The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-08
SUFFRAGE QUESTION
1rR. BRYAN SAYS TEMPTATIONS DEPEND UPON xoCAL
 CoNDITToNs.

E &40 VEV0 AOCAL CoNDITIoNs.
 Educational and Property oualifica tions-The Right to Vote Neither
 Natural Nor Inalisnahls--The
 Superior Racs win Impose
 Conditions on Inferior
 as Matter of Self
 Preservation.
 -e
 To the Editor of The New York Evening
 Post: Sa, M
 sir-The pressure of other work has delayed an answer to your inquiry. The questions which you ask arc spredfcated upon the assertions of the appellant in the case referred to-, and it Is hardly necessary tosdiscuss the subject until the case is settled. You say, Granting the authority of fhess statements and fall ing intervention by the Supreme Court, has Congress any duty in the spremises7'' The first thing ts do ts to ascertain the truth of the statements. and the second is to learn whether the court will Inter- vene. It win then be time for Congress to act, and in acting 1t will have before 1t the facts as ascertained and the reasons as given by the court.
 
 'If'' and is baseds upon an assumption.
 The third question begins with an .ff. ' and the answering of 1t would require a prophecy, and as Speaker Reed once said. Tt is never safe. to prophecy unless you know" = <; e :
 The suffrage question Is one. of the most important ones that can come up for con- sideratfon, and. If by your induiries you mean to raise that question, I take pleas ure in submitting the following:
 Conditions are imposed upon suffrage everywhere. Age Is salways made a con ditton. It Is also required that the voter shall be present at the polls. and this ex- cludes any one who may be necessarily away from home, or who may be unable on account of ill-healeh to leave the house. This provision has sometimes been suspended in the case of soldiers, but 1t Is general made one of the pre- requisites to suffrage. In cities resistra- ton is often required, and sometimes it is necessary for the voter to be at a eer- tain place on day previous to the elec- ton as well as at the polls on election day.
 Communities differ also on another phase of the suffrage question. Most of the States limit suffrage to men, while in other States men and women vote on exactly the same terms. Some of the States give to women a limited suffrage, that is. q suffrage on certain questions. Often the payment of a poll tax is made a condition to manhood suffrage, and a criminal conviction Is usually a bar to suffrage. Many of the States have at one time or another had educational qualifications, and some o: them have ha l property qualifications. In view of the experience through which we have passed in this county, it is difficuit to lay down a rule upon this subject that can be ap- piled everywhere. We ought to start with the proposition That universal suf- freEe is the thing tc be desired, and where limitation Is placed upon it there must be a. satisfactory reason to Justify 1t. That is to say. the presumption is in favor of suffrage and the burden of proof is upon those who wouid limit it.
 An educational qualification is less ob- Jectionable than a property qualification, because knowledge Is more needed than the possession of property for the proper performance of one's civic duty. An edu- cational qualification Is easier to sur mount than a property qualification. and then, too, those who prescribe an educa- tional qualification are not so apt to be influenced by purely selfish reasons as those who prescribe property qualifca- tion. Sometimes the property q,ialifica- ton is made to relieve the educational qualification rather than to aggravate it: that is. one possessing a certain amount of property can vote even without com plying with the educational provisions, and vice versa.
 As the race question in the South has given rise to the present controversy, it Is sufficient for the present to consider it alone, and the argument made upon the race question as It now appears could not be used against any other phase of the suffrage questaon unless the same principles were involved and the same conditions had to be met.
 Whether or not a given State should adopt a qualification aimed at the black race is a question which must be decided upon the facts in the case. and no person whose judgment is worth conslderina would announce a decision without know ing the facts. The race question does not present itself to the people of the North as it does to the people of the South. The colored population of the North is small when compared to tn. white population, and therefore white supremacy is never menaced. Very few colored men hold elective offices in the North, although the colored votes help to elect a great many Republicans. Ne. groes do no: hold offices even ir tn North in proportion to their voting strength, and much less in proportion to their voting strength in the party with which they usually cast their votes. Even where a colored man holds office tn the North, 1t is a colored man who has com- mended himself to the white people of the community, because in no instance Is there colored majority in any con siderable territory in the North.
 It is different in the South. In many sections the black population outnum. bers the white and. if every male adul voted, the colored population could fil all the offices with negroes selected by the colored population, regardless of tho opinions of the whites. It is hardly fail for man who lives where white su premacy is not menaced, and who ha. never lived or visited the black section to state dogmatically what ought to b, done by the white people who have liveC under the reign of the carpet-bag Legis latures. The administration of govern ment during the reconstruction perioC just after the war took on a sombre hu, that the people of the South still remem Der, and they have reasons to dread return to it. The question which tn, white people of the South have to mee is whether the white race, with it's nor, advanced civilization and it's ALghe Ideals, shall permit it's progress to b, turned backward by the dominance O | the black race. This is the question which the citizen of the North has neve had to contemplate.
 The Republican officeholder who fl | drawing salary given to him by coloret voters Is hardly in a position to set him | self up as an impartial judge as to wha ! should be done by the people of tn, South who live under the shadow of tn race problem It is no reflection upol