The Peoples Voice (Norman, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 8, 1901 Page: 1 of 8
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The Peoples Voice
VOLUME 10.
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1901.
NUMBER lti
i
REVOLUTIONARY LEGISLATION
AFFECTING ELECTIONS
A Scathing Arraignments of Demo-
cratic Election Methods, Men Dis-
franchised, the Constitution
Spit Upon and Civil Lib-
erty Overthrown-
(By lion. Harry Tracy, of Texns.
As much is being- said and written
about the practical workings of the
Constititional amendments adopted
by the States of Mississippi, Louisi-
anna, South Carolina and recently
adopted by the State of North Caro-
lina, and now pending in the States
of Virginia and Alabama, and be-
lieving that the people desire all the
light possible on the subject. I ask
space to give the practical effect
these amendments are having upon
the people in the States that have
adopted them and brietly review
the arguments and statements of
those who advocate these amend-
ments.
The amendments adopted by the
State of Mississppi base the right to
vote on the voter's ability to read
and write any section of the Consti-
tution of the United States correctly
that the judge or manager of the
elections may select. The other
three States, in addition to this sec-
tion, have adopted another, known
a6 the grandfather clause, which
provides that no man twenty-one
years of age whose ancestors were
legal voters in 1867, in any State in
the United States, shall be disfran-
chised on account of the educational
clause until after the year 1908.
The advocates of these amend
ments presistently declare that none
but illiterate negroes will be dis-
franchised in the States that have or
may hereafter adopt the grandfather
clause as a part of their Constitu-
tional amendments, that all white
men can vote, and that all negroes
having the educational qualification
will not be disfranchised; that the
only intention of these amendments
is to eliminate the illiterate negToes
from politics that all white men
twenty-one years of age will have
the necessary educational qualifica-
tions by the year 1908, hence no
whit i men need fear being disfran-
chised under the Louisiana, South
or North Carolina amendments, ect.
A correspondent from Washington
takes this view in the case, and sup-
ports his position with the following
as the vote of the seven States
named in 1900, provided no amend-
ments were adopted in them, as
follows:
White Negro
vote. vote.
North Carolina.... 279,834 127.101)
South Carolina.... 123,187 155,166
Mississippi 144,731 175.000
Alabama 180.691 163,335
Georgia 96*,913 308,830
Louisiana 156,807 140 000
Virginia 297,633 151,633
Total 1,465,976 1.121,130
He then proceeds to show how
many voters and of what race will
not be disfranchised, by giving the
vote of each of these States after
the amendments become operative:
North Carolina.,
South Carolina .
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia
Louisiana
Virginia
White
vote.
. 279,834
. 123.1H7
. 144,731
. 180,871
. 289,913
156,807
297,633
Negro
vote.
64,180
72.215
85,925
66,249
86,544
52,500
75,788
Total 1,465,976 602,401
It is seen that this correspondent
doe9 not disfranchise one white man
in these seven States, but does dis-
franchise 618,729 negroes, who, he
says, are the illiterates, and records
502,401 negroes as legal voters under
the illiterate clause in the amend-
ments, and taking this as a basis he
proceeds to show that these seven
States will lose eighteen to twenty
votes in the electoral college. If
this statement of the case were verti-
fied by the working of the system in
any of the States that have adopted
these amendments, the Southern
States might submit to the ordeal
without being ruined and disgraced,
but when we contemplate the actuul
effect of the scheme, everyone who
loves the South must blush with
shame.
To illustrate: At the 1898 election,
held in the State of Mississppi, less
than 28,000 votes were polled. There
were in that State at that time more
than 121,600 white and 70,000 negro
voters. If not a single negro voted
at that election, which cannot be
true, we see that more than 93,000
legal white voters were disfranchised
that three-fourths of the white
voters in the State were disfranchis-
ed at that election, and this brought
about by a political party that claims
to be the champion of the plain
people and of the Southern people
especially, and claims to be walking
in the footsteps of Jefferson and
Jackson. Could the worst traducer
of the South have struck her people
such a blow.
To say that three-fourths of the peo
pie of Mississppi are not intelligent
enough to vote is the toughest thing
that can be said of any people; yet
this is the fearful disgrace fastened
upon the Democrats of that State.
That the people were beguiled into
committing this supreme act of folly
through deception and fraud is patent
to all thinking people. Tihs makes
the crime more infamous, and brands
everyone who knowingly beguiled the
people into adopting the scheme as a
traitor to his race.
It is the essence of cowardly dema-
goguery to say that the reason the
people of Mississppi did not vote at
that election was because they felt
no interests in the election. They
knew they were disfranchised, and
: ikeibii'Cg
Of New Fall fancies, the whole
Store is laden with bright, new
and attractive Goods. Visit us.
New Dress
Fabrics.
Triple Knee
"lfather Stocking"
I, New rp-to the
season
Milliner v.
New (1 i <. v
and Mimm.
[\«-w Shot s
i<1 SM
New & Stylish ^
Fall Furnish K^OSHA
ings.
New
Underwear.
New Shirts i ^ome y0ur share ot the first of
Waists, Suits, j *** Bargains.
New Clothing,
Slur's and ties
Mew prices—
lower than
" ki CJ&
/
did rot feel disposed to go to the elec-
tion polls to be insulted by the elec-
tion managers and badgered by the
ward heelers that the ring have
around on such occasions. Mississppi
has never polled60,0(10 votes at any
election in that State since the in-
famous Constitutional amendment
was fastened upon the people of that
State. Yet, Mississippi has been
overwhelmingly Democratic for
twenty years. Then why this whole-
sale disfranchisement? This I will ex-
plain later on in the article.
Such neglect of the highest privi-
lege of freedom—the right to vote—
cannot be found in any other State
not cursed by the same kind of a Con-
stitution and election machinery—
not even in the State of Mississippi
prior to the adoption of their present
Constitution.
When the advocates of the system
are confronted with the results of the
system in Mississippi they exclaim:
"We admit the Mississippi amend-
ment was a mistake, but we have
fully cured this defect by the grand-
father clause in the Louisiana, South
and North Carolina amendments,
under which no one whose ancestors
were legal voters in any State in 1867
will be disfranchised until after the
year 1908; and by that time every
white person in the South will have
the requisite educational qualifica
tion. We intend to see that this is
done; hence, you see, no white man,
will ever be disfranchised under these
amendments if adopted in these
States."
Now, let us see how the scheme
works in Louisiana and South Caro-
lina (the State of North Carolina has
held no election since they adopted
these amendments): At the election
held in the State of Louisiana in 1898,
less than 33,000 votes were polled by
all parties. At that time there were
more than 145,000 white and 45,000
negro voters in that State. Hence
we are again confronted with the
fact that more than three white
voters were disfranchised to every
one that did vote, even if no negro
voted.
The 1898 election held in South
Carolina tells the same disgraceful
story even under the vaunted grand-
father clause, and in these elections
the people of Alabama and Virginia
can read their doom if they adopt the
amendments pending in these States.
It is remarkable that the advocates
of these amendments cannot be in-
duced to discuss the election laws and
machinery have put in motion, os-
tensibly to put the amendments into
operation, but in fact to keep their
official trust in power perpetually. If
anyone is at all skeptical upon this
point all that is necessary to dispel
all doubts is to carefully read the
election law in these States or at-
tend one election and see the machine
work differ radically from a recent
editorial in the Dallas News that
"the amendment is a shrewd scheme
to circumvent the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments to the Con-
stitution of the United States," and
I maintain that it is a scheme to de-
ceive the people and to decoy them
into the merciless clutch of an un-
scrupulous political syndicate by sur-
rendering the highest privilege of a
freeman the right to vote.
This privilege once surrendered
can never be regained except through
physical revolution. The contention
that all citizens twenty-one years of
age are not capable of voting is the
argumentof kings and despots. It is
never the argument of those who
advocate a democratic form of gov-
ern ment.
The insertion of the grandfather
clause in these amendments is a silly
attempt to nullify the Constitution of
the United States, and is on a par
with the exploded theory of secession
and is in line with the principles of
that insignificant class of aristocrats
who infested the South prior to I860,
and who nagged the South into the
war and then went to the bush or re-
tired to the bosoms of their families
under the twenty-negro act of the
Confederate Congress, while those
who opposed secession fought the
battles of the South so heroically.
If the Southern States desired to
eliminate the negro from politics,
why did not the Legislatures of these
I'D
There No Use Quoting Prices
On Our Complete Line of
HA RD BARE
Implements, Stoves, Ranges, Wagons, Buggies,
Paints, Oils, Glass, Guns, Ammunition and
Sporting Goods of all kinds but come ami we'll
show yon.
, Beardsley Hardware Co.
0
States prepare and publish an ad-
dress stating and setting forth all
the facts, and appeal to the other
States to join them in amending the
Constitution of the United States?
If such a course had been followed I
am persuaded that enough State
Legislatures would have joined in
the effort to have so amended the
Constitution. In any events, such a
procedure could have brought the
matter before the American people
in its merits, and would have demons
trated to the world that there were
yet in the South some statemen with
ability enough to handle a great
question in accordance with the long-
established principles of our govern-
ment.
No lawyer of recognized ability,
having a proper regard for his re-
putation will go on record as main-
taining that the grandfather clause
is constitutional or that the courts
of last resort will so hold. If any-
one desires to settle this question let
him procure a copy of the amend-
ments recently voted on in the State
of North Carolina, and submit them
tosorne able lawyer with a written
communication asking him to give
his written opinion of the constitu-
tionality of the grandfather clause.
I cannot believe that any Southern
man, having one particle of love for
the reputation of the South, or on
iota of respect for her people, can or
ever did conjure up this scheme. I
believe it originated in the cold
heart of a New or Old England plu-
tocrat, and it was got up because the
plutocrats saw the reins of govern-
ment slipping through their fingers
through the power of the rapidly
cementing of the union of the South
and the West: which, perfected,
would soon transfer the power of the
government into the hands of the
people in these sections, and that
the only way to destroy the efficacy
of the union and to perpetuate the
power of the plutocratic East was to
disfranchise the South in the Electo-
ral College and in congress under the
hypocritical cry of "white supre-
macy" and leave the West to light
the battles of emancipation from
corporate spoliations alone and
single-handed. But if true or not,
this is the unavoidable effect of the
adoption of these amendments.
The next congress will fix the ap-
portisnment in the lower house, and
it is not reasonable to suppose that
any State will be permitted to re-
present in Congress a people dis-
franchised at home. No Congress
will admit a Congressman having
4,000 votes behind him, as is now the
case in Louisiana, Mississippi and
South Carolina upon an equality with
other members having 40,000 to
60,000 votes behind him. Such pro-
ceedings would practically disfran-
chise nine-tenths of the voters in
every State having manhood suffer-
age; hence these seven Southern
States will have less than ten mem-
bers in the House of Representatives
after the next next apportisntment
ismade. Can it be possible that any
sane man will openly avow that our
revolutionary fathers who were more
illiterate than we, were capable of
building and operating successfully
the bast Government the world ever
saw, in which we, their children, or
three-fourth of us, would be incapable
of voting. That these three-fourths
should not have a word to say about
how much we will be taxed, or for
what purpose and for whom the=e
taxes shall be spent, or have any voice
in operating the government we are
taxed to support? Yet this is precisely
the condition that these amend-
ments place more than three-fourths
of the white people in.
If this is not overturning free gov-
ernment and erecting upon its ruins
the most infamous type of an aris-
tocracy that ever disgraced any civ-
ilized people, will some one please
show the reason why? If this is not
spitting upon the Declaration of In-
dependence, repudiating the consti-
tution and every principle of Demo-
cratic Government, will some one ex-
plain why? If it is not, declaring
that our revolutionary fathers were
demagogues instead of patriots;
that their example should be ex-
ecrated instead of emulated, will
some advocate of the system show
the reason why? If anyone who
believes in a government of, by and
for the people, can support such a
government as these amendments
have set up in the States that adopt-
ed them, the world is waiting for him
to explain why.
This question arises above partisan
ship. It appeals to every man who
respects his race to put a stamp of
condemnation upon those who would
disgrace their race and age by its
adoption.
CHAV1I3ERL UN'S COUGH REME-
DY IN CHICAGO.
Higgen Bros., the popular South
side druygisls, corner 69th street and
Wdilworth avenue say: ' We sell a
t;ret deal of Chamberlin s Cough
Rsmedy «nd find that it gives the
most satisfactory results especially
among children 'for fevere colds ai d
croup." For sale by I'Yed Keed.
See those heating and cooking
stoves at Maguires.
9-tf
"AVAVvWA'/WW-.M WWW WWW vWVWV/WWVV VV
a/oucy! Aloney! a/onoy!
YES—We have an unlimited
amount to loan on farms.
Time from six months to ten
years. Interest as low as the
lowest.
We Lead on Terms Others Follow
>rx,)! i in ii' r^uNr.ran>
Office Opera House Block. Attorney-At-Law.
\ ^ww.*wws^ WWW A**WWWWWWWWWW* AW /
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Allan, John S. The Peoples Voice (Norman, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 8, 1901, newspaper, November 8, 1901; Norman, Oklahoma Territory. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc117475/m1/1/: accessed March 29, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.