The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-14

rroes who are unfit to exercise the priv iiege of the ballot be the result of this last decision of the Supreme Court. the whole country, North and South. can congratulate itself. and breathe easier with the bright prospect before 1t of solution at last of the harassing and dan gerous race problem"
 The Journal takes the same view as the rest of the Northern press. that Con gress is not likely to do what the Su- preme Court has refused to do. It re- marks:
 "The effect of the decision is to deprive the negro of a recourse upon which he built some of his highest hopes So far as the decision can be understood from the 1n- complete report of it thus far published. the colored citizen is dependent for his Republican majority of Congress at that. It is not likely that Democratic Congress would undertake to reprove a violation of the spirit of the fifteenth amendment so long as the letter is re- spected, and if the Supreme Court re mains silent, who is to pronounce Vaiid legal judgment that the letter is violated! And what Is a Republican majority go- ing to do? The unwillingness of Repub- licans to press this matter to final issue has been made clearly manifest in recent years. Assuming that the party Will de- eide to take the bull by the horns, 1t has but two alternatives: to pass the appro- priate legislation to enforce the fifteenth amendment to reduce Southern represen- tation in Congress in the proportion Tn which any of the male inhabitants or a State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States. are denied the right to vote. Legislation under the first alternative could be enforced only by a force" law, and the unlikelthood Of such a measure being passed should pc apparent to everyone. The second aiter- native would not help the negro; 1t would simply result in the reduction of Southern representation in Congress. and to that the South would probably consent rarner than give the mass of negroes free access to the polls."
 On this latter point there have frequent ly been declarations from the Southern people, that they would accept reduc- ton of representation rather than con sent to any plan of negro suffrage that would endanger white supremacy. The chances of an attack on that representa- tion however. are small. The North as a whole does not want it. seeing the evil 1t will inevitably lead to- The conservative element appreciates the fact that such hostile action would stir up sectional bit terness and check the prosperity Of the country; while the radicals sec that the reduction of Southern representation would subject the negro to disfranchise- ment for all time to come, if it did not check the disposition of the Southern States to educate the colored race. NC possible good could result from the plan proposed by Crumpacker beyond stirring up the bitter hatreds of reconstructior days It is agreed by all that the question
 will not be brought up at the session ol Congress this winter; and the more the matter is thought over by the North tho less chance there is of any action being taken against the South because it has denied the ballot to its illiterate and cor rupt negro voters.