The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-07-05
WHITE SOLIDITY NECESSARY IN
THE SOUTH.


two editorials belittling and ridculng
Senator Simmons's statement that the
Republican politicians were prepared at
the last moment to seek to annul the
constitutional amendment. 1t calls the
Senator's note of warning to Democrats
"yawp" and says his discovery is "a
mares nest" 1t says also: "The negro
vote is out of the way for good and all.
Let us have done with fustian." These
quotations show the plane of the criti-
cism and the tone of the attack.
Ever since Senator Pritchard gave the
chief owner and boss of the Charlotte
Observer $4,000 sinecure, that paper,
while protesting to be Democratic or in
dependent, has been Pritchard organ
and advocated most of the national poll
cies for which the Senator stood. Lat
terly it has been tending toward Repub-
licanism in State politics.
If the Republicans are really ready to
vote, they will make it known by
declaring in their State convention at
Greensboro that they accept in good
faith the new suffrage amendment to
the constitution and will not in any way
lend their aid to have it set aside. After
the war the South was forced to accept
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments
before it was re-admitted to the Union.
The South did not wish to ratify these
amendments, but it was condition
precedent to their return. The Republi-
cans may not like the suffrage amend
ment, but unless they specifically de-
clare that they accept it as a final set
Element and do not intend to seek to
annul it-until they do this, in view of
their platform of 1900 and Senator
Pritchard's vicious speech in the Sen
ate, the Democrat who doubts their in
tention to overturn it is either too dense
to see his hand before his face or he is a
Republican in disguise.
Senator Simmons obtained his informa-
ton of the conspiracy from sources that
leave no room to doubt it's substantial
accuracy. It's publication at this time
has stunned the Republican leaders and
to talk about mares nests,' 'fustian'
or the like, but to put on record their
official declaration that they will not
seek to overthrow the amendment
1t did not need the particulars of the
conspiracy uncovered by Senator Sim
mons to tell the Democrats of North
Carolina that the Republicans will annul
the amendment if they can, after seek
ling to divide the white vote by declar
ing that the negro vote has been elimi-
mated He is wise Democrat who is
prepared for any desperate usurpation of
power by the Federal administration to
restore the Republican and negro party
| to power in North Carolina.
The amendment has not yet gone into
operation. The first election under it
will be held in November Nobody
| knows how many negro voters it will
disfranchise. Republican leaders are
already claiming that fifty-one per cent
of the negroes of voting age can read
| and write and are therefore eligible to
vote. Until one election is held under
the amendment, we repeat, nobody can
tell how great will be the elimination of
negro voters. If it is as great as the
Democrats believe, it will be a day for
rejoicing. If, however, the Republicans
| succeed in putting a large number of
negroes on the registration books-(and
they will put every one on they CAM
the negro counties will then have no
great margin of white majority.
There is but one safe plan for the
Stay in the Democratic ship, fight out
the battles in it's primaries, and abide
by it's arbitrament. Whenever any
other course has been pursued it has been
followed by assassination as in Ken
lucky; by Reputation and bad govern
ment as in Virginia; by negro rule and
debauchery of government as in North
Carolina; and by rottenness and fraud
as in Maryland If the constitutional
amendment stands, present divisions
would not mean negro rule, but every
division among the whites makes pos
sible the return of the evils which the
State suffered in 1869 and in 1858.
STANLEY COUNTY PROGRESS.