The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1908-10-30
HON. j. C. NAPIER WRITES ON
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

What are we as Negroes to gain by
deserving the Republican party and
voting for Patterson against Tillman?
In the first place, how can any self
respecting Negro vote for Gov. Patter-
son when he and party will not even
recognize our right to have any voice
in his party. No one but a white man
is permitted to vote in their primaries
or take part in their conventions.
If the colored man deserts the Re
publican party, where will he goY
Are not those who are urging him to
this course, leading him up to political
destruction? If the Republican party
must give him up and be forced by
him to become also a white mans
party, who is going to stand up against
the efforts of the Democratic party
to disfranchise him and rob him OF
his political rights?
Do not Democrats boldly declare
that the right to vote should be taken
from him, and have not the ablest
Democratic statesmen, editors and
LAWYERS written and spoken in favor
of such a policy?
What has Gov. Patterson done to
merit his support? The Governors
friends claim that he has not discrim-
mated against colored convicts in issu-
ing pardons. This is not true and is
not borne out by the facts in the case,
for out of 1900 Negroes, he pardoned
only rs: while out of about 600 whites,
he has pardoned over 400 Does this
have the appearance of impartiality?
They have made this pardon business
a great catch penny for colored voters,
but not once have any of them under
taken to draw the Governor out on
the subject of disfranchisement or
Jim Crowism, or larger educational ia
cilities for colored children.
Was it any mercy to turn out of the
penitentiary thirty or forty poor Ne
groes with legs and backs broken, and
some dying of consumption? Would
It not be better, as insisted by Mr..
Tillman, to take care of these poor fell
lows in good hospitals instead of
unloading them on their poor kin,
especially when all these disabilities
we're incurred in the service of the
State?
All this attack on Mr. Tillman by
some of our colored newspapers is
unjust, and founded in a misconcep-
ton of the facts. He has always writ
ten and spoken in behalf of the colOred
man-and that, too. when he was no
candidate for office. And he expects
and will receive the support Of those
who truly see what is good for the
race.
Four years ago, when he had no
other motive than serve the race, he
spoke out in meeting of dstin-
guished Democrats in the following
brave, bold plea-which was published
in the newspapers at the time. He
was no candidate then Here is what
he said:
"The Negro may, by various methods
by indirection, by violence or fraud,
by applying tests to him not applied
to whites, be deprived of the ballot for
a few years, or a generation, but in
the long run, such methods will fail;
if the Negro shall progress in NOR
al and intelligent qualities, in in
dustry and thrift, in accumulation of
property, and all the elements Of civil
iization and this leads to the conclu-
sion that the chief thing for the Negro
IN do now, is to bend all Of his ener-
oios to the acnuirement of edu9ation,
oainly industrial, to discipline flo the
development Of the faculties Of prov