The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1906-10-10
PASSPORT SYSTEM IS CLAp-TRAP.

Senator Tillman delivered in
Augusta last Saturday night a
lecture on the race problem
which is described as passion.
ate and throbbing with intense
and burning eloquence." He
proposes as a remedy for ex-
listing lawlessness the Euro
pean passport system to be put
into effect in this country---com-
pelling every person to have a
certificate of good character be-
fore being allowed either to move
away from a residence, or home,
or to move into a new section,
compelling every person to have
a bona fde means Of support,
and promptly arrest any person
without such passport appearing
in any community. This the
Senator thinks will put stop to
that element now so rampant in
crime. breakup idIeness and va
grancy.
The idea advanced by Senator
Tillman is taken from a system
in vogue from time immemoUal
in Germany and Russia, there
is nothing new or original about
it, but all the same the passport
system mightwork were it not for
the constitution of the United
States which guarantees freedom
to every man. Tillman's advocacy
Of the passport views is an i'm.
possibility under our system OF
government and he knows it,
but like all other demagous, he
is ever ready to fall upon some
thing to pander to the popular
ear, and this he does with shrewd
method. The senator has real
lied the people have tired of his
bossism, and his prestige is like
crumbling sand beneath his feet,
unless he can find something to
appeal to their passions he will
soon be reckoned with those who
have been. He therefore brings
forward a well sounding, plaus-
lille. popular but impossible idea
and with fervid eloqaence urges
his solution of our racial Difficult
ties.
There are too, some newspa
pers that have fallen into the
senator's trap and are endorsing
his views, but not one of them
will attempt to show how this
passport system can be put in
operation in this free Amer
ican country. It looks
all right to a one-idea
class, whose minds are Influenced
by prejudice, but these people
forget there are two races IN
this country, and in attempting
to curb the liberty of the negro.
the poor white man must be
reckoned with. Adopt Tillman's
system, and the poor white man
with the negro would be forced
upon the same plane with hat
in hand when in the presence Of
the s.better element and this
ssbetter element" probably the
class made better ''by money
and not character"
Imagine a white man poor
in purse, but rich in character
moving to a new home being met
in the public road by a gentle
man e: in a carriage who has
procured his wealth from mys
terious sources, rebates for in
stances rightfully belonging to
the people that placed honors
upon him. that man in the CARR
age, orders his driver to demand
of the moving white man his
passport, having none, he or
ders the white man arrested or
whipt, how long would this sort
of thing be submitted to? Isl
there a man with an American
spirit in his breast who would
stand for such a system? Sen
ator Tillman knows full well
his passport idea, now being
advocated by him is a scheme
to rehabilltate the losing of his
polite prestige. It is an effort
to arouse prejudice, by an appeal
to ignorance, on a par with the
class Of demagogues who go be-
fore the people, and advocate,
in the face of the constitution,
taxing the white man for the
education Of the white children,
and the negro for the education
of the negro children. the white
man should not be made to pay
for the education of negroes.
It is an absurdity and should !
not find a resting place in the
mind OF anyone. There is not
a school boy but what knows
that a system such as Senator
Tillman has read, and not origin
al with him, but now being ad-
vocated by him, is one from a
monarchal government where
the subjects are held II awe by
Knout Of the Russian Cossack,
or the German Burger master
and would not be tolerated IN
any American State.
There is a great need for
craftsmanship now, some wise
man to rise up and devise a
means to stop the wave Of law