsfranchise inferior race at home, and leave standing in the constitution the great guarantee of its civil and political equality? The issue the whites and blacks in thirteen States but in the broader view 1t affects national attitude before the world and the soundness of our own fundamental law The Spanish war has afforded only point upon which inlpinge hope of reasonable solution The former sectional feeling and prejudice between North and South have been destroyed. There is no longer standing for it in the fear that touching he great purposes of the Union the South and North are in discord
 The race problem is separated entirely from the fermer sectional issue As related to that is new problem entirely The white leaders of the North South must face each other calmly, without passion, and discuss that problem and settle it
 The progressive consolidation of the Government, the prospective completion of that process as re- suit of our brief war, may point the way. Under consolidated Federal Government will disappear the effect of local black majority in Alabama Missis- ;ippi, Louisiana and South Carolina The question II this aspect will be between white majority Of 70 oooo GOO and black minority of Iooooooo i'll ,odated nation, under highly centralized Govern nent
 This implies the surrender by the South, and by our people everywhere, of the last vestige of State rights as founded in the Virginia and Kentucky utions of 17o8 and I7oo This surrender is likely to be the of the whole question II the centrazng revolution is turned back by aversion to that change the further question arises to the extent to which Congress can go under its constitutional grant of power to guarantee to each State republican form of government. That form is we'll settled, under our system, to government in which the majority rules by lawful expression of its will at the ballot box.
 These are the alternatives They must be consid- cred The issue must be met It must be settled If it is not will into the deepest difficulties that have yet beset the republic and their burden will be greater because of the sentiment and principle upon which we made upon Spain and the results which have followed our victory
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