The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-07-03
SCHEME To DIVIDE
DEMOCRATIC
VOTE
Then Have the Federal Court
Set Aside the Amend
ment.,
A SHREWD CONSPIRACY
Poll Tax Clause Will be Attacked, and
Grandfather Clause Declared
Unconstitutional,
A SHREWD CONSPIRACY
ATTEMPT TO CONTROL THE LEGISLATURE
Chairman Simmons Regards His Discovery as
the Basis cf the Prediction OF the
Reelection of Senator
Pritchard.

Especial to the News and Observer
Washington. d. c., July 2.-Chairman
Simmons. of the Democratic State Com
mittee, authorizes the following state
ment:
"For some time past prominent North
Carolina Republicans in Washington
have been intimating that their party
would control the next North Carolina
Legislature and that Senator Pritchard
would be returned to the Senate. Demo-
Gratis have been unable to understand the
grounds of this hope in the face OF the
fact that that party lost the State in
the August election in 1900 by about
sixty thousand majority, and since that
time has lost, by the educational provis-
ion of the amendment, between seventy
and eighty thousand of its former
voters.
THE persistency with which this
claim was made aroused in my mind a
suspicion that it was based upon some
secret scheme and led me to an investi-
cation with the view of ascertaining
what it all meant. AS result of this
investigation, / have discovered a
shrewdly devised and well developed
conspiracy.
"The scheme, briefly stated, is to stir
up and promote dissensions and indie
pendentism and, by raising the cry that
the amendment has eliminated the negro
and freed the white man, to bring about
during the early stages of the campaign
a hopeless division among Democrats,
and then on the eve of the election have
ment. In this enterprise and in organi-
zing the opposition forces, the conspira-
tors are to have unlimited money fur
nished them by the National Republican
Executive Committee upon the promise
of two, if not three, Republican Con-
gressmen from the State and the reten-
tion of the present Republican Senator.
I'm order to divide the Democrats,
every local dissatisfaction, every local
quarrel every fancied complaint and
grievance against the party and State
administration, every disappointment
growing out of the nomination or defeat
of candidates, is to be assiduously
nursed and famed. The Democratic
party is to be charged with hostility to
certain interests and with nominating
men to office known to be prejudiced
against these interests, and conserva-
tive voters are to be appealed to to re-
sent this alleged assault and to cast
their votes against these Objectionable
candidates. 1t is expected that the op-
position to Judge Clark's nominatiC-
will start the bolt and that on account of
the unusual number of Democratic can
didates this year, defeated candidates
all over the State will be found who will
be ready to hazard their chances by al
lowing the use of their name.
ION these lines our adversaries pro-
pose to open and for time conduct their
campaign. When the lines of battle have
been drawn and tightened when pas
sion has been stirred TO white heat by
the friction of conflict, when align
ments have been made, and when it is
believed that the boilers have gone so
Iar that passion and pride will not per-
NIT them to return to their old associa-
lions as the day of election draws near
at hand the courts will be asked to de-
clare the amendment Unconstitutional
ana Void. Every detail to this end has
pecn carefully arranged and the con-
spirators are confident there will he no
hitch or failure or delay i'm CARRYING ont
the program at any point Between the
1st and 18th of October n white man
who has been ref cd registration be-
cause he has failed to pay his poll tax
will apply to Republican Federal
judge, who has already been sole, ;-.,
for a mandamus to compel the registrar
to admit him to registration. This iudgo
will hold that il is within the authority
of the State to make the payment of
poll tax condition precedent to the
right to VOTE. but he will also hold that
the grandfather clause is unconstitu-
tional: and, as the amendment provides
that the whole shall stand Or fall to-
gether, every part of the amendment is
affected by this infirmity. The attack
VIII be made upon the poll tax instead
>Qf the educational clause, to avoid going
court with a negro as complainant
reason of the shortness of the time
'.aes-.--- &c impossible to get the case
heard on appeal before the election