The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-13

To the Editor of The Evening Post:
Sir: I cannot briefly answer your three
questions upon negro suffrage, predicated
upon the Giles case. If l am not-upon
this large and difficult question-to be
misunderstood I must write at length.
do not grant the truth" of improved
statements made by complaint in equity
of which neither the court in which the
suit was brought nor the Supreme Court
to which it was appealed, had Jurisdiction
The courts required no answer to the
complaint and refused to take evidence
upon it since even if they were true the
courts could give no relief to the colored
plaintiff. In this conclusion the report
indicates that all the judges of the SUI
preme Court concured except Judge
Brewer and possibly Judge Brown Even
Judge Harlan, who expressed his merely
personal opinion that in proper suit the
colored citizen might have had relief, de-
clared that in the only suit which he did
bring the court could not help him.
Nor do l accept the suggestion that the
Southern press ascribes to Northern
Democrats sympathy with the effort to
disfranchise the negro in the South under
color of law unequally enforced as be.
tween whites and Blacks Have you cor
rectly understood the Southern press Has
it not been interested over the condemna.
ton of negro suffrage by Secretary Root,
DR.. Lyman Abbott, and other distinguish
ed Republicans? Might not your ques-
tions be more properly addressed to mem
bers of the party now in power? Is not
this opinion, for the time of more con-
sequence than that of the Democrats
The Supreme Court speaking by .Judpe
Holmes, while itself refusing the colored
voter any relief significantly said that, if
there had been the political wrong he
charged, then the relief, apart from mere
money damages (confessedly no adeouaie
reparatlom must be given by the people
OF his State or by the Legislative and
political department of the Government
of the United States The President ia
at the head of such department, and of his
position he is amply conscious. He talks
OF square DEAL to negro citizens. He
thinks that the Importance of their re-
cognltlon justifies the decentralization of
the public service at the South by negro
appointments which are personally often
slve to nlne-tenths of those having busi
ness with the offices; and this. while he
refuses at the North to appoint negroes
to places of like relative Importance. II
IS the duty of the President to execute
existing laws. Does he think that there
are laws assuring negro suffrage which
are not, but which can be, enforced? II
is his constitutional duty to recommend
new laws when old laws fail. Does he
recommend any such new laws? If so
what are they? And why has he not re-
commended them before, and why did not
President Mckinley recommend them?
And why, | wonder, were not your uues-
lions addressed to the Republican Presi-
dent, or the Republican Congress of Pc,
publican statesmen after an unsatisfactory
answer by the Republican Supreme
Court? The Republican party has been
continuously in power since March. 1897
and has perfectly known the Southern
situation. 1t has neither done nor SIP.
gested the doing of anything to right the
wrong, If wrong there be. And yby not
l decline to assume with YOU that tho
Supreme Court was wrong in the Giles
case; or that if, as you seem to implv
Constitutional guarantees and penalties