The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-04-02
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
DIsFRANCHIsING HLITERATEs.

The applying of the educational test
in Marylond to voters is very annoying
to republicans demagogues and editors.
While several southern states have
used 1t for years and no complaint was
made, a howl goes up when the south
touches it. The cry is to apply 1t TO
negro i%lliterates and not to whites. All
experience is ignored and sentiment
gets UP on its hind legs and swears in
it's wrath. There is a movement in
many southern states looking directly
to the purifying of the ballot, the sup
pressing of illiteracy, the preventing OF
negro control. That is at the bottom
of the real movement in Maryland as
it was in North Carolina last year.
The republican organs abuse and
threaten but they grind and gnash their
teeth in vain. OF course it is a determi-
nation OF the white race to govern in
all of the states. The law is not uncon-
stitutional If it may be classed as ar
b'trary. In the north it is now we'll
understood that the states have not yet
surrendered all of their reserved rights
ar they have the power to regulate
I'll. question of suffrage for them
sees. Little bob-tailed political BUSH
W. ckers and pe~ltifoggers of h Pritch
ara and Butler stripe may denounce
the movement aimed at illiteracy as
barbaric and unconstitutional. but 1T
makes no serious impression upon men
of sense any where and does not dis
turb the south. The Philadelphia Re-
cord has strongly censured the course
OF North Carolina democrats in deal
ing with illiterate voting, for not put
ting the whites and blacks in the same
class and denying to the whites the
b., lot as we'll as to the blacks. In It's
lat issue it discussed the question N
w copy the following:
Hereafter no illiterates can vote in
MARYLAND, whatever their partisan ANIL
iations. and no party organ has mus
tered audacity enough up TO the pres
emit time to decry this regulation Oh
grounds of public policy. The Simple
proposition that ignorant persons can
not be safely intrusted with the pallot
is too plain to admit of serious discus
sion.
I'm regard to an arbitrary act of dis
reimbursement, like the recently enact
ed Maryland statute. there are not
lacking weighty opinions adverse 10
the constitutionality of such a poncy
of franchise restriction. but the
principle of final state control over the
franchise is SO firmly imbeded in fed
eral Jurisprudence that it would be IDLE
to expect a reversal at this late day OF
a long line of decisions comforting war
rant of authority in such matters upon
the representative state government
Even so staunch and unfaltering a
Mckinley organ as able Philadelphia
Press. whose owner and editor is Post
master General Smith, does not n
denim the movement in Maryland or
the democrats for their
course. 1t rather tells it's leaders and
leaders of it's party this, and 1t is
wholesome and conceding:
The Maryland republicans will be
wise if they accept 1T as a TACT, anu
instead of spending n time ana ener-
CIV on a contest in court, being at once
a campaign of education among the IL
literate colored voters. Setting ASIDE
the partisan character of the bill "nd
it's avowed purpose to keep the demo-
Gratis in power in Maryland and to re-
turn MIR. German to the United States
senate, it can be said that the man VINO
will not take the trouble to learn TO
read we'll enough to mark a ballot
properly is not a fit man to be ndoWe
with the privilege of the suffrage.