The Populist party proposes to still allow the negroes to
vote but to submit an amendment to the State constitution disqualifying them
from holding office. This would be a nice arrangement for the Republican and
Populist office seekers. They would still have 120,000 negro voters to select
them to office and would not have to divide the spoils with the negro
politicians. This is not an honest settlement of this question, for no race or
class who are allowed to vote should be deprived of the right to hold offices,
if they can be elected or appointed to them. As a settlement of the evils of
negro suffrage it does not “reach the spot” for good government in North
Carolina suffers almost as much from the white men elected to office by negroes
as from the negro officers themselves. The white men elected to office by negro
votes has to pander to the negroes and make himself in his personal and
official conduct very offensive to white men. To illustrate: that great man,
the lamented Judge Armfield, related in his life time that he was holding court
in one of the negro counties which had a Republican sheriff, whom we will call
Bill Smith, for we have forgotten his true name. Judge Armfield said the
sheriff was standing on the side walk in the county town one afternoon after
the adjournment of court talking to a group of gentlemen, when one of the negro
leaders of the county stopped his horse and called out to the sheriff “Bill
Smith, d—n you, come and hold my horse while I go into Tom Jones’ barroom and
get me a drink of liquor.” With a flushed face and a sheep killing-dog look the
sheriff went and stood in front of the negro’s horse while the negro went into
the barroom. The Democratic party don’t want white officer who owe their
elevation to negro votes. It proposes to not only disqualify the negroes from
holding office but to prevent them from voting as well. It wants white officers
elected by white men, and good government, law and order in North Carolina
demands nothing less.—EX
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