The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-01
IF WAS A CRIME.

that granting suffrage to the negro was the greatest crime of the cen- tury,' and further declared that .he negroes should be where they were before the war" To take the last proposition first, we dou.. if Mir. Smith will find a great many people to agree with him. While most of the old gen. eration of Southerners still believe that slavery was right. and that as gen- eral propositicn the negroes were bet ter off as slaves than they nave been since emancipation. they have little de- sire to see the old order restored, even if it were possible, which of course it is not. Actual slavery in the ~ni- ted States is dead and few wish it's revival
 But he will find numerous people throughout the South in accord with him on his first proposition. The word crime" has many variations. but it fits the act of the government in turn ing loose upon the helpless South a great army of suffragists who were In the main as little fitted for the bal- lot as were the mules on the planta- tions. It was three-fold crime, in fact It was a c-ime against the whites of the South to virtually place them at the mercy of an ignorant pop ulation. The voting population of the South had been largely reduced by the casualties of war. It was brought still lower by the drastic and devilish regu- lations and restrictions placed upon the white people by the reconstruction laws. By the universal suffrage laws the negroes, led on and engineered by Northern adventurers and their South ern aids and assistants. were for a time the actual rulers in many portions of the South. The whites for the time being were practIcally helpless and thus enfrancnising the negroes was a detestable and hidcous crime against the white people of the South, than whom no finer citizensnlp has existed anywhere.
 Universal suffrage was a crime against the negroes themselves. Not one in ten thousand of .-.e--. was quail flied for suffrage. If the South had been left free to work out it's prob lem in it's own way, as it was so much better qualified to do than any other power, was, the result would have been a peaceful adjustment of the matter which would have been better for botn races. But this did not suit the em- bittered leadership of the North, so the negroes were all elevated to me high position of voters, and one of .me inevitable results of negro and for eign domination was to create and foster an unfriendly sentiment on the part of Southern whites against the former slaves, and this feeling grew and spread till the Southern people were forced to take matters in their own hands, at the baIlot-box and else where. Eventually the blacks were the sufferers and on them fell the evil effects of the crime ce.-=.litted when they were made voters without quail fications or preparation.
 And universal negro suffrage was in the beginning, in the end and all the way through a crime against the ballot. It was a hideous mistake.
 
 lot is that it will reflect the intellt- gent freeman's will. To place it ia the hands of ignorant and nliterate me- groes was libel on suffrage and a crime against the ballot. And it led the way to other crimes and wrongs in elections. Unfairness at the polIs was practically unheard of in the South before negro suffrage was forced upon us, but 1t came through that act. The conditions soon became unbeara- ble and were growing. The Southern white man saw that there must be a way found to throw off the black bur den. The laws of a then autocratic Federal government precluded a resort to force by the enfeebled people thus imposed on, and the result was what might have been expected. In one way or another the white people controlled the elections, as they should have done from the beginning. If they did wrong it was because the crime against the ballot in the reconstruction acts forced them to do so. If our people commit ted wrong in taking control of the franchise--which we are not admitting the wrong was done because it was the only remedy for a great outrage perpetrateh on them when they were helpless.
 Yes, granting unqualified suffrage to the negroes was triple crime.