The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1902-11-21

THE SOUTHERN SITUATION.

speculation as to what the south will
do to retaliate upon the President for
the stand he has taken fer equal
political rights for all citizens. For
our part we hope the South will retail
ate. Possibly it will be the only way
III which the eyes of northern repub-
licans can be opened to the Importance
OF protecting the rights of citizenship.
We must confess that there is some
excuse TO" the prevalent southern idea
that the north is too business.like to be
stirred by anything short of an attack
upon its pocket book. The southern
idea is wrong, but there is excuse for it.
For years northern politicians have
played for the southern vote. They
have closed their eyes to the moral
dilinquencies of southern election meth
DDS, they have allowed thousands of
citizens to be disfranchised, all with
the vain hope that some, day the south
would look at politics with northern
eyes, that there would be political
upheaval in the south and that that
section would become divided along
political lines on the basis of party
platforms and not of old and undylng
prejudices. The breaking up of the
solid south has been prophecied dozen
hundred times during the past dozen
years. These prophesies are as per.
ennial as the poems of spring. The
growth of manufacturing interests is
to do it, the closer relations established
by the Cuban war will accomplish the
result and all the time the South has
proceeded with its blind arrogance, ig-
noring all the facts and issues of Am.
erican politics save the one thing, that
the whites be left alone to again reduce
the negro to practical state of slavery.
So long as this is done they will be gen.
ial gentlemen, they will cheer for the
President no matter whom he may be,
they will whisper in confidence that q
new day is coming in the south, that it
is breaking away from the old lines,
that the blue and the gray have be.
come reconciled, that there's no north
no south.
Scratch Russian and you will fnd
a Tartar ! scrach Southern and you
will find Shareholder in posse. They
cling to the doctrine OF their divine
right to rule over the colored race and
to exploit its labor, with even grea.er
tenacity than the Mormons of Utah do
to the doctrine of poligamy or the Turk
to the doctrines of Mahomet.
The geniality OF the South disarms the
North. Here we are accustomed tc
treat our friends we'll. Hospitality is
the sign of friendship. In the south
the gentleman puts en- and OF his hos.
pitality as he does his glove and it has
no more real cor nection with the feel
ings of his heart than the glove has
with the feelings of his hand. North
ern lawmakers are to apt to mistake
southern courtesy for southern friend
ship and so they fear to offend theil
southern friends by the passage of laws
which while nothing but just and righ,
anC honest would be distastful to these
southern courtesy men.
This is the sort of confidence game
the south has been playing with north
!. ern republicans for many years. Wher
a man speaks the truth, when he
strikes at the root of the evil as has
Representative Crumbpacker these
! eager purchasers of southern goli
bricks decry the untimely waving o
the bloody shirt and point with depre
eating finger to the last winning ant
winsome after-dinner speech of tn,
distinguished gentleman from Soutl
Carolina.
lis time for the North to wake up
1t ls time for the passage of such legis
lation as shall protect the ballot in al
parts Of the country. 1t is time tina
the great cities be rebuked for theil
reeuery and the south for its bruta
frauds upon suffrage.
one O. the hist steps toward the
emancipation of the nation from tn,
| continual menace of southern prejudic.
, is to reduce to its proper proportion tn,
!. influence of the south in the republi
can party.s
Why in the name of common sens,
!. should Georgia which since the day
!, of reconstruction has never given re
. publican vote in an electoral collee,
se entitled to-as much weight in a re
publican convention as Iowa, a stat'
, that has never given a democratic
t electoral vote? The National conven
. tions are the only ones where such al
i absurd basis of representation is uset
!. and it is ample time that this abus
: should be done away with. This woult
: reduce the carpet bagging republican
. of the south to the positicl to whicl
his vote entities him.
There has grown up SO-called re