New-York tribune., 1901-07-01
SUFFRAGE AND INSULAR POLICIES.

SUFFRAGE AND INSULAR POLICIES.
EX-Secretary Herbert in his address before
the Alabama Bar Association made a frank
and crushing reply TO the DemOcra IS who cry
out about the failure to make the Tagals citi-
zens and partners in governing this country.
Mr. Bryan. for example. has worked himself up
to n high degree Of moral indignation over the
crime of ruling the new possessions as colonies
But why do you complain: asks Mr.. Herbert
THE constitutional convention in seeking to
limit negro suffrage is doing precisely what
1.-The country is doing in its new island pos
sessions" Why, then, all the heat about the
decision of the Supreme Court holding off from
participation in our government barbarians who
are not fit for citizenship? Mr.. Herbert Endorses
the Republican policy of ruling the Philippines
right and sound.
Really. there is no answer for Democrat to
make except TO turn OH Republicans and say
that their insular policy justifies violation of
the Fifteenth Amendment, which they are in
sisting ought to be obeyed. That. however. is
not true 1t does Justify the South in fair
and constitutional attempts to eliminate the
unworthy elements from its electorate. The
Republicans have refused to use their power to
bring millions of unfit barbarians into our clti-
zenship, and in doing so have acted in con-
formity with the constitution, as the Supreme
Court declares They do not object TO the eXer-
else of similar discretion in any Southern or
Northern State to raise the standard of citizen
ship In conformity with the constitution, and
we do not understand that even the leaders OF
the negro object TO sitting out of ignorance
and crime from participation in government.
What Republicans do object to is violation
of tie constitution and the limiting of suf-
frage. not by equal rules applying to all men
cir cir Stop but hr 10
eliminating against negroes and depriving them
of privileges which preserved to white men
who may be less worthy, and there is nothing
in the Republican Philippine policy inconsistent
with that objection. IL the Southern constitu-
tion makers will frankly and fairly meet the
constitutions requirements and make their suf-
frage restrictions operate equally to disfran-
chise all the ignorant and shiftless persons who
make good government in their States difficult
the great body of the Northern people will sup
port them and long to emulate their example.
If Alabama should adopt the views of ex-Gov-
ernor Jones. Ex-Governor Johnston and Captain
Ferguson it would solve the suffrage problem
constitutionally, secure the supremacy of the
best civilization, and have the sympathy Of
Republicans who are following that same policy
in refusing to add more millions to the ignorant
and unfit elements of our citizenship by making
1t is DO use 10 say that the Fifteenth Amend
ment was mistake 1t is part of the
constitution. to be obeyed. If II was mistake
1t was an inevitable one. The popular impulse
to raise the negro could not he stopped half way
at the end of the war. Perhaps it carried
stitution making for the negro to extremes.
The impression also prevailed that the ballot
was necessary for the protection of the negro
in his freedom. Wisely or unwisely, he received
the ballot on absolutely equal terms with the
white man; and since it is evident that large
numbers of the race not fit TO vote, they
may properly be disfranchised along with other
men of similar unfitness. The Declaration of
Independence never meant that all persons
under the dominion of the United States must
take n hand in ruling 1t regardless of their
character or intelligence. Democrats and Re
publicans. North and South. ought to be able to
unite in dealing with both insular and cOntinen-
tai problems on the principle that this nation is
TO be ruled by men of intelligence and virtue,
that the unworthy and illiterate of any race
shall not have the franchise in existing States,
ard that new States Territories organized
for ultimate Statehood shall not be created in
possessions where American traditions do not
prevail, and a trained citizenship equipped TO
participate wisely in American affairs does not
exist.