Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1908-07-16
REPUBLICANS AND FRAUD /"

evidence we have been offering to show
that the Virginia Democracy is still
very impure and degenerate. The News
Leader, after quoting our unanswerable
charges against the Virginia leadership
of the Democratic party, resorts to its
usual plea or excuse for the many
crimes of its party-that plea being
Federal bayonets and threatened negro
supremacy. 1t says: Election frauds
were very few anywhere in Virginia
until the Republicans made them neces-
sary. The Tazewell Republican knows
this as well as we do
Yes, we know it just as well as does
the News Leader, and we don't know it
at all. For it is not a fact, only a
dream, hallucination that has come
upon our contemporary in its eager
search for some plausible excuse for the
corrupt practices of its own party.
Then the News Leader declares:
'It was the Democrats who used
their power to make new election laws
and to Danish fraud; and they did it
against the stubborn and sullen opposi-
ton of what there is of the Republican
party in the State. The Tazewen Re-
publican knows this Also"
We know precisely the contrary. The
Virginia Democrats have not made an
honest election law in the past twenty
five years. Beginning with the Ander-
SON Mccormick law and ending with the
election laws made in and under the
new constitution, every election law
created by the Democrats has been par
tisan and with fraudulent intent. We
defy our Richmond contemporary to
point US to a single election law it's
party originated or enacted in the last
quarter of century that is non-partisan
and honest. These dishonest measures,
we are proud to say, were stubbornly
opposed by the Republicans. The News
Leader further says:
The Tazewel Republican also knows
that legislative representation is appor-
toned according to population. If in
significant little counties in Eastern
Virginia have more representation than
they would be entitled to by white pop
ulation. it is because the Republican
party insisted that negroes be made and
counted as voters"
Again our contemporary is in error.
We know nothing of the kind, because
the contrary is true. Legislative repre-
sentation in Virginia is not based upon
population, but is based upon the will
and needs of the corrupt gang that has
been controlling the State so long and
wants to continue to hold it by the
throat. Legislative representation has
been made more inequitable since the
negro was disfranchised by the new
constitution than it was when he was a
voter-this inequitable apportionment
having been made since the constitution
was put in operation. For the enlight-
eminent of the News Leader we will
give some illustrations or examples
from the records.
According to the last census, Taze-
well and Buchanan counties have %, 4s9
white and 1851 colored population, a
total of SO, 076, and have one member of
the House of Delegates and one-half
Senator. Amherst and Nelson counties,
with 2l,210 whites and II, 729 colored,
total 33, 839, have two members of the
House and one Senator. Appomattox,
with 5,731 white and 1881 colored, or a
total of 1922, has one member of the
House.
The Third Senatorial District, COM
posed of the counties of Buchanan,
Dickinson, Russell and Tazewell, have
a population of So, 454-54, sos white and
4,S51 colored. This district has one
Senator and two and one-half delegates
under the present legislative apportion-
ment. Halifax county, with a white
population of II, s22 and 1925 colored,
total, 81, 1877, has one Senator and two
members of the House.
We could continue these illustrations
until they would fill columns of the
News Leader, showing that the legis-
lative representation is not based upon
population, but has been so arranged by
the Democratic machine of the Eastern
part of the State as to place the mount
ain and white counties absolutely at the
mercy of the Democrats of Eastern