The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-05-03
THREE SORTS OF DISFRANCBISE,
MENT.

SlueFluS three SOfIS Oh ulSlfdHclliSS-
ment:
/. The Democrats propose consti-
tutional amendment by which the
great mass of negroes. VIGOROUSLY UNI
fit for suffrage, may be eliminated
from the ballot box, thus putting an
end to negro rule and the jeopardy of
it. This proposition is based on the
same fundamental principles that have
actuated the State of South Carolina,
Mississippi. Louisiana and other South
ern States in dealing with the ignorant
negro voters, that Massachusetts
adopted to prevent rule by the for
eign voters who had recently landed,
Pacific States and the Federal Con-
gress to put an end to the wholesale
importation of Cinnamon who threat
ened the occupation of the laborers of
California and adjacent States on the
Pacific slope.
2. The Populists advocate unlimited
negro suffrage, but say they would ia
vor an amendment to the Constitution
to put negroes in the same class with
atheists and criminals. and forbid all
three classes holding office. That is
what the PopuIists say they favor.
When, conformity with the Republic
cans. they were in full control of the
legislative. executive and judicial de-
partments of government, instead of
excluding negroes from office, they
helped 10 elect more than / 900 to inn
portant public positions in the State,
and to emphasize their belief in giving
the negro office, the State Chairman
of the Populist Executive Committee,
State Auditor Hal. w. Aver, east his
vote for the negro jim Young now a
revenue officer, to represent Wake
county and the capital city of the
State in the General Assembly and
against that high-tOned Christian
gentleman, Needham b. Broughton.
That illustrates the practice of Popu-
list pie-eaters and Populist pie-hunt-
ers. Now, that their advocacy of ne
gro rule has cost them most of their
votes, these Re-pop-lican leaders turn
around and say that the chief desire
OF their heart is to keep the negro
on the pollbooks to vote for them but
to forever prevent any negro to the
third generation holding office. The
flop of these pap-suckers is illustrated
by the lines:
when the devil was sick the devil a
saint would be.
When the devil was well, the devil of
a saint was he.
3. The Republican convention. com
posed almost wholly of Federal office
holders. takes ground in favor of let
ting every negro vote and in letting
negroes hold office, but vigorously OPP
posed letting negroes participate in
Republican conventions. For two
months the Republican bosses have
devoted themselves strenuously to
keeping negro delegates out of the
State convention. Their policy max
be gathered by this extract from a
letter written by a revenue officer to
a negro politician in an Eastern coun-
ty:
Get the negroes to agree 10 send
none but white delegates to the State
convention. The Democrats won
many votes n 1898 by charging the
Republican party with being a negro
party, and they came d-n near
proving it. III there are many negroes
in the State convention the Demo-
cratic paper and speakers will howl
as never before ard we viii not be
able to do any better than in 1898. Tell
all the negro leaders that if they will
get the negroes to take back seat
this year, we will defeat the Amend
ment. and next year we will give
them a fairer division of the offices
than ever before. If they make de-
mands this year, we will all go down
together to the bottom of the sea. If
they will stay in the back ground till
the August election. they will help
win glorious victory for their race
and then whites and blacks alike can
shake the plum tree ="
HAT ADVICE was taken pretty Gener-
ally, the negro office-holders taking
the lead in carrying out the orders of
the revenue bosses. BY reason of il
we have this spectacle in North Caro-
lima; party composed of 10000 ne
gros and less than 10000 white men
deliberately DISTINGUISHES in its party
deliberations 10000 of its members
and then goes before the people fight
ing the Democrats because they pro-
pose to do at the ballot box what the
Republicans have done in their pri-
maries and conventions! 1t was
scheme worthy of the fellows who say
in one in one breath that the Con-
stitutional Amendment will not stand
because it discriminates in favor of
the illiterate white man who is per-
mitted to vote while denying the same
right to the ignorant negro. and in
the next breath declares that the
Amendment will disfranchise al white