Evening star., 1924-10-29
Cites Fifteenth Amendment.

And the fifteenth amendment,
| which strikes down discrimination in
suffrage on the ground OF racial
| origin that amendment it was that
| stood in the path of the grandfather
| clause in the Oklahoma constitution
! and compelled that great son of the
| South, one of the greatest lawyers
| who ever adorned the Supreme Court
of this or any other country, the
great Chief Justice White, himself an
eN-Confederate soldier, to declare the
constitution of the State of oklahoma
null and voil
And now, my friends" Mr.. Davis
continued, "it is a. great stake we
have in this country, it is great
stake that you of your race have got
in this country. Why shouldn't you
have? You have ployed its fields.
you have raised its crops, you have
built its houses, you have helped to
clothe and to feed and nurse and ma
ture your fellow citizens of your own
and of the white race, and when
battle came you helped to fight its
battles and your blood. equally with
the blood of your white brethren, has
flowed in defense of the flag we love.
Why shouldn't you feel it to be your
duty as much as the duty of any
other people to guard institutions. to
d
and preserve the institutions that
foster you as they foster all the rest
of uso why shouldn't you join the
Democratic party in the great ambl-
tions that it has for this country?
Asks Independe nee in Vote
II am not here to advise any man
as TO his duty. but / do believe pro
foundIy that the political future Of
in States
lies in an exhibition of political
Independence.
Your ancestors-and | say your
ancestors because the generation that
saw the disappearance of slavery has
almost passed over the great divide
YOUR ancestors got economic equality
by shaking off chattel slavery, and IT
cost four years of bloody war to ac-
accomplish that great result. And you
yourselves will get entire political
equality when you shake off anything
that remotely resembles political
slavery.
.'Whenever the colored man is
ready to demonstrate-and | think the
day is coming more rapidly than
most Of us imagine-that he is not
the mere shock troops of any political
party, that he is not to be thrown IN
the forefront of the battle and sacri-
feed until the reserves can be called
up, but that he is ready to fight as an
Intelligent citizen, forming his own
opinion and making ready to defend
it, when that day comes, you Will
count for something. in American
politics"
At this point voice called out:
Next Tuesday" the candidate asking
in turn, What is it you want in this
country?'
AN honest man for President" an
other in the audience yelled.
We'll, Mr.. Davis interjected, Il will
changes the question and ask what you
hope to obtain by putting an honest
man in office"
Then came the cry of "eQuaI
rights" and Mr.. Davis said
THAT is the answer and it is the
answer every American ought to
make. What we want in this country
first of all, for every man born under
the American flag and for every man
who leaves his homeland and comes
to live beneath it, is equality of op
portunity.
I'VE want every man to feel and
every woman, too, that honesty and
thrift and industry and upright liv-
ing may bring him happier day to-
morrow than he saw today.
And that we may have that equal
ity of opportunity We must have
something else with it, and that is
equality of right, that every man
shall stand before the law on exactly
the same terms as any other man,
that wherever the Government touches
the citizen or Wherever the citizen
touches the Government, there shall
be no notice taken of race or creed or
color or anything else save good
character and obedience to the law"