The broad ax., 1900-09-01
c. 100
eAA
THE POLITICAL INTERESTS OF
THE NERGO.

BY HOWARD S. TAYLOR.


By HOWARD S. TAYLOR.
For a generation past the great
masses Of the colored people Of the
United States have regarded them
selves as bound to the Republican
party by ties almost religious IL
authority; and for any Negro tc
waver in his ALLEGIANCE has provoked
his associates to regard him as q
renegade, a traitor, guilty Of that
darkest Of offenses-ingratitude. The
great and good men who once led tie
Republican party and gave it dignity
have died or changed their political
faith; but the Negro has scarcely no
ticed the fact. The party has aban-
doned its old time principles Of hber-
ty and humanity and of late years
has. in a most pronounced way, be-
come the instrument of special inter-
ests. corporations and trusts; and is
now waging wars Of conquest and
talking about inferior races" very
much as the slave driver used to talk
but most Negroes seem to be una
ware Of the change, with their eyes
fixed on the past rather than the fu-
ture. and controlled by sentiment
rather than reason, a great majority
of our colored citizens are still cling
ing to q party name when everything
but the name has persisted.
Whatever the Negroes debt to the
Republican party may have been in
years gone by, insist that the debt
has long since been fully paid. The
Negro has Loyalty, and often unrea-
sonably stuck to the grand old
party" not only when his loyalty met
with no reward, but when his fidelity
has cost him dear. He has helped
to create the trusts which are now
robbing him, and has voted for all
the Republican financial schemes
which are gradually separating the
American people into rich and poor
leaving the Negro, with few exceptions,
among the poor; and he has sustain
ed the Administration in an imperial
policy that has had for its chief fea-
ture a barbarous business of "nigger
killing ON the opposite side Of the
globe. Surely blind fidelity could go
no farther!
To me it seems high time that the
negro should begin to look about him
and consider his own interests rather
than those Of some suggestions bene-
factors-should begin to look into the
future rather stand forever in the at
titude of Lots wife, looking back
ward, The Republican party has
changed in the last twenty years,
greatly changed! Is it not time for
the Negro to change?
Nothing is clearer to me than the
that today if they wish to
subserve their own interests the COL
ored people ought to be Democrats.
For four years past, at least, the
struggle between the two great poll
teal parties, at bottom, has been a
struggle between plutocracy and the
people. between capital and labor, be-
tween the privileges Of the few and
the rights of the many. This is not a
fancy. All will remember that in the |
contest Of 1896 the great |
and millionaires with |
scarcely an exception wereN lined up |
Tor Mr.. Mckinley against Mr. Bryan.
The latter's support was derived al
most wholly from the plain people.
The bread-winners of the country.
This year the line Of distinction is
till more marked. A colossal COM
,ination of wealth, Of men who eat
heir bread in the sweat of other
mems faces, are rallying to the sup
,ort of the Republican party. Even
dr. Gates, the steel magnate, the man
Who a few weeks since gained a vul-
Ter distinction in Paris by throwing
landsful of money to the mob from
he top of the Eiffel Tower-even he
lurries home to join the Rockefel-
grs. Vanderbilts. Elkins'. Hannas and
he like in nourishing the goose that
avs for them the golden egg. Mr.
sryan. on the contrary, has no sup
,ort but that of the common people.
And the Negros belong with the
ommon peoplei They always have;
nd, If our economic condition shall
ollow their present tendency, they
lways will Once in a long while /
ONE unusually fortunate or specially
apable colored person viii fight M
D competency in spite of conditions.
lst as fifty years ago \ slave occa-
ionaIly escaped into Canada in spite
I the bloodhounds- But such cases
ave been rare and win be rarer. The