New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-06-04

In the above tabulation the Border States
excluded, because in all of them the negroes are
left measurably free to vote, and they are gen.
orally out in full strength In North Carolina,
and in portions of Tennessee also. they
have heretofore polled fair percentage of their
because there is intimidation, while III
a section of West Tennessee there is more or
less of it. and doubtless trickery in the counting
The negro vote in Tennessee is steadily grow
ing smaller
AMENDMENTS OF LITTLE AVAIL.
The new tangled process by which the negro
population has been deprived of its right of
suffrage has been so nsidiously managed to
effect it's purpose without particularly disquiet-
ing the moral sense OF the country 1t
therefore found much easier and at the same
time more effective than wholesale murder
There is old axiom that Dead men tell
tales" but the hecatombs of murdered negroes
in the South during the reconstruction days
futed this because they told story which
aroused the horror and antagonism of the whole
world and made the accomplishment of the
Southern design the difficult Under the
milder CONSTITUTIONAL plan of disfranchise-
ment, after the abandonment of systematic vio-
lence as a means TO the desired end, a strong
Northern sentiment gradually developed in favor
of letting the South Just the negro question to
suit itself Many earnest Republicans who favor
universal suffrage. after the harassments of a
thirty years fruitless struggle, eventully weak
ened and adopted this view. This change was a
great stumbling block to any National action for
the enforcement of the negro amendments to the
Constitution. Herein is the cunning and danger
of the mississippi plan to override the Consti-
tuition. The Republican party has been practi-
cally forestalled in it's efforts to protect the
southern negroes in their rights of suffrage. In
fact, IT was beaten by this Internal mississippi
plan"
AN INJUSTICE TO THE NORTH
Gradually. however, the rest of the country
with 1921 974 inhabitants who vote In perfect
liberty, began to perceive in the effects of the
mississippi plan" and still more glazing
injustice to themselves than the suppression of
the black vote elsewhere. 1t was found that
by this Mississippi trick a579107 white people
in eleven Southern States had representation
in the Congress based upon a population of
15,100.276: That is to say, its black population
of 6,121 ,169, without any voice In the elections
represented in the House by thirty-fve
Congressman, and in the choice of a President
these blacks threw thirty electoral votes
solidly over every time for candidate to whom
they were bitterly opposed, who stands
votes for the very system which is deprvng
them of this right to vote.
Therefore there is a revival of interest in this
old tnreaGbaFe problem of white supremacy in
the South Even the Northern people. who
have Enthusiastically winked at the new process
OF silencing the black vote, the easygong
theory that there two sides to this race
issue are disquieted to find that in settling it
sin their own way" the Southerners are max
ing 1t the means to cheat honest electors else
where out of their due weight in the decision of
Presidential elections. and the determining of
important questions of legislation. The fraud
will even have direct bearing in determining
the result of the coming Kansas City Demo-
cratic National Convention. In other words
supremacy at the South on the present ratio of
representation involves far more than the local
right of self government, far more than a mere
question of sociology. II reaches out into the
whole realm of National affairs. and concerns
the citizen be he Democrat, Republican, Popu-
list or Prohibitlonist, in New-York in Penn
sylvania and in Missouri deeply and directly
in some particulars as the Mississippian the
South Carolinian
REPRESENTATION ON NEGRO BASIS
The eleven States of the South now have nine
ty members of the House, almost exactly one
quarter of the whole body, and one vote in the
coming Electoral College for every one of these
Representatives.. On the present ratio of
Representative for every 113 600 people their
white population of 9,579, 107 would entitie them
to only fiftyfve members of Congress. The diff
ference Of thirty-fve in their favor is based on
the blacK populauOn, winch in tWo-thirdS of
the States has no voice whatever in their
choice, and very little in the others, and that
little will soon be silenced. 1t will undoubtedly
be almost completely sienced in the forthcom-
ing Presidential election. A little figuring
proves that the average aggregate vote cast for
Congressman in all the districts of the six
Northern States of California, Kansas Mis-
souri,. Ohio, Newly and New-Jersey is
81 200, and this is about the average in all the
thirty-four States of the North. including the
five border States mentioned above These fig
ures based on the Congress election returns
of 1898. That year the highest average
in the South was in North Carolina
which 330,SS6 votes for candidates
for Congress, average in the nine dis
tricts OF 80 1863 practically that of the Northern
States. Texas came next, with 319,S70 votes in
districts. AS the negroes form only one-ffth of
the population of Texas there has been no fear
OF their dominating the whites nevertheless the
vote shows that they permitted to par
ticipate in elections to any large extent. The
elections have always been fairer in North Caro-
lima than in any other Southern State: the long
coalition of the Populists and Republicans which
carried considerable majority of the white
element OF the State, has served to protect and
encourage the negroes. But the leaven of the
mississippi plan has begun to work in
the old North State, demonstrated by
the great falling off in the Republican vote in
1899 caused by the Wilmington intimidation"
outbreak. That was the preliminary Democratic
step toward the introduction of the mississippi
plan"
FEW VOTES CAST IN SOUTH
North Carolina and Taxas avara 90