The Seattle Republican. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1???-1915, 1900-08-10
THE NORTH SHOULD ACT.

representation from the South De
one Of the first acts congress takes
Up and passes when it convenes in
december. At present Mississippi,
louisiana, South Carolina and
North Carolina have legally disfran-
chised half Of their voters within its
borders who bears the brand Of Cain.
Ii half the voters Of those states are
not permitted to vote, then it is
wholly unfair for those states to get
representation in congress for a
numerical vote which they them
selves declare they have not got. No
Northern Republican in congress
will be true to his country, true to
his cause or true to himself, if ne
does not stand up and vote to reduce
the congressional representation
from the Southern states at least
one-half of what it now is.
We believe that Northern state
conventions would do the wise and
proper thing to pass resolutions in
structing their congressional nomi-
nees to work and vote for such a
measure. The Acknowledgement laws
in the South are aimed and directed
against the Negro voters and by no
meane against the il1iterate voters.
The Negro in the South will never
get intelligent enough to vote from
g Democratic standpoint, though the
wisdom Of Solomon himself be given
to each and every one Of them, and
the Caucasians will never get too ig-
norant to vote, though great major
ity Of them so lapse into illiteracy
that they cannot mark their own bal
lets. Now, since the Negro can ex,
pect to gain nothing by having this
matter of cutting down the base Of
representation from the South long
Ell deferred, he should ask his Repub-
lican friends at the North to strike a
body blow at the monster that is re-
sponsible for the condition and the
laws which have taken from him his
constitutional rights.
Neither Mississippi nor Alabama
casts as many votes as does the state
OF Washington, and yet each Of those
states has nine members in congress
two senators and seven members
Of the lower house-while Washing
ton has but four members of con-
gfess-tWO senators and two lower
house members. AS in Washington,
so in every other Northern state, it
requiring twice the number Of voters
in the North to get a congressman
as in the South. Statesmen from the
North have been hoping against
hope that the voters one and all
would get fair shake at the ballot
box down there, but they can but see
the futility Of such a hope, as South
ern states go bravely on disfranchis-
ing Negro voters. There must be a
remedy for all this. There is a rem
edy for such public high-handedness,
and the remedy is to reduce the num-
Der of congressman from the section
that disfranchises voters for no other
reason than to reduce them to form
of moderate slavery. If the Negro is
to be partially disfranchised then so
lcng as he remains in the South let
him be wholly without representa-
ton. No taxation without repre-
sentation," is a fundamental prin-
ciple of this great government, and
when the South demands represen-
tation for men whom she declares
are not men in her state govern
ments, then it wants to tax the
North without giving the North rep
resentation. Just why the Negro
opposes such a measure is to us a
quandry, and we trust he will flood
the coming congress with petitions
from every section Of the United
States, asking that this matter of
cutting down the representation in
congress from the South be not de-
ferred another session longer, but be