Evening star., 1927-11-26
Glass Becomes Storm Center
AS Notification Is Debated

A national debate in the press has
followed the recent statement by Sen
ator Glass of Virginia denying that
the fifteenth amendment to the Fed
eral Constitution is violated in the
Southern States and answering those
who suggest that Southern critics OF
dry law notification should turn their
attention to the negro suffrage prob
lem.
THE real moral Mr.. Glass should
draw" contends the Milwaukee Jour
nal, would be that not even part or
the Constitution comes into force un-
less it Is supported by public senti-
ment," while in the same vein the
Brooklyn Eagle observes: What Mr..
Glass and his associated casuists are
doing is to stand for notification
where notification suits their purpose,
and to condemn notification of the
eighteenth amendment in commu-
mites where public opinion is as
overwhelmingly opposed to 1t as pub
lie opinion in the South is to the flf-
teenth amendment"
Senator Glass own paper, the
Lynchburg News, says: What should
be learned by most of those who
prate about the inconsistency of the
South in violating the fifteenth amend
ment, while urging observance of the
eighteenth, Is that the fifteenth
amendment is not violated. Repeat
edly challenged to point out single
violation in single Southern State
of the fifteenth amendment they eau
tiously take refuge in silence for
while, only to repeat the false state
ment after they get their second
breath"
'"The States of this part Of the
Union," explains the Chattanooga
News, "have various regulations of
the right of suffrage; as have other
States. Those. which place any re-
strictiOn, however, have all run the
gauntlet of the Federal Supreme
Court. They prescribe the same con-
ditions for white as for colored voters.
On the average, they are probably
more liberal than are the ballot laws
of most of the Eastern States
\ X X
The Richmond Times Dispatch
wants to know: 'If State, seeking
to protect itself from an ignorant and
in those days-vicious and venal
electorate, enacts laws designed by its
most patriotic citizens to save civil
ization, and in conformity with the
thought of an openly hostile Supreme
that those laws are constitutional
"Who would contend" asks the
Charlotte Observer, that a law in
tended to develop an intelligent cleo
torate is not a good law? 1t has
worked to the benefit Of the negroes
in inspiring them to secure an educa-
ton
The Hartford Times also declares
that while the wet nullifier habitually
claims moral support for his status by
pointing to the attitude of the South
in this concern of negro voting. his
analogy is not close, and in a legal
argument, totally untenable. Even
were he correct in his contention" the
Connecticut paper adds, there would
still be against him the maxim. Two
wrongs do not make a right"
Senator Glass is right" in the
opinion of the Reno Evening Gazette,
when he says the fourteenth and
| fifteenth amendments were born lin
| the passions of the war and that their
| enforcement would lead to the estab-
| lishment of an Ethiopian government
| in some of the Southern States" The
Waterbury Republican argues: There
| is no such justification for notification
of the eighteenth amendment as there
was for the fifteenth, since white
| civilization is not now threatened: null
| lification of the eighteenth amendment
| BY wet States would seriously interfere
| with it's enforcement by dry States
| situation for which the notification
| of the fifteenth amendment offers no
| parallel"
| X X
With a quotation from the Senator
to the effect that when public man
protests against the sending OF Fed
eral satraps to supervise State cleo
| tions, for which there Is no sanction
| of law. 1t 10 rather silly to suggest
that such a proceeding would have
precedent and parallel in sending
prohibition agents under full sanction
OF the law to suppress the traffic In
| liquor" the Spokane Spokesman Re-
view EXPRESSES It's opinion: .That is