Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-09-21

but 4 cloak to hide his friendship for
silver, and claiming that the Demo-
cratic stand for freedom for the inhab-
itants Of the Philippines is not in accord
with the course of the party towards
the negroes in the Southern States,
adds
81 think Mabini and Aguinaldo enti-
ties to the rights asserted in the Decla-
ration of independence. think Booker
Washington and Robert Smalls entitled
to the same rights"
This is fair. Booker Washington
and Robert Smalls are entitled to their
rights. The colored man in America
has had his rights, and will be entitled
to and receive ali he can expect as soon
as be cuts away from the delusion that
he is a chattle Of the Republican party,
can be bought and sold and used by
that organization. shipped about the
country, paid dollar for his vote, and
used in campaign years for the benefit
of white Republicans who really care
nothing about him, individually or as
a race, except for. his vote. Repubh-
cans have never missed an opportunity
to disfranchise the negro when they
had chance They did it in Washing
ton City, because the negroes were in
the majority. Right here in Wheel
ing, during the past summer, at Re-
publican suggestion meeting, a dozen
white Republicans took charge of
gathering at which the negroes out
numbered the whites five to one, and
put through a ticket which The negroes
did not want. They were even denied
the privilege of stating the.f grfey-
ances in the Wheeling Intelligencer,
and were forced to come to the Regis
ter. for publicity, and it was cheerfully
accorded them. If the negro voters
were in a majority in a single ward in
this town, does any negro suppose for
a moment that the white Republicans
would allow them to nominate and elect
years. Would they be allowed to elect
a negro Justice of the Peace, negro
Councilman, a negro member of the
Board of Commissioners, or negro
member of the Legislature? They
would not, and every negro knows it.
They would, however, be expected to
toe the line and elect white Republicans
to- these and other offices of trust and
profit. The negro will remain in his
present predicament just as long as he
allows himself to be used. When he
exercises his own Judgment, and votes,
as the white man does, for principle
and for the individual, when he exer-
cises common sense, his own discretion,
and his own will, he will have
his rights. AS long as the Republican
party claims ownership Of his vote he
will be a political slave as he was once
a slave in fact.
AS for Senator Hoar's parallel be-
tween Mabini and Aguinaldo and
Booker Washington and Sam Smalls,
l. may be said that two wrongs never
yet made right. If it be true that
the colored man In the, United States
does not get justice or fair treatment
from either political party, that is no
excuse for imposing equal injustice
upon race on the other side Of the
world Senator Hoar says the negroes
in America are not treated right. He
has and still asserts that the Filipinos
are not treated right. Will he say that
the one injustice affords an adequate
excuse for the other? He will not,
Senator Hoar knows the administration
is wrong in this matter, but he is
compelled to support his party ticket
because this is election year for Senator
Hoar