The Gazette

WHAT WILL THE "NEGRO" DO, THIS FALL?

BY REPUBLICANS, NORTH AND SOUTH IN PATRONAGE AND LEGISLATION.

The Federal Service Endorsing What Judge Parker Said-Tammany Hall-U. S. Senators and Governors Warned Very Interesting.

(Special to The Gazette)

Jersey City, N. J.-The N. A. A. C. P. led in the fight to prevent the confirmation, as an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, of Judge John J. Parker of North Carolina because he had expressed himself as opposed to the Negroes of North Carolina having anything to do with politics. The association did a good job but its work has just begun, if it would eliminate from responsible judicial and governmental positions white men who feel as did Judge Parker but are too cowardly to express it. There seems to be a nationwide attitude expressing itself by preventing our people from holding any appointive positions of trust and honor. The federal service has all but put into practice what Judge Parker said. Governors of states, Republican and Democratic, have refrained from appointing colored persons to state positions. The Negro vote that was disfranchised in the South, by keeping them from the ballot-box through intimidation and slaughter, has come into the North and East but this same vote is disfranchised from holding office even though it votes regularly. This situation is up to our voters in states where they vote.

Tammany Hall is an exception to this rule of preventing Negroes from holding lucrative offices. It has taken the Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi vote that has migrated to New York and has in local and state matters made Democrats of them. The Republican party is at present the white man's party of the North. The Negro vote added to the northern Democratic vote of white men can make the North Democratic. Will the Negro do it? By political birth, Negroes are Republicans and it is with difficulty that he is pried loose from the party of his birth. The process of prying him loose has begun.

Republican U. S. senators should watch well their step, for they can keep the Negro Republican or make him Democratic. Every Republican senator should take into serious consideration the numerical strength of his colored constituency. In the division of patronage, among his constituency, he should give the colored portion what belongs to it. His willingness to do this will force any President of his party to act upon his recommendation when this is a policy of the party.

Republican governors of states, like Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Missouri and Massachusetts, should ponder well their attitude toward our vote in dispensing patronage. Back of the unwillingness to give the colored man important positions of trust, lies the snobbish racial policy that a colored man should hold no position which places a white person where he is to serve under him. This doctrine is as damnable as the Parker position. This position grows stronger in proportion as our vote becomes more intelligent. It is folly to expect manly colored people to accept this policy.

The colored voter is in a strait betwixt two. Southern Democrats control the Democratic party and they are the arch enemies of the colored voter. On the other hand, the Democratic Negro policy and sentiment have invaded the Republican party and has practically become its policy. Shall the Negro go into the camp of his enemies and strive to make new friends or shall he fight it out inside of his party and force recognition?

This congressional election will feel the Negro's reaction in one way or the other. At any rate colored brother, deliver yourself by using your head, and vote!

(Rev.) Wm. A. Byrd.