The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-07-22
RACE QUESTION NOT INVOLVED.

car plaCIOTm WHICH, 1uSlolo upon SoA
gressional representation in accord
ance with the law-upon a basis OF
the actual citizenship of the states
the democratic writer's all owe the
land are seeking u misrepresent the
party and inf1a% the popular mind
with prejua;S by pretending that the
rerasSfcans are attempting to raise
the race question and revive sectional
animosities. Nothing could be farther
from the truth, and the democratic
editors know it. There is no effort
on the part of the republicans to cajole
the negro or to cause sectional feel
ing. They are making a simple de-
mand for observance of the law.
While they have outraged every
principle of constitutional law and ev-
cry sense of human right, the republi-
can party has %contented itself with
protesting against the action of those
states which have DISTINGUISHED a
large portion of their citizens because
of their color, at the same time con-
tinuing the right of franchise to 9TH
ers equally as ignorant and illiterate
because they happened to be white.
1t has done no more than to call at
tention to the injustice thus perpetrat-
ed, content to permit the states guilty
of the practice to have their own way,
without effort to force or compel them
to obey the law. Having permitted
them to have that way, it now de.
mands that they be honest and yield
obedience to the law which says that
representation in congress shall be
only in proportion to actual citizen
ship. Certainly this is not wrong,
MOI is it indictable as an attempt to
0 VI race and sectional prejudice.
When they voluntarily eliminated to
the extent of thousands from their
roll of citizens men who had the
sacred promise of the highest law OF
the land that they should enjoy equal
rights with all others in the exercise
OF citizenship, they could not have
hoped that the other states would
remain quiet and supine and permit
them to have congressional represen-
tation to which they were no longer
entitled.
If it is right and proper that a
southern state should have congress
men far in excess of it's actual vot-
ing population, why should it not be
equally right and proper that a north.
ern state should have the same privi-
lege. Montana, Wyoming, Nevada
and other of the newer states that
have a citizenship actually greater
than some of the states of the souta
which have disfranchised the negro
are forced to be content with the
slight representation in the lower
u accorded them because of their
lack of numbers. 1t is manifestly un-
fair and absolutely illegal to permit
a state or several states to maintain
congressional representation based I'D.
on a fictitious citizenship. No matter
how many residents a commonwealth
may have, it is actual citizenship tina
IS taken into consideration when the
question of congressional apportion.
ment is at issue.
AS long as the now DISTINGUISHED
OF the south were permitted
to exercise the right of citizenship the
states to which they owed their al
legiance were justly entitled to rep
resentation in accordance. whe1
those states, however, violated tn,
constellation and declared that Ger
tain of their citizens should be de
prived Of q voice in public affairs be
csause Of the color Of their skin thel
they voluntarily did that which b,
right paved the way for reduction Il
congressional representation. The