The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-20
AN OMEN or ILL.
The White Man Who Induces Negro to Vote
is Sowing Dragons Teeth.

To the Editor: The constitutional amend
ment has up to the present time done all
that its friends claimed for it. Those who
were it's strongest advocates and friends
while its acceptance or rejection was
pending before the people, contended that
ed as we'll as the uneducated negro from
the sphere Of North Carolina politics. hc-
cause the former class would constitute
so small a minority that no party would
tolerate the odium of their presence IN
it's councils for the small benefit to be
derived from their votes. The negro,
himself, it was confidently predicted.
would see the handwriting on the wall
and would cease to interest himself IL
politics. All turned out as was predicted.
The very first Republican State Conven-
ton held after the amendment was adopt
ed saw the negroes practically expelled.
At the succeeding election there were
scarcely a corporal's guard of them at
the polls 1t was better for them and
better for the State. Whether or not the
Republican party will live up to its pro.
fession remains to be seen. At any rate it
should be given a chance to do so. II
| they will not tolerate him, the negro has
no political home and will drop out of
politics through the force of public opinion
and not because he is denied any right
under the Constitution. There is but one
danger to the amendment at present
| That, though q cloud now no larger than
mans hand may develop into a mighty
tempest that will uproot and destroy all
the good accomplished by the political
struggle of 1900.
| / refer TO a disposition that has been
seen in some quarters to register negroes
in purely local elections. There has been
very little of it so far, but the movement
small as it is, contains boundless posi-
bilities of evil. In a fiercely contested
election it is easy for good men to lose
sight of the future in their anxiety for
present victory. The marcos should be
left severely alone and no enlargement
should be held out to them to register. re
gardless of the election to be decided or
the issues involved.
If the amendment means nothing more
for the future than an educational quail
fication for suffrage, it was nothing but a
palliative, a temporary expedient. They
have healed the hurt of A. laughter of
my people slightly" The negro's unfit
ness for suffrage is basic, 1t goes deeper
than intellectual blindness He is barred
for the present and will be barred for the
future by moral obtuseness which exists
regardless of education. If the negro is to
marshal his educated strength at the polls
in the future, the people of Moth Caroiy
will find themselves hemmed in by three
dreadful alternatives. The negro will once
more throw his united strength to the
Republican party, thus producing all the
evils from which we have escaped Or,
he may divide his strength between the
political parties in which event the negro
vote will be on the market and we shall
witness an orgy of corruption with which
the slums of Philadelphia are not to be
compared Or else. the negro vote will or
ganize to be thrown to either political par,
ty, which would be the greatest evil of
Ial.
If the highest good is to be obtained
from the amendment, the plain truth is
that public opinion should teach the negro.
educated or uneducated, that his place is
not at the polls. 1t is worthy of note that
the Republican party in the last election
upon a profession of white supremacy in
which few had any confidence and not
wlthstanding their unenviable record with
reference to the negro, polled twenty five
thousand more white votes than had ever
before been conceded to them. The negro
should be given all his rights under the
law. The man who attempts to introduce
the abominable practice of peonage should
receive the severest punishment. 1 have
no reason to believe that it has ever beer
practiced in the State but if It has every
law-abiding citizen should set his face
like flint against it. But the fact re-
mains that the place for the negro il
not at the polls, and the white man. how
ever honest, who induces him to vote at
any kind of an election is sowing dragons
teeth.
THOS NJ. HUFHAM