The Atlanta constitution., 1902-04-14
The Southern Suffrage Question.

The Southern Suffrage Question.
The Outlook, edited by DR.. Lyman
Abbott, is a very alert and able com
mentator upon public questions, and
an unusually sane thinker upon most
of our southern problems.
Notably The Outlook has accepted
the facts i'm the suffrage situation in
the southern states and is frank to
say that the regulation of electoral
matters making for good or evil gov
ernment in this section must be left
10 the intelligence and experience of
the best elements of the southern
people, without tbs intervention of
northern prejudicea and partisan
marplotism. In it's issue of March 20
The Outlook says of the Crumpacker
resolution TO investigate southern
electoral laws:
1t will mark revival of the most un-
statesmarlike and disastrous legislation
which the country has ever known; ii VIII
revive sectional feeling in it's worst form,
dt epen the race antagonism and postpone
the solution of the race problem. 1t is
impossible to solve the problem by legisla-
ton, that truth the country has learned
rs the result of the bttterest experience;
y Very much nore is to be gained
the situation and by appealing to the fair
minded southern whites than by attempt
ing To force policies upon them whlch
they will not ACCEPT. and which only con-
firm their antagOuisms.
II would be long step in the direc-
ton of securing an ultimately peacea-
BILE and just solution of the negro suf-
frage question in the south If the peo-
pie at large in the north would follow
the counsel given by our distinguish
ed contemporary. The southern peo-
pie earnestly and honestly desire to do
whatever is safe and equitable in the
premises. t. left to reach such
policy of their own will and in their
own way the ultimate results will be
unquestionably fair and acceptable to
the whole country.
The southern people prefer an intel
ligent electorate. By gradual educa-
tional work and legislative restric-
ton we are reaching forth to that gen
eral condition. The process is natu-
rally slow where the very restriction
sought must be sumitted to the votes
of those who would be disfranchised
by it. The use of ballot devices that
of themselves require an educated in
telligence for their use must also be
of gradual adoption, necessarily. But
these aids TO the end of securing in
southern communities an electorate
that can vote without being showed" /"
bossed dragooned and misdlrected are
coming more and more into favor and
in another generation will be practi-
cally in universal use among us.
The southern people wish for a
clean suffrage. They have never de-
sired, or been comfortable in the re-
sort to, any device to prevent the evil
effects of senseless, sinister and de-
structiVe negro power at the polls.
Whenever such devices have been
used the necessity forced them as the
only available means OF fighting fire
with fire" 1t was a case of burning
the grass outward from the camp in
order to meet, divide and divert the
conflagration sweeping over the field
The great, corrupt and domineering
mass of negro ignorance and NAL
civism could only be met and made
harmless by using against it it's own
methods and weapons.
On the intelligence and honesty of
the suffrage in the south depend the
peace, the security and the progress
of our population, society and vital
enterprises. 1t is even more important
to the negro than to the white man
that government in the south should
be controlled by the best and most
honorable elements of the people. His
enemies, when he has any, are found
among the ignorant and shiftless who
fear his competition. His safety and
prosperity, therefore, must be found
under the sheltering arms of the domi-
nant, intelligent. lawmaking and law
enforcing white majorities of these
southern communities.
Knowing. as the Crumpackerites
well do. that the southern people will
not submit themselves again to negro
rule under any conditions, their every
effort to revive that issue is a new
appeal to incendiarism and a fresh in
stigation to apply the unwritten codes
of repression and retaliation. Honest
patriotism will not approve such an in
citement to revolution and the only
unsettled question in the matter, so
far as congress is concerned, is wheth-
er it will approve the turbulent scheme
or wisely kill it before ii is hatched?