e south. The bane of the South today is her selfish and
misguided political leadership, the men who will not scruple to
sacrifice upon the altars of their insatiable ambition for power every
interest linked with her economic prosperity and all consideration for
civic virtue by which alone the greatness of a people is measured.

Her misfortune lies not in any danger from Negro domination, for of all
the classes of her population the Negro is the least capable of working
her injury and the least disposed to do so. Her real danger lies in the
pernicious activity of her dominant political leaders who perpetuate
their control by overriding local and national authority to the
diminution of both public and private security. Law has been dethroned
and the respectable and industrious portion of the people must witness
the spectacle and endure the humiliation of riot, bloodshed, and
assassination with impunity of innocent and unoffending citizens by the
beneficiaries under these disfranchising constitutions.

The leading paper of the state of Louisiana, which threw the weight of
its influence in favor of the constitutional convention which was held
for the sole and avowed purpose of disfranchising the Negro, has
recently made the following important confession:

"Assassination is still the order of the day and night in
Tangipahoa Parish. William McGee, a white man, employed at a saw
mill was the victim. He was waylaid yesterday morning and fired
upon, with the result that he was badly hurt. A posse turned out
with dogs to find the murderers, but to no purpose, although the
posse was fired on several times out of ambush. The authorities in
that parish seem incapable of making arrests of the perpetrators of
these numerous assassinations that occur among them, but when by
some chance an arrest is made, no jury is found that will convict.
The result is that outlaws have everything their own way, while the
peaceable people have no assurance that at any moment they will not
be murdered by cowardly assassins."[20]

Thus it is that the southern white people, by permitting a few desperate
politicians to outlaw the Negro, find themselves at the mercy of an
oligarchy which has everything its own way.

According to the census of 1890, there are 102,657 white male citizens
of voting age in South Carolina and 132,947 colored male citizens of
voting age, making a total of 253,604 m