The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-12
WHAT THE YEARS, HAVE

frisnds from the North who have never voted any but the Republican ticket, and he is the only one of the crowd who Will patronize a negro barber, the price befns the same.
 To Q southerner this last bit of infor- nation sounds decidedly ridiculous. The idea of these Northern young Republi- cans refusing to be shaved by colored barber seems absurd to white men down here who hardly ever see white barber. AS to what the Republicans think of the fifteenth amendment, that is no news. Many of them have long since had their eyes opened to the injustice of that amendment, as well as to its ineficiency to accomplish what its sponsors desired and intended.
 And, while 1t is not always good policy to stir up the embers of the dead past or to recall the bitter memories connect ed with the era just after the war, 1t is not amiss sometimes to hark back to those days and repeat some of the argu- ments used by the South-haters Of that period. For example, Thad Stevens, in
 
 these three propositions:
 First-That loyal blacks have quite as good right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites.
 Second-It Is a necessity to enfranchise the blacks in order to protect the loyal white man in the seeded States.
 Third--As a punishment to traitors II was no more than they deserved to en- franchise the blacks.
 As is generally known, old Thad was one of the bitterest and most determined of all those who wanted to humble the Southern whites and place the negroes over them. In an era of hatred. revenge and malice, and among the many apostles of vengeance he stood well to the front for devilish hate and demoniac cruelty towards the South and the Southern peo- pie. If he was not actually at the head of these prosecutors of our people. he was well up to the front, and the three sentences we have quoted show the feel ings which animated him and gave point to all his public actions where our sec ton was in any manner concerned.
 Would not this old South-hater's eyes turn green with malice and his blood boil with disappointed rage. if he were living today? He would find that the work for which he was so largely respon- sible was a failure. He would find that "the loyal blacks" are not choosing any rulers hereabouts. any more than they are in his own State of Pennsylvania. He would find that "the loyal white man" Is amply protected without calling the would find that his diabolical and we'll devised scheme for "the punishment of traitors" failed to work. In short. he would learn that all his devilish malig- nifty has proved a failure.
 If Stevens and his coadjutors of the Reconstruction era were now living they would be forced to admit that the en- franchisement of the negroes was a grievous injury to them. for the act was the primary cause of all the bitterness | and racial trouble that has existed in the | South. Without the dread of negro dom | ination which was made possible and probable by putting the ballot in their | hands and putting them in the hands of the thoroughly conscienceless carpet-bag- gers and their scalawag brethren. there would have been no race trouble or bit | ter feeling in the South between the races. The acquisition of the franchise ! was a direful injury to the negro race | in the South.
 And these apostles of vengeance would also find that the scheme which they had so cunningly devised to build up a con trolling Republican Party in the South was defeated by the very plans they | had formulated. There could be and can be no strong Republican Party in the | South, while there Is a possibility that it may be used to put the negroes over the whites. This is one of the truths about which no argument Is needed for it Is ap- parent to any rational man.
 | And the bitterest dose for these men to swallow, if they were with us again, | would be the well-established fact that the enfranchisement of the negroes l strengthened the Democratic Party in | the South and has been the means by | which Thads traitors" have preserved their power and maintained their pont- ical supremacy. It was impossible for | Confederate survivors, except in occa- sionaI instances, to ally themselves with party that was bent only on punishing them for their patriotism, and punishing them by forcing them to bow down to their former slaves. And for the same reason Northern men who settled among us became Democrats, at least in all our
 local affairs. as soon as they had be. come familiar with the conditions. l Milton, we believe 1t was, wanted to 1 Call up him who left half told l The story of Cambuscan bold.
 and little as we would care to see the
 grims shades of Stevens, and his associates
 stalking about the earth, 1t would be
 some satisfaction to catch the expres.
 sions on their faces as they watched the
 result of all their well-laid schemes for
 the punishment of traitors. They would
 feel something like old Caius Marius sit.
 ting in disappointment and envy and de. | spalr amid the marshes of Tatium. But
 Stevens and his like have gone to their
 appointed places and their devilish de
 signs against the white people of the
 South have all worked out their own fall
 ures; so we can afford to dismiss them
 as we try to forget evil dreams. White