"Draw the race line against the colored man,--organize a white Republican party,--and you will find that thousands of white men who now act with the Democratic party will join the Republicans." Some white Republicans believed that the men by whom these declarations were made were honest and sincere,--and it may be that some of them were,--but it appears not to have occurred to them that if the votes of the colored men were suppressed the minority white vote, unaided and unprotected, would be powerless to prevent the application of methods which would nullify any organized effort on their part.

In other words, nothing short of an effective national law, to protect the weak against the strong and the minority of the whites against the aggressive assaults of the majority of that race, would enable the minority of the whites to make their power and influence effective and potential; and even then it could be effectively done only in cooeperation with the blacks.

Then again, they seemed to have lost sight of the fact,--or perhaps they did not know it to be a fact,--that many leading southern Democrats are insincere in their declarations upon the so-called race question.

They keep that question before the public for political and party reasons only, because they find it to be the most effective weapon they can use to hold the white men in political subjection.

The effort, therefore, to build up a "white" Republican party at the South has had a tendency, under existing circumstances, to discourage a strong Republican organization in that section.