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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Editor D.S. Hines on Negro's Role, Republicans, Roads, 1910

Eastern Carolina News, Kenansville, N.C., August 17, 1910, D.S. Hines, editor and manager

Tom Settle has been looking for pie for 14 years. He is on the band wagon now with Butler and Morehead. Tom came to Duplin in behalf of Morehead for State Chairman and was also elected chairman at Raleigh last Wednesday. Let’s see how many Duplin Republicans who delivered the goods got there at any time except as stamp lickers.

The Negro and Politics

The Republican Party is trying to deny that the negro is out of politics now and that they have a lily white party in the Nation. Now every sensible and reading man knows better than that. In some of the Republican states the negroes still hold the balance of power and Mr. Taft owes his election to negro voters of those states because without them they would have been Democratic at the last election and Mr. Bryan would have been elected president. We copy this from a press dispatch of Tuesday:

Washington, D.C., Aug. 15—For the purpose of co-operating with the Republican National Congressional and State committees in the work of organizing the negro voters in close States and Congressional Districts, the administration’s Republican Club has called a National Convention of negroes to meet here on September 19 and 20. Eight states and the District of Columbia joined in the call.

Is the negro out of politics?

Marion and George

Marion Butler is the leader of the Republican Party in North Carolina. Although John M. Morehead was made chairman last week at their State Convention yet he was put there by the leadership of Butler who was against Carl Duncan. Morehead was elected chairman two votes to Duncan’s one. The truth of the matter is Butler has been at work for a year to do the very thing he accomplished at the State Convention. Everybody knows Butler to be the greatest political trickster that has figured in politics in North Carolina, either with the Populists or Republicans. In his early manhood he showed signs of trickery that marked him then as the great scape goat and pie eater in the State. The Populists are bound to admit that and yet today they deny putting him at the head together with 100,000 negroes and Mary Ann rode into the U.S. Senate. The negroes held the balance of power then in North Carolina and with a fusion legislature (which Butler denounced as a disgrace to the State and which contained many worthless and incompetent negroes, some of whom had served terms in the penitentiary) this traitor to the white race soon sold the whole crowd out to the Republican Party and then had the gall to say “damn North Carolina. I haven’t any use for it now.” Are former Republicans going to be driven under Marion Butler forever? Can they stomach such a rotten acrobat as he is any longer? Are they going to stand by a man who escorts negroes in office again to further disgrace this State and to humiliate our women and children?

Not many years ago, and while Mary Ann was a great Allianceman and Populist later, his Buddie George Butler was a Democrat and canvassed his Senatorial district against his brother largely, and told from the stump about the rascality of Butler. This went on quite a while until he saw the location forming that would land Marion, Russel & Co. in power in the state. George at once flopped over to that side and has been a rotten Radical ever since. His record is on the books at Sampson Court House along with the County Commissioners, Sheriff Aman and Treasurer. George Butler was at that time County Attorney. If poor Alfred Aman had to go to the penitentiary for stealing that money, where were the Commissioners and County Attorney Geo. Butler when he stole it? What excuse is there for it? If Aman had to go to the penitentiary while Butler was the attorney and whose duty demanded of him to have the Sheriff and Treasurer make his regular report as well as the Commissioners, then why should not they suffer alike?

Now George is nominated on the Republican ticket for Congress and Marion (Buddie) promises to stand behind him. Let George then go to the penitentiary and let Mary Ann follow him there and North Carolina will get along all right.

There are thousands of former Populists and good Republicans who are not going to follow such men any longer. They are coming back to the white man’s party of old and stand with the old ship of Democracy as our forefathers did.

Let George and Marion join that gang of corruption, thieves and unscrupulous scoundrels the rest of their days, but the rank and file of this great State will remain steadfastly to the most. We have no fear that either of them will ever land in office, but they need censuring for what they have done.

The only way to keep the Southland straight is to hold up such traitors as the Butlers and ostracize them socially. This will stop all of this trading in Republican pie for personal gain and society and the whole State will be better off. There are more than 2,500 Democrats in Duplin who prefer to farm and make an honest living and educate their children than to follow Mary Ann or George Butler to a watering place any day. Men of Eastern Carolina haven’t forgotten the past and they are going to remember the Main in the future and stand for the party that means something and is something in our country, State and Nation.

Nuts to Crack

--The amount of graft that is being practiced by the Republican Party nationally until the limit is bound to come and Uncle Sam will have to issue bonds for us. Tell this to the average Republican and it will startle him, but if the average Republican will read and are open for conviction they are compelled to believe it.

--The flowers and blossoms and the fruits of fusion should teach all white men this county to vote the Democratic ticket.

--What would you think of a candidate for Congress who appointed years ago negro school committeemen in this section? Well this was done and these negroes visited white school teachers, some of whom were the best of ladies, and also signed their vouchers in order that they would be paid. Of course he is a Republican.

“Hon.” Abe Middleton...The Former Boss of the Republican Party

Abe Middleton, a peaceable and accommodating negro who lives on his farm near Kenansville, was once the Republican Party in Duplin, and he played his cards well. Abe and his followers were the “balance of power” in Du0plin County and by their coalition with the Populists our county went fusion for two terms. Abe made no noise against the Democrats, but he was smart enough to get more out of the trade than any other Republican or Populist. Yes, no one can deny that Abe was the “Dictator” of the Republican Party and he was always able to deliver the goods. Who can deliver them now to that party which is dead as a door nail and shrouds are ordered for the funeral?

Good Roads

Personally we believe that the best way to raise funds to carry on good road construction the quiest and to the best advantage is for the county and townships to issue bonds for this purpose. The issuing of bonds by the county will mean but a very small increase in taxes, which, as the years go by, will be more and more counterbalanced by the increase in the value of land and other taxable property adjacent to the improved road. It is a fair and equitable arrangement that future generations should pay for a portion of the improvements of our public roads, as they will derive just as great benefit from them as the present generation. There should be no fear of bonds: all business is based on credit, and even those who preach the policy, to the detriment of the state and county, of “Pay as you go,” are carrying on their own business on borrowed capital. What we now need is a stable, settled financial policy that will meet our present needs at a small initial cost. We hear a great deal about posterity, and not leaving bond issues for posterity to take care of, and forget that we are ourselves posterity. Our state has a credit that she should be proud of and our counties are in good financial condition, and they should not refuse to utilize this credit in building up a system of good roads that will do more than any other one thing to increase the material wealth of the state and counties.
Many have argued that if their county issued bonds to raise revenue for good road construction it would mean a very large increase in their taxes without deriving any material benefit from the expenditure, not realizing that if they are to have the good roads they must either raise the revenue by direct high tax or by issuing bonds, and that they derive a direct benefit from the improved roads in the increase in value of property, the decrease in the cost of maintenance of the road, and in the decrease of the cost of wear and tear on horses, wagons, and harness.

Then again, if the county issues bonds for good road construction, it makes available sufficient funds to render possible the accomplishment of the construction of a definite number of miles of road, within a definite time. To obtain this same number of miles within the same time by a direct tax is practically prohibitory.

The issuing of bonds gives us almost immediately the benefits of good roads, while the payment of them is deferred for many years, so that the county is enabled to meet the bonds without unnecessary inconvenience. They give us good roads, now, and make the best sort of argument for the extension of this progressive movement.

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