Fitzgerald enterprise. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1895-1912, 1908-11-05
Pail for Fitzgerald or Pull Gu
No Longer A Voting Machine.

Tn TUESDAYS election the southern states be
gan writing of their political declaration of indie
pcndence.
The result means that the time has passed
when resident of one of these states must buy MS
social security often, perhaps, at the price OF his
political convictions.
Many business men, the south over most OF
them adherents of the democracy all their lives,
dared to support hopefully and openly the candl-
dates of the republican party, because their con-
victions led them that way.
X x y
Just here let us say to those who may be dis
posed to criticise this position that the pursuit OF
political conviction and the freedom OF political
action are bigger and broader questions than any
fixed idea of party alignment based ON tradition,
local or general and The Constitution will be found
fighting for sound and progressive democratic prin-
cples long after those who may see tit to carp and
cayil at these views are gone and forgotten
That southern vote which, in firm belief,
wrenched itself away from sectional, political ira
ditiou-~and it was large one-was significant.
Tt means that the south is no longer to be
kent as voting machine; as slice OF country to
he denended On to 60 soljdly democratic though
the heavens fall: as mere tail to what by itself
would he an unhvable northern democratic kite.
1t means that the time has come when the
voter of the south is going to demonstrate his
faith by works and not let convlctlon Wal6 upon
cob webbed tradition which new natlonallsm has
decreed must be brought up to date, to stand the
test of the reason of the hour or fall if 1T Calls to
do so.
There was time when conditions demanded
that the south must remain political entity;
when conviction, manhood and, further back, the
very protection of life and home required that it
should oppose itself in solid phaanx to the party
which it regarded SO the enemy of its welfare.
Today that party has disappeared in all
uame and there remains naught OF the once feared
substance of social equality and negro domination,
or efforts toward them, but a phantom bogle that
lacks sufficient form and force to scare child.
New conditions have, years since, lifted most
of what remained of the necessity for hidebound
unity of southern political action.
At home we will continue to control our own
affairs and, by the white primary SYSTEM eliminate
from interference all the negro vote that may sur
yiye disfranchisement
But in national affairs there remains no longer
reason whv the people of the south should not fol-
low men and principles which to them seem best
and promise most to national growth and national
prosperity.
The south has fed too long upon the political
crumbs which the scattering Democratic elements
in western aud eastern states have brushed to it
from the table
It should long ago have demanded more. The
South furnishes the votes it should before
have supplied the platform and presidential nomi-
nee. And yet for all these years it has been play
ing the part of the quadrennial convention sup
plaint-until even its own people have grown tired
of it.
The south will not continue longer mere
waiting machine-CO Constitution.