Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1885 — Vindicating the Southern Issue. [ARTICLE]

Vindicating the Southern Issue.

The returns of the Ohio election show the falsehood of the assertions made by the Democratic and mugwump journals that Senator- Sherman’s speeches condemning the systematic practice of fraud at ■ the elections in some of the Southern States as a means of practically disfranchising the colored vote, had produced widespread disgust among the Ohio Republicans. Those who have not read Mr. Sherman’s speeches, and who have obtained their impressions oi them from the misrepresentations of the journals referred to, may suppose that he has been “waving the bloody shirt” and seeking to revive the animosities of the war period. But Senator Sherman is a statesman who' deals with living questions, and the Ohio Republicans do not understand that he was “preaching the gospel of hate,” as the Democratic papers allege, when he complained of the suppression of the majority in some of the States by fraud and force. It is a very Vital issue, and the time has not come when the American people will consent to the policy of silence on a flagrant injustice simply because the means of correcting it are difficult and cannot be at once applied. The existence of a great number of ignorant voters who are easily made the dupes of corrupt politicians, is a serious evil, and the Southern people, if

they will show a proper spirit in deal l - I ing with it, will have the hearty sym- ' pathy and support of Northern Repub- i licans. But the intimidation of voters 1 and fraudulent returns are not the proper methods. They demoralize and corrupt the whole body politic. The men who have learned to cheat the colored voters by tissue ballots and fraudulent counts will not stop at that point. They will employ the same methods to maintain themselves in power against ‘ white voters who are opposed to them, and complaints of such practices are already heard in the South, especially in Louisiana. If the Southern whites will adopt some test of intelligence which will apply equally to white and black, and then hold honest elections, Senator Sheyman and others like him will cease to complain of the management and results of Southern elections. In the North we have large numbers of ignorant voters, who are as subject to the lead of corrupt men as the innocent Southern negroes, but we do not think it the proper manner of improving their politioal education to teach them that, although they may vote, their ballots shall be deprived of all influence by the falsification of the election returns under the management of the superior and cultivated class.— Milwaukee Sentinel.