Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-14
MARYLAND CAMPAIGN
Negro Disfranchisement the
Great Issue.
MEETINGS SEVERY NIGHT
DEMOCRATS WORKING HARD TO
RATIFY POE AMENDMENT.
Some of the Stories and Methods EN-
MEETINGS EVERY NIGHT
Some of the Stories and Methods En-
ployed to Get Votes - The
Spellbinders Busy.

Special From STAFF Correspondent.
BALTIMORE, October 1-The campaign
that is to determine whether Maryland is
to disfranchise her colored voters is now in
full progress and until November I, when
the election will take place, there will be
meetings every night to discuss this issue.
The campaign was opened on the part of
the democrats with massmeeting in East
Baltimore Thursday evening. Many people
here supposed the initial gathering for the
discussion of this question would be held
in one of the largest halls of the city and
made important by addresses by men of
national reputation. But the occasion did
not rise above a district meeting, with its
candidates for the assembly present and
with ringing declaration in favor of per-
manently eliminating the negro from all
participation in politics.
The small interest manifested in this first
democratic meeting is causing the repuh-
licans to charge that the race issue is fail
ing to excite the white voters and that there
is little or fear among any class of the
people in the city of negro domination,
which is the keynote of the entire demo-
cratic issue. The meeting was widely ad-
vertised and 1t was intended to be a rous-
ing affair that would alarm the class Of
people that make up the bulk OF the popu-
lation of the first district. But with brass
in which the meeting was held for over an
hour In a densely populated section of the
city the hall was only a little more than
half filled when tardy beginning Of the
evenings program was made.
Negro Domination Bugaboo.
The campaign is hanging on the ability
of orators to persuade the white voters
that there is imminent danger of negro
domination. and all the speeches are being
directed toward that end. The ratification
of the Poe constitutional amendment. 1t is
conceded on all hands, will be thoroughly
effective in preventing the casting of votes
by colored men In Maryland. The SPELL
binders use all the arts of oratory to work
upon the Imagination of the people, and
picture in vivid language the awful social
condition that will be ushered into Mary
land If the amendment is not ratified.
They tell the working people that there Is
a definitely formed conspiracy on the part
of the republican party In Maryland to I'M
port colored laborers from Virginia, the
Carolinas and the District of Columbia to
be employed on the extensive public works
that are projected for the next few years,
and by this means to gain sufficient repub-
lican votes to secure control of the political
fortunes of the state two years hence.
White laborerS are told that they viii no
longer be able to secure employment on
public works when this plan becomes eff
fective. Everywhere the statement Is being
maze IHdt the NOle, having DeeH
thrown out of the political equation in the
south, the republican party proposes util-
izing At in Maryland by this method
Following such statements. word pictures
are drawn to illustrate the social conditions
that are soon to be realized unless the coll
ored man is disfranchsed.
Exaggerated Predictions.
At the opening meeting of the campaign
one orator went so far as to predict the ex-
tinction OF the white people when In the
course of hundred years the colored pop
ulation reaches the enormous aggregate of
so. 100000 which. he declared, was sure to
result from the present rate of increase
He declared that slavery was the one up
lifting condition that the colored people
have known throughout their history, and
went even farther than Gov. Vardaman CT
Mississippi, who opposed the further ex-
penditure of state funds for the education
of colored children, by declaring that both
the Bible and the school house had failed
utterly in exerting uplifting influences on
the coiored race.
That race he declared. would always hear
the .'call Of the wild" above the call Of CIV
ilization, and II left to itself would within
twenty years drift back to barbarism and,
abandoning the pursuits OF industry, would