The age-herald., 1901-09-19
JOHNSTON WILL VOTE
 AGAINST THE NEW CONSTITUTION

how much property they owned. or yet as to their character; 1t seems that high CT standards may be required of them to vote for their state than to fight, or to die, for it.
 The permanent plan goes into operation after 1902. Under it no man can register or vote unless he is able to read and write, and, If physically able, has been at work the greater part of the past year. or unless he owns in his own right, or his wife owns, forty acres of land, or $500 of taxable real estate or $500 or taxable personal property If he owns S29s of real estate and $299 of personal property he fails.
 More Negroes Than Whites.
 Under the operation of this permanent plan, if it is honestly carried out, doubt whether there is a single county in the Black Belt that will not have more negro voters than white voters. It Is very eer- tain that as the years pass the number of negroes who can qualify and register will steadily outstrip that of the white. 50, If this plan be adopted. we force upon the white men of the Black Belt the al- ternative either to buy or steal the votes of the negroes or to submit to their nu- merical majority We know 1t will not be the latter The chairman of the Dem- ocratic State Committee in the constitu- tional convention denounced the plan and declared in substance that instead Of eliminating fraud 1t would perpetuate and constitutionalize 1t. So this consti- tuition will neither secure honest elections nor white supremacy.
 This constitution also provides that no man shall be compelled to pay his poll tax If he refuses to vote. He may have thousands of dollars of property. but the hand of the tax collector is stayed before his voluntary disfranchisement. It may have been supposed that this would re- duce the number of poor men as voters. I fear that others will take advantage of this clause and greatly reduce the poll tax, and that many sons of poor men may be thus cut off from the franchise by being deprived of education. II is hard to conceive of democratic govern ment offering a reward to men 1t has chosen as peculiarly well qualified for the suffrage to disfranchise themselves His tory discloses no precedent
 Powers to Legislature.
 This constitution makes special grants of power to the Legisla ture to create more than 100 new judges ard sixty-six additional solicitors. It is true that It authorizes the Legislature to abolish Circuit and Chancery Courts in certain counties, but If all the Circuit and Chan cery Courts were abolished the authority is ample to make a net increase in our judicial officers of at least 150.
 It Is hardly necessary to say that these new officials will in some way, directly or indirectly, get their living out of those who labor and pay taxes.
 Lieutenant Governor is created. That such an office Is unnecessary Is shown by the orderly succession of the present Governor, filling the first vacancy in the office of Governor that has occurred in Alabama in more than fifty years.
 The limit of state taxation has been re- duced ten cents on the hundred dollars. 1T values decline-and they have been ad- Vanced In prosperous times only by the most strenuous measures-it will threaten the credit of the state or reduce our ap- preparations to the common schools or to Confederate pensioners. If the margin of receipts and disbursements be so narrow as to alarm capital, the decline of our credit would compel us to fix a higher rate of interest on our bonds, and in the end we would lose largely more than we save by this small apparent reduction
 Will Be the End of Reform. If this instrument Is adopted it will be the end of any constitutional reform for many years to come. No one will advo- cate another constitutional convention.
 
 ever the judges and solicitors may multi ply, however much our finances may be crippled. however rampant fraud may be- come and however dishonest our cleo tions, we shall have to endure them many years If, on the other hand this con stitution is rejected. 1t will practically be deci ion to change our present suffrage I laws by some wise plan, submitted to the people without any other objectionable | ClaIlSpS Offioaq Or how ~t, ures, and be adopted by them as an amendment to our present constitution. That a majority of the constitutional convention feared that the instrument they had prepared would not be accept able to the people is shown by several sig | nifcant facts. One is that the convention failed and refused to permit a contest | over the election or to direct the ap- | pointment of single official opposed to | ratification at each polling place and by voluntarily extending the terms of the | sheriffs two years. The sheriffs were sep | arated from the tax assessors and col | lectors and county commissioners, whose | terms are to expire at the same time. | and given, without the asking, two years | more. What 1t was done for no intelligent | man need ask. Whether such a bid will | be resented or accepted remains to be 1 seen. n,nll
 
 Our present constitution was prepared | by wise and able men It has not been | found huruful in single matter exceDt | as to suffrage. No citizen, no business | man. no corporation, engaged in any legi. | timate enterprise, can or, has complained | of single provision in that instrument | Under 1t the State has made steady, rapid | progress in education, manufactures | population and wealth: never more SC | than at the present time and for severa | years past. Why should we make gen. | eral and drastic changes when we are do. | ing so well? Capital understands oui | present constitution and Is flowing in un. | der it. Shall this flow be checked while | 1t waits upon the construction, anc | watches the effect of a new constitution, | Shall we tempt Congress to reduce oul | representation? Shall we excite i'll will | where friendly feeling is so necessary tc l our progress?
 l The issue is not between two faction. 1 or two parties. It is between two consti l tutions-both Democratic; one tried fol 1 twenty-five years,- giving equal protec 1 tion to every citizen, prohibiting specia l favors imposing equal burdens, encourag | ing education, inviting immigration, fos | tering enterprise and defying just criti cism except as to the one single question of the suffrage; the other new, untried complex, prolix, unconstrued, authorizing many new offices, effecting no reforms creating a most vicious machine, ant | planting the suffrage on more dangerous and insecure foundations than now exist
 Exercising my right as an elector of the | State, standing firm in the ranks of tht Democratic party that I have served fol | more than thirty years without one break