The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1904-07-06
CHICAGO PLATFORM.
Hon. John Shark Williams Sees Du
picity in Franchise Plank

plicity in Franchise Plank
HE DECLARES TEAT IT MEANS
One Law tor Mass hu s etts
and Another for the South.
and PresaSes Anoth er
Force Bill.
The following is what John Shark
Williams, the Democtatic Congreslon.
ai Coder, says OF the suffrage clause OF
the Republican platform as adopted al
Chicago recently:
"Tha plank in which the party
promises, if it finds the suffrage IN any
State 'nnconstitutionally limited by
SPECIAL discrimination, to reduce the
represen "a tion OF that State in Con-
press and in the Electoral College,
strikes the South as producing an issue
upon which all Southerners will meet.
The advero 'uncons nstituti 1nally' is use
less and fools NOBODY. especially when
one remembers that the author CT the
phrase, or at least the voice that read
it, was the author Of the old Force
BILL Whether or not the suffrage has
been 'unconStitutiona]ly limited IS
matter for the courts to determine,
and reportof a Republican Committee
on elections in the last CongesS so con-
fesses it. II man be 'unccn :titution-
ally denied the suffrage, then, after a
determination to that effect, he can
vote-that is bis remedy, and the right
remedy, and having voted, CT course
there can be no reduction Of represen-
tation on his account.
DEFINES THE REAL OBJECT.
But all this d;ceives nobody, as l
said. This real object Of the the Re
publican party, in so far as this plank
is concerned, however speciouS the
phraseology in which it is clothed, is
to reduce Southern representation
without reducing that Of Massachu-
setts, Connecticut and other States,
wherever in the South negroes are dis
frarchised, not as such, but because OF
ignorance, by an educational Quallh.
cation, or because Of any other right
reason, in any sother constitutional
way. Disfranchisement Ct negro for
ignorance in Mississippi is a horrible
thing; disfranchisement of a white
man of ignorance in Massachusetts, is
part of higher civilization
Let not the business interest OF
the country deceive itself; let these
controlling it prepare for another Pc
riod Of uncertainty, unrest, business
disturbance and race war in the South
ern States, ins'ead Of that peace and
prosperity which both races now en-
| ioy, and which has been rendered pos
sible only by home rule and by white
supremacy. Let the South not deceive
itself either.
IF the Republican party were sim
cere in its proposition to reduce South.
ern reprs sentation on the ground or
the disfrancbisement Of the negro race
in the South, thereby condoning the
disfranchisement OF unconst tutional
Limitation itself, it could accompany
that proposition with another, to-Wit;
the proposition to repeal the Fifteenth
Amendment.
CALLS IT DOUBLE DEALING.
''Tleir duplicity is shown in this:
they wish to maintain the amendment
which forbids the negro, for racial
reasons, from being disfranchised, and
vet, on the pretence that he is Tor
racial reason disfrauchise6, they would
have the negro not counted as a basis
cf representation in the Stuthern
States, where he chiefly resides. 1t is
not the white man, as white man,
who is injured by recurrence to the
tendencies Of force bill days-he can
and always will maintain himself-lt
is business, commerce manufacturing,
agriculture and the negro himself.
Commercially and industrially the
white men of the South will not be so
much injured by this sort OF agitation
as Northern people will, because the
average Southerner is not rich anyhow,
gets his food and clothes out OF the
world, and these he would get anyhow.
The mercantile class would be the first
to suffer, but as they owe debts to the
! North and buy from the North, and
as nearly everything they sell is manu-
factured in the North, they would not
be alone in their suffering. This is but
the entering wedge to new period OF
Southern reconstruction
THEIR BOAST AS TO TRUSTS.
"The boast that the administration
has executed the antitrust laws is, OF
course, ridiculous. The Attorney-Gen-
eral, in response to resolution OF my
own, frankly confessed that nothing
had, been done, and left the inference
that nothing would be done toward
the criminal prosecution of men found
guilty by the Supreme Court OF the
United States, in the Northern Sc
curities case, which owned its Initial
tive to Governor Van SAINT Of having
violated the provisions OF antitrust
legislation.
1.-THE Attorney. General, in answer
to another resolution (the Hearst re.
solution), failed to show that ANYTHING
substantial was being done, civilsy or
imina}ly, against the anthracite coal
carrying railroads and anthracite Goa!
mine owners, constituting together, IN
violation of law, one OF the greatest
trusts in the country. This same
trust. buster, Attorney. Genera
Knox, has just been appointed by the
Governor OF Pennsylvania a Senator
from that State on the demand of the
very men who constituted this trust
and who are, at any rate, the presl-
dents of the railroads and the owners
Of the mines constituting it."