The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-10-20
Views and Interviews.
Will the amendment be carried?

| fit, the Republican State executive com
mittee, met Wednesday at Statewide
| and set up a mighty hit-dog howl.
| They began their pow-woW with an
address ITO the People" in which they
| resume their old trade of villifying ana
slandering those whose very names their
mouths are i'll nowise fit to pronounce.
| BY way of doxology Pritchard delivered
his old thread-bare Washington Post
ant-amendment letter as speech
There's little use wasting good white
| paper or honest black ink on either, for
there's hardly a new word or sentiment
i'll the whole outht-the Hanna-framed
speech or the mud Singing address.
The address as published in the Ashe-
Vile Gazette, that journalistic hand
maiden of North Carolina Republican
ism, begins by telling us that "a crime
is impending" 1.-THE assault has been
made" 1.-THE fight is OF" and many
other bellieose announcements, worthy
of General Otis in the Philippines.
For starter-a curtain raiser, and in
cidentaaly hair raiser-this is not bad.
But lets hurry on and see who in the
nlay is the william that still pursues her.
All. here ii is: 1.-THE Democratic party
impudently tramples in the dust its own
plighted word.
And what promise is this that is be
ing SO badly trodden under foot? The ad
dress answers not. And even If it did,
oh reader, think of the Republican party
with its long record of lying promises
nnfulflled behind it. Should its like
charge anybody with breaking a pledge?
~. a. n Ioc itt bn no.
cused Truth, or the robber Mis- called
stop Thief to honest men,
But let's have no unseemly demonstra-
ton over it. Rather let's keep our hats
on and strive for the conversational.
The address, signed by Chairman Hol-
ton for the committee, continues: The
present election law stands as an insu-
perable barrier to the honest exercise of
the elective franchise"
When, oh most noisy Radicals
most rattle-trap reformers oI
the beans and bladder kind
when did you and yours be-
come so righteous about election laws!
Such deaith-bed repentance is seldom
sincere Remember that within the
year you We're holding up an election law
far more unfair and declaring it "a
gem from the bosom of Virtue fit to
adorn the brow of justice. Comparing
what YOU now say to what you SAID
then, wouldn't the public be justlhable
in calling you tricksters. frauds OF no
consequence and witless takers to whom
falsehood and truth are of equal incon-
sequence?
But to continue our ride on the trail
Of your address: Now it turns aside,
leaves North Carolina paths to browse
about over South Carolina and Mlssiss-
ippi politics; returning half column
further down it expresses fear of dis
ruption of the Democratic party.
Crocodile tears verify. whose genuine
ness there is none to dispute. But even
this horse play is exceeded in brazenness |
by the following closing effort to bull
whip honest men into doing dishonest
thing: We are confident of the sup
port of every citizen who obeys the
promptings of an honest conscience, who
respects the sanctity of an oath.
A play on words that will deceive no.
body.
But the sum and substance of this
wordy address, when unshod Of simie, UNI
busked Of imagery or rhetoric, unclouded
of any mists of metaphor. is contained
in one paragraph, which reads thus:
sWe are convinced that the proposed
amendment is both unnecessary and I'M
constitutional We are convinced that
the new election law is utterly void and
that any proceeding under the same
will be a nullity. We are resolved to
test the validity of these measures in
the courts, and to fight them to the ut
most at the polls.
How like a former address of Pritch
ard all this baldcrdash sounds for
Pritchard writ it-writ it when he was
hot and steaming- on tip-toe,
as it were: for Pritchard knows, as every
body must know, that to have political
survival after 1900 he must defeat this
amendment. He must land-he must
reach the mark. This fight means his
future and the future Of all negro
lovers like him. For mind You it's their
last shot at the butts. Other archers an
politics, with more principle and more
Anglo-Saxon loyalty, may, in other years
to come, pull other arrows to the head
and shoot for the prize. But to fail
next August means that these negro
lovers will never twang party bowstring
again.
And hence this beating the tom-tom
of the bursted past in Statesville on
Wednesday.
Ald. now, oh people, word to you.
These folk are led by selhshness. They
seek to hitch their wagons to your star;
not for your good but theirs. They
hunger personally for office.
Once long ago, when a French prin-
cess was told how the dead body of a
Capuchin monk had been eaten by rats,
she threw up her hands and exclaimed
ingenuously, Horror, what terrible
thing is hunger" Yet the hunger of the
rats is as naught compared to the ter
rible hunger for place and notoriety
which gnaws at these conspirators who
in the name of ''Ihe People of North
Carolina strut disadvantageously UP
and down seeking to use white voters as
cats-paws to pull negro votes out of the
Disfranchsement fire.
Revenue Collector Duncan, who at
tended the meeting, said yesterday that
all the members of the committee, with
two or three exceptions, were pres
ent.
"And even the absent ones" he add
ed sent letters.