Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1911-01-06

| fresh. A special election was held and
violent agitation brought out full vote.
The City of Washington cast thirty-five
votes in favor of negro suffrage, and
$3.50 against; Georgetown cast two votes
in favor of, and 8I3 against. These
voters were not prejudiced Southerners;
they were merely white men In the face
of peril.
Richard Wallach, who had been Mayor
throughout the war, and who knew all
the condition wrote:
mo others in addition to this minority
of thirty-fve are to be found in the
community who favor the extension OF
the right of suffrage to the class and In
the manner proposed, excepting those
who have already memoriallzed the Sen
ate in its favor, and who with but little
association, less sympathy and no COM
munity of interests or affinity with the
citizens of Washington receive here from
the general Government temporary EN-.
ployment, and having at the national
capital residence limited only to the
presidential term, and invariably exer-
cising the elective franchise elsewhere"
All America turned Its eyes upon Con-
gress, because its action in relation to
negro suffrage in Washington might be
taken as fair indication of what would
be done in the country at large. Despite
the practically unanimous protest of the
people of the District, Congress con-
ferred the franchise upon all men who
had resided one year in the District,
without distinction of race or color"
This act was passed in December, 1866.
On January S, 1867, President Johnson
vetoed it. He said, in part:
1T is within their (the negroesC
power to come into the District in such
numbers as to have supreme control of
the white race and to govern them by
their own officers, and exercise the
power Of taxation over property in which
they have no interest"
Congress OVERRIDE the Presidents veto
and made 10000 negroes into sovereign
electors. By the Civil Rights Bill of
1860, negroes were qualified to hold any
Office in the District. But this was not
enough. The District of Columbia must
have separate territorial form of gov
ernment. Such was the Act of February
81, 1871. The governor, council, and
board of public works were appointed
by the President The members of the
house of delegates were elected by the
people. Adventures and agitators, such
as were described by Mayor Wallach,
n1assed large bodies of ignorant negroes,
imported them in camps from Virginia
and Maryland, ostensibly as laborers, but
really as voters, and carried elections
by their ballots. Within less than year
an investigation was demanded of the
worst government in the United States"
But the investigation resulted in nothing.
Elections were something like elections
in those days-universal manhood suf-
fragc and no questions asked.
Jack" said the commissioner of cleo
tons, here it is nearly time to close
the polls and eighty-two votes have not
been cast"
A block away the street contractor
was digging ditch, by negro labor.
Say, Billy" whispered Jack; lend me
cighty-two of your niggers for few
minutes"
Sure" said Billy. Jack marched
cighty-two borrowed negroes UP to the
pools and voted them-right.
The committee had lived in Washing
ton and knew many facts that were new
or publicly developed. Fer once there
was no wrang1c between the Democrats
and Republicans. for they unanimously
reported that THE existing form of goy-
eminent is failure; it is too cumbrous
and too expensive-no remedy short of
its abolition and the substitution of a |
simpler, more restricted, and economical
government will suffice"
Thereupon the territorial government
of the District of Columbia passed away
unwept, unhonored and unsung. And
with it passed the right of suffrage
which its whites had enjoyed for three
quarters of century.
Throughout this debate both Demo-
Gratis and Republicans concealed the
paramount reason for this wholesale dis
reimbursement. 1t was a ticklish situa-
ton. The Republicans were then en-
gagged in dosing the South with negro
suffrage. Southerners in Congress swore
that their home:folks were TAXI. the
medicine according to directions-and
relishing it. It would never do for the
Republicans to admit that their "favorite
prescription" was bad medicine for the
District of Columbia. The Democrats,
on the other hand, could not afford to
rise up and howl, because that would
drag their own election methods into
the Observation-Disclosures ballot-box
stufing and the like. But everybody
knew and nobody denied that the menace
of the nesros presence constituted the
sole reason for the abolition of suffrage