Franklin's paper the statesman., 1912-10-26
DEMOCRACY AND THE NEGRO.

The lightning bug is brilliant, but it
has not any mind.
1t stumbles through existence with it
headlight on behind
We are going to take for our text
today Democracy and the Negro, and
we will endeavor to show by the rec
ord which that party has made on the
Negro question, that it has never been
sincere friend of the Negro race,
and judging the future by the past, it
cannot be his friend. All the history
and traditions of the Democratic
party show that it has been anti-Ne-
gro from its inception as a party, and
its most recent record made within
the past two decades furnishes proof
strong as holy writ that it is still
against the Negro.
In 1921, a controversy arose as to
whether free persons of color were
citizens of the United States, within
the intent and meaning of the acts OF
congress regulating foreign and coast
ing trade, so as to be disqualified to
command vessels And Mr.. Writ,
who was then attorney general, de-
cided that they were not and more
over, held that the words citizens of
the United States" were used in the
acts OF congress in the same sense as
in the constitution. This view was
fully sustained by Caleb Cushing, at
torney general under James Buchan-
an, then Democratic president of the
United States US56). The reader will
note that this decision was directed
against free colored persons who be-
lieved themselves to be citizens of
the United States.
Mr. w. J. Bryan, who is now an
important figure in Democratic poll
tics, and who sustains somewhat in
innate relations with the present
candidate for the presidency, is
quoted by the New York Evening
Post as saying:
The white men of the South are
determined that the Negro shall be
disfranchised everywhere it is neces
sary TO prevent the recurrence of the
horror of carpet bag rule" We won
der if good Bishop Walters has read
Mr.. Bryans address on Universal
Brotherhood" and how he can have
the face to urge black men to support
Woodrow Wilson, a Southern free
trade Democrat, who is committed to
all the policies for which his party
stands?
The Hon. Thomas Spight of Mis-
sissippi, in speech in Congress,
1904, boldly declared: I'VE deny the
Negro the right to vote and hold Of
fee, but have never denied him the
right to work"
The Hon. Adam NJ. Byrd, another
shining light in Mississippi Demo
cratic politics, declared in a speech |
in Congress, 1908, that he would |
never vote to compel white men to
labor in competition with being or |
a horde of beings who have forgotten |
the God that made them, who never |
knew an obligation to society, who |
are void of patriotism, who believe
in rearing their offspring in igno-
rance and vice and who can live on |
less than one-half it takes to bring |
comfort to the home of the average |
white farmer"
Now these are the views held by |
Democrats of light and leading with
regard to the Negro and they apply
to the Negroes all over the country
who are now crawling on their bel
lies to possess the sordid gold of the
Democratic managers who, aided by
a Negro bishop, are rounding up the
mercenary Hessian soldiers in black
skins who are willing to barter their
God, let alone their race, for His
image in gold. Comparisons are
odious. Whatever the Republican
party has not done for the Negro it
cannot of a truth be said that it has
ever throw nan obstacle in the way
TO prevent him from becoming a free
American citizen. On the other hand
Democratic platforms and Democratic
orators North and South have been
ruinOuSly silent uDOn this subject
and whenever that party has come
into power in the nation Democrats
of the South have been perniciously
active in the enactment of Jim Grow
laws and disfranchisement measures
to annoy and harrass the Negroes,
whose votes that party is now seek
ing in order to get the opportunity
and the power to further oppress his
race. The Negro champions of the
Democratic party are men of princi-
pal rather than men of principle, and
are being rewarded for their treach-
cry and perfidy to their race with
compound interest. Judas was pai'
well for his betrayal of Christ, but
when he reflected on the reprehensi
BILE and cowardly character of h'e
he went out and hanged himself. 1t
ought not to be a hard matter for the
Negro voters of Colorado to deter
mine how they will cast their votes
in the present campaign. There is
no room for the Negro who is full
f1edged man in the Democratic party
because that party does not believe
in the manhood of the Negro. IF
1t did 1t would define its attitude in
its national platform.