Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-21
MEMORIAL TO ARTHUR
Friends Pay Tribute to Former
President
AT HIS BIRTHPLACE
EX-SENATOR CHANDLER MAKES
PRINCIPAL ADDRESS.
Says he Fears Trouble Over the Negro
Question - Lincoln and
Others Speak.
AT HIS BIRTHPLACE

| Others Speak.
| At Fairfield, VT. yesterday a granite
| monument marking the site of the BIRTH
! place of President Chester A. Arthur was
! dedicated.
Elk Representative H. Henry Powers of
| Morrisvile presided. Former Governor
William w. Stickney of Ludlow, who was
in charge of the erection of the memorial.
| presented it to the state, and Governor
| John G. Mccullough accepted it.
| The principal speaker was former Senator
| William E. Chandler of New Hampshire.
who was Secretary of the Navy in Presi-
| dent Arthur's cabinet Mr.. Chandler gave
| a sketch of President Arthur's life. review
| ing the circumstances Of his nomination for
| Vice President and his accession to the
| presidency after the assassination of Presi-
| dent Garfield. He referred to the removal
| of Mr.. Arthur collector at New York
during the Hayes administration, and gave
a detailed account of his career Presi-
| dent saying:
| Arthur's Character and Conduct.
| But, however painful may be the feel
| ings first aroused on the recollection of the
| circumstances of the accession of Chester
| A. Arthur to the presidency, there is moth
| ing but joyousness in recalling the man
| himself his character and conduct, and his
relations with his fellow men in private and
| public life. Tributes to his memory have
been spoken since his death by friends who
| knew and loved him we'll
| OF the navy Mr.. Chandler said:
1.-THE first actual movement for radical
change and the construction of a new navy
| not only originated with President Arthur
| and Secretary William II. Hunt but it pro-
| ceeded III general way upon the lines laid
| down by an advisory board organized by
| that Secretary the 29th of June. 1881.
| The act of Congress of August s. 1882. was
| the initial legislation for the discontinue
ance of extensive repairs Of old wooden
| ships the diminlrion of navy yard eX
| penses and the beginning of the construc-
| ton of a new navy of modern steel ships
| and guns
He Opposed Slavery.
| Early in life Arthur trained by his father,
| a clergyman, expressed himself as hostile
| to slavery, and when the time came he
| tered with his whole strength into the war
| for the preservation of the Union. Senator
| Chandler continued:
ut is not inappropriate here and now to
| conjecture what Arthur would do, or wish
| to do If he lived in this beginning of a new
| century, when the condition of the colored
| race, as defined and supposed to be made
| secure at the close Of the war for the Union
| by three amendments of the national Con-
| stitution, is being radically and wickedly
| changed.
THE thirteenth amendment gave freedom
| to five millions of slaves The fourteenth
guaranteed to the new citizens the equal
protection of the laws with the whites in
| Guiding due process of law when charged
| with crime. The fifteenth gave them the
right of suffrage the most potent proteo-
| ton. when exercised, to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.
| Defiance of Constitution.
But now 1t Is that the existing ten
| millions of coIored citizens are to live and
endure under three new principles whose
advocates deliberately defy the Constitu-
| ton of the country. First, they are not to
vote. This is the avowed purpose of the
| controlling southern whites. In some states
| they are kept from the ballot box under
| cunningly contrived constitutions and laws
which are in direct conflict with the If
| teenth amendment. In other states intim-
idation and violence continue to be the
method of suppressing the colored votes.
| The suppression is overwhelming, radical
| and complete by direct purpose of the
south.
THE fifteenth amendment says that Con
gress shall enforce the right of suffrage by
appropriate laws. Congress wholly omits
to do this. and under President Cleveland
In 1894 the national election laws then eX-
listing were repealed. The north continues
to submit to their repeal. By the suppress
sion of the suffrage southern states obtain
a representative in Congress and a presi-
Dental elector for every two hundred thou
sand of the colored people-fifty congress-
men and fifty electors in all for the ten
| millions; the power of which fifty congress
men and fifty electors is controlled and ex-
ercised by the white southerners. Quite
| likely these fifty electors will change the re-
| suit of the next presidential election The
north continues to submit to this wrong.
Mobs and Peonage.
Second, emboldened by northern apathy
| in reference to the suppression of the votes
| of the colored people the south has adopt
| ed another principle. The colored men are
not to have the equal protection of the laws
| in the exercise of their fundamental rights
| as citizens When charged with crime they
are not to be duly indicted and formally
| tried by jury.
They are to be charged with crime by
irresponsible mobs; they are to be found
guilty by the outcries of the same mobs,
| and they to be summarily put to death
| by the violent hands of the same mobs-by
shooting, hanging, burning; with manning,
| mutilatiOn and circulating torture. This
| is almost the universal practice as to every
| colored citizen charged with crime of vo-
| lence. This principle is generally adopted
| at the south and it is extending northward
| No power of the nation is exerted to oppose
| 1t. No sincere and earnest declaration is
| made against it by any political party will
| ing TO stake It's Whole existence on the issue
| of the conflict, as were the men of 1856 and
| 1850
Third, not even is the thirteenth amend
| ment, abolishing slavery, sacred in the
| sight Of the oppresSors of the colored peo-
pie of America. The infamous vagrancy
| laws by which in 1865 it was sought to re-
| enslave the newly emancipated colored
man, but which were in 1867 swept away by
the rising tide of northern Indignation are
| being re-enacted thirty eight years later in
| some Of the southern states; and the prac-
| tice of peonage-the virutla enslavement of
! colored laborers-has been going forward
| for several years without discovery by the
| north, consequently without resistance
| Real and Terrifying.
mo man desires less than 1 to revive sec
| tional issues. with the war for secession
| more than a third of a century behind us
| and history rather than an experience to
| most of the American people-only history
/ to the active influential md II