Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1909-10-29
MIR. Ogden Wins Prize.
ESSAY On AMENDMENT GETS AWARD FROM
Mr. ARTHUR PETER.
SOLIDARITY" Is HIS THEME.

| OOllDAkll1 10 Ills lHEME,
Mr.. William j. Ogden. of Baltimore city.
was on last Monday night awarded the
prize of 500 offered by Mr.. Arthur Peter,
of this town, for the best essay on "Why
| the Suffrage Amendment Should be Adopt
| ed Several score of essays were sub
mitted, and all were carefully considered
before the winner was decided upon.
The committee was composed of Messrs,
William Shepard Bryan, Alonzo L. Miles.
Philip d. Laird and j. Charles Linthcum,
Mr.. John P. Poe having been one of the
original members before his death.
The essay, which was entitled Soil
darity," is as follows:
THE sufficient reason why negro suf
frage should be restricted is that the black
race has demonstrated peculiar phase of
incapacity for government not exhib-
tied by any other race. Not simply that
greater number of them are illiterate. for
the educated negroes, of whom there are
now quite number evidence this inherent
defect with the same fatal persistence as
do those who are grossly ignorant. With
rare exceptions negroes, literate and illit-
crate, are afflicted with a strange involun-
tary mental and moral self-abnegation of
political freedom.
by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Fed
eral Constitution. they have virtually multi
fed the Thirteenth Amendment by which
slavery was abolished for. with a total
surrender of individual responsibility, they
allow themselves to be voted as block by
their supposed liberators.
EDUCATION FAILS To ELEVATE.
Controlled by strong animal propensi-
ties, they herd politically. and instinctively
submit to self-appointed drivers-for they
have nothing to do with selecting them.
This radical characteristic is traceable to a
long previous condition of servitude, though
it was the earnest expectation of Charles
Summer and other enthusiasts that after
the generation of freed slaves there would
arise a regenerated race that would as
fully appreciate the blessings of liberty,
and particularly individual freedom of
thought in the matter of voting, as do the
vast majority of both educated and ignof-
ant whites.
But the new generation is found to be
voting in one mass, for one party, without
the least regard to issues or men. This is
what makes the negro problem. If he
would but think and act as a free man,
then inevitably he would form opinions of
his own and would do what men of all
other races do-divide on public questions,
which are never so plainly one-sided that
all men can possibly think alike on them
and at once the negro would cease to be an
issue in politics.
But after 40 years of freedom, and pos
sessed of the voting franchise under most
favorable conditions. what do we find? Last
year the white voters registered as usual,
divided into Democratic. Republican, Pro-
Ia A. nj aIna.a
again subdivided into elements of regulars
and independents. and large remainder
which decline to affiliate with any party.
Contrasted with this the negro voters reg
istered as Republicans without division, the
exceptions being so few as to be oddly con-
spicuous. Their voting being purely me-
chanical, the white Federal officehoders
despise the easy job of rounding them up
to the polls.
REGARDLESS Or ISSUES.
Editors and orators address their argu
mentative appeals only to the whites, and
the effectiveness of reason is seen in the
shifting of majorities at every election
Maryland gave $1,000 majority for Ceve-
land on the issue of the Mckinley Tariff
bill then Mckinley himself swept the State
with $4,000 majority on the issue of BIZ
metalsm. This majority was reduced to
II 900 when the issue was imperialism,
and completely wiped out by Parker on the
issue of corruption of politics by the trusts,
and last year the twice heavily defeated
Bryan carried Maryland on the issues of
| tariff revision, labor injunctions and guar
| antee of bank deposits.
"A further example of the independence
of the white vote that should forever 81
lence the cry that the elimination of the
negro vote will make Maryland party
State is found in the State election of
1905, when the Poe amendment. which
constituted the sole plank in the Demo-
cratic platform of that year, was defeated
by 81, 900 majority by the voters who at
the same time elected the Democratic ticket
by about 5000 majority. In that election
Baltimore city gave 81, 900 majority against
this single declaration of the Democratic
State Convention, and If every one OF the
II 900 registered negroes had stayed at
home the city would have given 1000
majority against it.
And where was the negro in the mem
orable political battles that are so clearly
marked by Democratic and Republican de-
lection Where was the black voter when
white men were thinking. debating and
dividing2 Unhappily, whether the issue
was tariff, income tax, money. trusts, i'm
perialsm, railroad regulation. labor injunc-
tons or guarantee of bank deposits, 1t mat
tered not to him.
WHITES DIVIDED; NEGROES SOLID.
1.-THE whites sharply divide on all eco
nomic questions father against sons, and
brother against brother; old associations
are reluctantly severed and new alliances
made with former opponents but while
these painful but inevitable divisions take
place in every campaign in this State be-
tween $4,000 and 10000 black votes are
down at the bottom of the ballot box
counted in advance for the policies of one
party before the white men begin to di-
vide
solidarity And some gentlemen, who
are too plainly ambitious to assume the
balance Of power, blandly talk of the ig-
nOrance of the white race, as though they
see no difference between $4,000 black
block, invariably being voted for one party,
and perhaps as many ignorant whites di-
viding, and so neutraliZing the effect OF
their ignorance.
Every nationality of the white race has
its history of effort and achievement, and
in the wistful eyes of the humblest immi-
Grant sparkles the blood of an ancestry of
empire builders With such a race soil
darity IS Impossible, Tor no matter now
ignorant for a time they may be, they think
for themselves. and so divide.
But the negro race has no past Of
promise they do not think for themselves
and are never known to divide. Therefore
the sO-called grandfathers clause. which
in the new suffrage amendment refers alike
to the ancestry of all whites-whether ma
tive born or naturalized-marks this in
herent difference between the white and
negro races"