The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1909-05-06
TO MAKE THE MACHINE MORE
POWERFUL.

If anything were needed to show how
little the demand there is in this State
for DISTINGUISHING amendment except
on the part of the political leaders and
their followers who wish to disfranchise
the negro vote for reasons that are per-
fectly plaintiffs furnished by the effort
made at every meeting of the politicians
TO arouse the voters to the Importance
of the issue. Thursdays meeting of
the Democratic State Central Commit
tee was devoted entirely to trying to
make the people understand how terri
bly, they suffer by reason of the fact
that one-siXth of the voters in this State
are negroes and urging them to demon
strate that they are alive to the fact
that they do actually suffer. If the
evil which they direct so forcibly were
really to be attributed to this cause. it
would not be necessary to go to so much
trouble to make the public sensible of it.
1t was the custom of the Indians be-
fore they went to war to have war
dance, infaming their passion by the
violence of their physical contortions
and melting their young men to deeds
of daring by mimic warfare. So Chair
man Vandiver and his valiant assistants
think it necessary to inflame the public
mind by reciting mischiefs from which
the State suffers with which the negro
has as little to do as his brother in Cen
trail Africa-and laying the blame upon
the negro's shoulder.
There are MANY indications of the in
sincerity of the bosses who conceived
the amendment and who are urging its
adoption, but none so obvious as the an
swer to the charge made by many lead
ing Democrats to the effect that the
adoption of the amendment will give
the Democratic machine so strong a
hold on the State that only a political
revolution will break it. They are fore
ed to admit that it is unwise so to
strengthen the hands of the party at the
expense of the other. They are, there
fore, compelled to resort to as bald a
subterfuge as was ever advanced in po-
litical argument. They have the effron-
Terry to say that one of the reasons for
DISTINGUISHING the negro is that it will
so divide the white vote as to equalize
parties and thus compel both to be on
their good behavior! In other words,
we are asked to believe that the Demo-
cratic machine is actuated in this fight
by desire to make the Republican par
ty stronger.
Even if we believed this to be its pur-
pose, it would remain to determine
whether it's view of the outcome is bet
ter than that which our common sense
teaches us to expect when we are forti-
fed in our anticipation by the views of
men and of organizations whose good
faith we have no reason to suspect. At
a meeting held last evening the Reform
League, which has done as much as any
other body in the State to promote the
cause of good government, an associa-
ton which is absolutely non-partisan,
adopted resolutions denouncing the
amendment and saying upon the point
we are now discussing:
This committee feels that if this
amendment were adopted the State of
Maryland and the city of Baltimore, in
stead of being almost evenly divided
between the two leading political parties,
with the Independent voters holding the
balance of power, would be turned over
to one political party which would have
such absolute control that it would re-
quire revolution to dislodge it. Mary
land would be a one-party State during
the next generation. with the attendant
political evils that always result from
this condition of affairs, no matter which
party is in power, and many of the po-
litical reforms which have already been
accomplished would be lost.
AS between the views of the Demo
cratic State Central Committee and the
Reform League on what an amendment
will actually accomplish, we do not
think the independent voters of the
State will hesitate which to accept.
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