New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1904-09-10
Subscription, $1.5O per Annum
A SECTIONAL PARTY.

l first a sectional organization, original
ly formed for the abolition of SLAYER,
in the Southern States of the Union
1t was known as the Abolition ant
Free Soil Party and was not called b,
any other designation until 1856, whei
it held a national convention at Phil.
adelphia and nominated General Ere
mont for President of the United
States, when its war cry was Fret
soil, free men. and Fremont. -
1t continued to be a sectional and
abolition party up to 1860, when il
elected President and prosecuted a
war for the freeing of the slaves of
| the Southern States, which was ac-
complished by the surrender of the
Southern armies in 1865. This hav-
ing been consummated it being still
in power, addressed itself to the in
famous work of disfranchising the
white inhabitants of the Southern
States and in putting the freed slaves
in power over their former masters
Such had been the work of this sec
tional party until it lost control by
the election of several Democratic
Congresses and two Democratic Presi-
dents
Having got again into power under
such a radical and over bearing man
as Theodore Roosevelt, he realizing
that the Party is nothing if not Sec
tional, has begun to draw the lines
of sectional discrimination and pre-
judice very much closer than they
have been for a long time, and SO
far as he can do so, the President is
making the Republican Party an anti
South and pro- negro organization.
But the President is not carrying
the country with him in his war upon
the South. On the contrary, there is
good reason to believe that a majority
of the people of the United States are
willing to give up sectional prejudices
now that they see that the entire peo-
pie are united on great national inter-
ests. OF course, the race question is
most commonly used by the agitators
: I--r ss'rso auCrI0a..-s differences. but
it is coming so that this ruce issue is
not confined to the Southern States,
but is beginning to reveal acute symp-
toms of colorphobia in the Northern
States themselves.
Colonel Robert Bingham, distin-
guished Confederate soldier in the
sixties of the Civil War, and since
then an eminent educator in his ma
tive State of North Carolina, i'll an
article in the September North Amer
lean Review, sets forth the import |
ance of harmonizing the section by |
misunderstanding He ad- |
mits that we discriminate against the
negro politically because we must pre-
serve our political integrity, and we
against him socially be- |
cause we must preserve our race in
tegrity, but there all discrimination
stops.
All trades and callings are open to
the negro in the South, which is not
the case in the North, and the whites
and blacks work together for equal
wages, according to their skill. In1
the Northern States this is impossible. |
fife two races may eat together and
otherwise, but the black is
not allowed to work with the whites
Or to work at all save at menial SER
vice.
It is not easy for the Northern peo-
Dle to see the situation from a stand
point so different as is. that at the
South. In the whole North about
me -sixieth Of the population is of
African blood In the whole South
learly one-half of the population is
if African blood In some of the
Southern States three-fifths are me-
,roes and in localities in all or nearly
Ill of the Southern States nine tenths
II the people are negroes. In 1867
he people OF the North conferred un-
estricted manhood suffrage on all the
lack men in the Southern States.
rhe blacks in the South composed
learly half of our population, and
he injection of such a mass of illiter-
ties into our citizenship was q great
neanace to the civilization, not only
# the South, but of the whole coun-
ry. But the red men. the yellow
nen, the illiterate black men and the
lliterate white men in the Northern
|tates, composing their disfranchised
AnR vi