Daily inter mountain., 1900-12-05
DIsFRANCHIsEMENT In THE
SOUTH.

Yesterday the Inter Mountain present.
ed some phases of the disfranchsement
that has been accomplished in the south
by means of amendments to the state
constitutions. The shame of the thing
is evidently appreciated by some south
erners, for the Paducah, Kentucky, Sun
says:
There are constant changes in the
suffrage law. Some apply to all ques-
tons, others to specific questions. Some
apply to states, some to municipalities,
but in our section the changes all look
in the same direction, to the same eX-
tent, and have the one purpose, the null
LITIGATION of the fifteenth amendment
under the forms of law; the disfranchise-
ment in the south. These dsfranchis-
ing acts are all by democratic legisla-
lures. They are acts passed and signed
and enforced, as Ben Tilman says, by
buldozing, browbeating, horsewhipping
and shooting voters into the humor to
refrain from voting, or into voting with
the nullitiers. These laws come from,
originate in, and are found only IN
Southern states
These being facts, it seems that the
second section of the fourteenth consti-
tutional amendment is fully come. 1t
seems that the notification sentiment is
now taking on rapid growth; that the
seeming Indifference of national officials
has encouraged the nullifers, and in a
few years more the example of the
southern democracy will have spread
until in many states heretofore exempt
from these frightful forms of diSfran-
chisement all except the elect will have
been robbed. under the forms of law"
of all participation in governmental af-
fairs.
Tolerance has been indulged with the
hope that southerners would see the er-
ror of their way and correct their own
conduct that the better Judgment of the
thinking element would set straight the
crooked things, but worse evil treads on
heels of lesser evil SO thick and fast
they follow till it now seems time for
action was at hand Representation in
congress is to be apportoned and the
| basis should be shifted from population
to votes recorded and counted. There
isn't point of view from which such a
shifting would not be absolutely just.
The states OF sections losing representa-
ton would be without cause for COM
plant while states gaining would get
| only what was due them. One district
| in Ohio has cast and recorded as many
votes as the whole state of Missssippi
| or Alabama at same election for cong
| ressman. 1t is not just that one of
| those states, casting no greater vote
! than a district in another state, should
| have eleven and the district one cong
! reSSman.
1t is true that these acts of disfran-
| cEisement by the state may be just, that
the disfranchised are justly deprived of
a voice, that the locality best knows the
worthy and the unworthy: but it is
also true if a state has large class of
the unworthy. that it is unjust that nu-
merous unworthy citizens should have
wider and fuller representation than
worthy citizens, or that a mass of un.-
worthy citizens entities the good among
them to a member of congress for fewer
people. 1t is certainty that if the av-
erage of the tabulated vote for five
years alone decided the extent of repre-
sentation that the vote of many Southern
states would quickly grow or congress
representation quickly shrink, and 1t is
safe to predict, with the we'll known Gag.
erness for official pie entertained in the
south, that the ballot would achieve q
freedom not lately known. Give us 3
J literal enforcement of section two Of The