New Britain herald., 1930-03-21

liberty is not safe. Are we going to prescribe any man because of the manner in which he worships God?"
 But Bailey didn't get far. Openly the issues were Smiths prohibition record, Tammany, Raskob. etc., but in the background was the opposi- tion to a Catholic in the White House. The Ku Klux Klan was ac- tive. Upon this the election turned and North Carolina. with a Catholic population that is utterly negligible, went republican.
 Up to the 1928 campaign Simmons and Bailey had been close political friends. Bailey stumped the state for Simmons senatorial candidacy in 1912. In 1918 Simmons got ! President Wilson to appoint Bail=y C. S. collector of internal revenue for eastern North Carolina. r. In 1924, Bailey broke away from Simmons to make all independent race for governor against Angus w Mclean, Simmons choice. The same thing happened to Bailey that has happened 10 every other demo- crat (eXcept one. Governor w. W. kitchin) who has sought politicaf ocice in North Carolina in the past 80 years without Simmons blessing. He got licked. There was a recon ciliation, however. that lasted until the Smith campaign.
 Simmons Stands on
 Long Record.
 Though attacked for his party ir- regularity, Senator Simmons faces | the voters with a. record of & life time in politics and 30 years in tho U. S. senate. In Wilson's two terms | he was chairman of the senate fi- | nance committee and, as such, di- rected the raising of billions to fight the war. He was also co-author of the Underwood-Slm tariff bill This is the first time he has had opposition in a democratic primary since 1912, and when he last ran, in | 1924, he defeated his republican op- | ponent by the largest majority ever given a senatorial candidate in North Carolina.
 Simmons power, which made him | the democratic czar in North Caro- ! lima, dates back to 50 years ago, gro domination.
 | In North Carolina the negro vote survived the carpet-bag downfall and in the late sos combination of populists, republicans and negroes ruled the state. One senator was Jeter C. Pritchard, republican, and | the other was Marion Butler, d populist. Negroes held many off ces, presided as magistrates an1 served in congress
 Casting about for a leader, tn, democrats in 1892 named Simmons as chairman of their state commit tee. He was then an up-and-coming | lawyer who had served one term in congress in 1856 and had been beat CT for another term-incidental l by a negro.
 ''Red Shirt Campaign
 Is Recalled.
 Simmons served as chairman of | IltC SloIC uNiiiONi dtiS NOillitiltt-' except for a brief interval, froin 1892 until 1904, and it was during his administration that North Caro- | lina's Red Shirts rose to power and swept the negroes from the
 polls. Citing such instances as white
 women being tried by negro magia- | trates. Simmons canvassed the sta.n to unite the white vote for a consti- tutional amendment that would dis qualify negroes as voters.
 There was trouble, and blood = shed. At Wilmington in 1898, six!y persons are said to to have been killed in a riot that followed an at
 tack on a'negro newspaper office. The Red Shirts''-so called because Of this distinctive attire--organiza zaI throughout the state, parading with shotguns through negro communi- ties.
 When the constitutional amend
 ment came to a vote in August, l90J,
 the negroes just didn't go to the
 polls and 1t was adopted over Whelmingly. It included a strict educational test for voters and lett
 such latitude in the hands of the
 election officer that no negro could
 hope to pass it if the officer desired
 to bar him. Moreover, it eXempte1 l
 whites from the examinations
 measure designed to protect the | iliterate white voters.
 Amendment Ends
 Negro Vote.
 This amendment, with which