The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-11-05

and all the revenues of the State to the one object of keeping up the public schools. The new Constitution goes so far beyond the old one in providing for schools that some of the wisest and best informed men in the Convention were fearful that the revenues of the State would not be large enough to stand the demand, and that the public credit would suffer. In truth. if any error was com- mitted in dealing with the cause of edu- cation, 1t consists in going beyond the limits of prudence and safety in the pro- visions for raising school funds. We cannot for the life of us understand how any intelligent and unprejudiced man can bring a charge of niggardlness on the part of the Convention with regard to the educational interests of the State.
 Nor is the writer any better informed or more just when he refers to the suf- frage provision of the new instrument. The assertion that 1t provides for a registrar to sit in judgment on the right of the elector to vote' is a monstrous one. and is totally at variance with the
 
 instrument itself. The provision for a board of three registrars for each county the limitations imposed by the article on suffrage, the safeguards thrown around electors. and the provision for appealing to the courts without giving security for costs-these and other provisions all show the solioitude which the delegates had for fair elections and the purity of the ballot box, and if they failed in any particular it was because they feared other and further limitations might in- volve the State in a conflict of authority the efforts of the Convention to give us a safe and practicable election law.
 Nor Is the writer's apparent solicitude for the colored voter any more compre- hensible, unless he intends to maintain that the negro vote in Alabama should be absolutely uncontrolled. If he knows anything about the conditions which exist in all the counties where the colored vote is In the majority. he knows that that vote has been rendered innocuous by methods which nothing but self f-preserva- tion can justify, and he also knows that the best people of these counties are heartily tired of such methods. But he would also know that the white people of Alabama never intend to be ruled by negro votes. and if they cannot prevent it in one way they will in another. And he will also know. If he tries to inform himself that the one paramount object which the delegates had in view in for mulating the suffrage articles was to minimize that dangerous vote by consti- tutional and legal enactment and thus relieve a large portion of the State of a danger which was ever present, and at the same time obviate the necessity of rsorting to methods and practices which were revolting to our people. One of the grandest advantages which this in- strument undoubtedly possesses is that Alabama will not again be in danger of negro domination, and that the danger will be obviated without resorting to questionable methods. In short, the suf- frage provisions of the new Constitution are intended to purify the electorate and any man who opposes ratification says by his acts that he favors continuance of present practices and conditions.
 As we said before. we cannot under stand how a man occupying the position which the writer in The Call does could allow himself to criticise the new Con- stitution in the way he does. If he has examined it. Ignorance of its provisions fArlI hia if ha tS a fair-minded man, and if he is ignorant, it does not become him to assume the role of critic.