The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1914-07-08
DANGER FACES SOUTH
BLACKS ONCE OUTNUAiBERED
WHITES IN LEGISLATURE.
TiIlman Distributes Photograph of
Darker Days With Solemn Warn
ing to Men Of White Race.

The clerks of courts in the coun'
ties Of the state haye received from
Senator B. r. T;llman a copy of
photograph showing the radica
members of the South Carolina legi.
lature of 1858. OF 63 members oi
this body, so were negroes or mulat'
toes, Al were unable to read or write
and "A paid no taxes.
Senator Tillman writes that he
found the picture in Greenville and
had it enlarged and framed in order
TO have one sent to each county, sc
that the people of South Carolina
can see it for themselves.
Under the picture, which it is ex-
pected will be hung in every court
house in the state, appears this in
sciption:
Presented by Senator Tillman to
the clerks Office in each county OF
South Carolina as warning to his
fellow citizens of the necessity for
white unity.
Lord God of hosts! be with rs yet,
"'Lest we forget! Lest we forget! y
Senator .Tillman issued a state
ment in which he says:
when in South Carolina last
April returning to Washington from
Clemson College, I stopped in Green
vile to see my niece. While there
I Mr.. L. M. McBee showed me a photo
praph, two by three inches in size,
of <he Reconstruction Legislature of
1858, the first we had. There were
far more negroes in it than white
men. I borrowed it and brought it
to Washington and had it enlarged.
I have had it framed, and intend to
send one to every county to be hung
in the clerks Office, so that those
people may see it who have a mind
to.
Governor Blease and Mr.. Fort
ner are bowling about the negroes
having white teachers and the dan
ger to our civilization from that
source. I am inclined to believe the
Southern people made a great mis-
take when they did not take charge
OF the negroes education and put
them all under white teachers in
stead Of colored teachers. However
that may be the one real danger, and
great one it is, to South Carolina's
civilization lies in a possible division
among the white people themselves,
making the negroes the balance OF
power and the controlling factor in
our politics.
AS long as the white people stand
shoulder to shoulder and fight it out
among themselves we need never
fear. The new rules adopted at the
last State Convention to govern the
primary insure an honest vote, and
every good Democrat will abide the
result, whatever it be. There is lit
tie possibility of our having ever
again as bad a Governor as Blease
has been.
South Carolina car even stand
Blease in the Senate, however nau-
seating it will be- to some of Us, but
would never recover from an appeal
by the Bleaseites or any others to the
negro vote. Should that occur our
civilization would be doomed. An
indefinite "era Of good stealing
would come again, and in the course
of time another "ringed, streaked
and striped" Legislature would as
semble in Columbia"
The photograph to which the Sen
ator refers has attracted much at
tention from visitors to his office in
the Capitol. Without exception eV-
cry beholder who has commented up
on the picture has declared that ii
presented more eloQuently than any
number of speeches or books could
do the horrible conditions under
which the State labored in the per-
iod Of Reconstruction