Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1909-01-29
BRYAN FOR AMENDMENT.

DEAR Mr.. SHREEvEs-
Since accepting your polite invitation to
attend and to speak at the Democratic
banquet at the Hotel Rennert on Thursday,
Jan. Z, Ihave learned that it will not be prac-
ticable for me to be present therefore
send you my regrets.
understand that one of the objects of
the dinner is to discuss the suffrage amend
ment to be submitted to the voters at the
general election next November.
Il is proper that should state that in
tend voting for that amendment at the
polls.
voted against the amendment submit
ted at the general election in 1905 on ac-
count of the great, and as thought. dam
gerous discretionary power given to the
registration officers, and because whether
that amendment, if adopted, would dis
franchise the illiterate blacks depended up
on whether the party opposed to negro suf-
frage controlled the appointment of the
election and registration officials.
The present amendment is not open to
this objection. 1t prescrbes in definite
terms the qualifications of the voters and
does not leave the rights of the citizen to the
discretion or within or caprice of the officials
conducting the registration.
This amendment is an honest straight
forward measure, for which all persons de-
string to disfranchise the ignorant and il
literate negro should vote. and against
which all persons should vote who desire
to preserve the franchise for the ignorant
illiterate negro.
read with great interest the letter of
December % last from President-elect Taft
to Collector Stone on the subject of this
amendment
have great admiration and respect for
Judge Taft. hope and believe that he
will be great improvement on the head
strong and turbulent gentleman who is
now President believe that Judge Taft
has had better preliminary training for
the great Office he is about to fill than any
President since John Quincy Adams, and
with all due respect to Mr.. Mckinley (and
to Mr.. RoosevelD expect Judge Taft to
make the best President we have had since |
Grover Cleveland therefore discuss Judge |
Tafts letter in no spirit of hostility or per-
sonal disrespect
proposed amendment ut is not drawn in |
the spirit of justice and equality. having |
regard to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth |
Amendments, and sincerely hope that no
Republican and no Democrat who desires |
equality of treatment to the black and |
white races will vote for it
Judge Taft wrote this because he is a |
sincere and consistent Republican, and be- |
cause he looks at the Fifteenth Amend |
ment from the Republican point of view.
There are a great many of us who look |
at it from different standpoint, and who |
think that the Fifteenth Amendment was
a great political mistake. 1t turned over
the Government Of the Southern States al
ready impoverished by the Civil War to
the degraded and unprincipled white men
who became the political leaders of the
ignorant blacks, who had not yet beco me
accustomed to freedom, and it produced
bankruptcy and ruin, and all the. other ills
of miseovernment in tnat sorely afflicted
section
Anu - apt the least of the
evils which the Fifteenth Amendment
wrought was the conviction it gave many
of the most conservative members of the
community, that preventing negro domi-
nation, or rather the domination of the
more degraded white leaders and allies
of the negro by means of the negro
vote. was essential to the preserva
ton of civilization and that, therefore,
from the necessity of the case, force or
fraud at elections was justifable to pre-
serve white supremacy and decent admin
istratiOn of public affairs.
Consequently in the black belt there are
to be found men, in all other respects hon
orabIe and high-minded whom anyone |
would be willing to trust as executor or |
trustee, but who at election look on II as
q matter of course to cheat and defraud |
the negro, and who in doing so will frank |
ly tell you that the end justifies the means
And in addition to these evils which |
have followed in the train of the Fifteenth |
Amendment, many Of us bear in mind that |
its ratification was caused by the coercion |
of the Southern States during the recon- |
struction period, and that voting for its |
ratification was made the price Of the re-
admission of these States into the uuion. |
Therefore while for all practical pufD ses
ii is futile to attempt to ienoretne existefce
of the Fifteenth Amendment MS part of (
the supreme law Of the lane, i, for me. see /
no moral sanction which II imposes II \ |
suffrage measure would be otherwise prop |
er. the only question which the Fifteenth |
Amendment causes TO arise with me is the !
bald question Of law
will this measure stand the test in the |
Supreme Court
Whether the Fifteenth Amendment can
be avoided. or whether Notwithstanding
its terms. there can oe drafted measure
restrictjng the negro suffrage, is therefore
in my view. and in the view Of many
thouehtfni men vino agree with me, not at
all "a question q morals. but only ques-
ton Of legal skill
Judge raft being a lifelong and sincere
Reput can, and never having lived in
community where there was large negro
vote. 81 course, takes an entirely different
view Of the Fifteenth Amendment. and his
letter will appeal to those who, like him in
matters political, desire equality of treat
ment 10 the black and white races.
Whether this proposed amendment will
stand the legal test in the Supreme Court
is a matter on which no responsible law