New-York tribune., 1909-09-25
THE MARYLAND AMENDMENT.

It is refreshing TO find a representative South
ern newspaper like The TlmeS-Dispatch," OF
Richmond, Va, recognizing the reasOnableness
OF President Taft's protest against the adoption
OF the franchise amendment now pending in
Maryland The Democratic party in that state,
spurred by partisan advantage rather than by
public necessity, is attempting 70 restrict the
suffrage by disfranchising negro voters. Less
than 20 per cent OF Maryland's population Is
cOlOred, and the cOlOred element is declining
proportlonately with every census. There Is not
even a remote danger of NEGRO domination" in
politics with unrestricted suffrage 1t Is ad-
mitted also that through the establishment OF a
few unobjectionable tests, like registration or
poll tax and ability 10 read and write, the great
majority Of undesirable negro voters can be
eliminated along with some undesirable white
ones without precipltating any conflict with the
federal Constitution. The few white voters who
might thus be lost are not needed TO maintain
white supremacy. They might be needed 10
keep the Democratic machine IN power. and that
machine has therefore forced fictitious Issue
on the state seeking TO accomplish by patent
injustice 10 the negroes as a race what could
much better have been accomplished-if deemed
necessarily tests bearing impartlaly on the
whole electorate
The Times Dispatch" deprecates the Mary
land experiment as extreme aud unjustlhable
II takes the Southern view that the elimination
OF the negro as n voter is desirable because
most OF the Southern negroes are not equipped
10 use the ballot either 10 their own advantage
or 10 that Of the communities In which they
live II realizes that Northern opinion does not
complain of such dwelling up of the electorate.
But it sensibly holds that the object which the
Southern States have in view can be- best at
tanned by moderate legislation and by devices
which do not challenge the suffrage guarantees
of the federal Constitution. II can find no Occa-
sion for Quarrelling with President Taft be-
cause he, "as an Ohio Republican, with a strong
veneration for the Constitution" Is opposed 20
"ant-negro legislation which many Southern
Democrats regard as extreme. undesirable and
generally unnecessary"
It is certainly best for the South that such
changes in the suffrage system as 1t desires
should be brought about gradually and without
injurious friction. The states further south
could plead the excuse Of an imperous domestic
necessity for a drastic restriction OF the fran
chise But that necessity no longer exists any
where, and the Democracy of Maryland is sim
ply playing with an artificial issue for selfish
partisan purposes. 1t is unwilling to ask white
voters TO make the small sacrifice necessary TO
insure an improved suffrage through nOn-racial
tests, preferring to run the risk of an attack in
the courts on the undemOcratic "grandfathsr
ClduS1 ana 10 Invite guulclal interference Win
the conditions under which other Southern
states have reconstructed their eectoratcs our
Richmond contemporary sees danger In that
reckless venture. II points out that the advo-
Gates of the Maryland amendment pretend that
# is aimed only at "the shftless. the Irrespon-
sible and the ignorant" But II pertinently
asks:
If 1t is. why have the grandfather clause" at
allE IT the maximum number Of negroes In
Maryland can be excluded automatically through
their own weaknesses they have been ex-
cluded elsewhere. what is the necessity for bring
Ing In different and more doubtful method Of
exclusion, the Introduction of which may mean
that the whole question OF Southern suffrage
laws may be dragged into the courts?
Southern statesmen Of the type of Governor
VardamaD Of Mississippi and Senator William
J. Stone, OF Missouri, may defend the Maryland
amendment on the stump, but conservative
Southern opinion is alive 10 it's weakness and
unreasOnabeneSS