Does Georgia show any signs of the disfranchising spirit? We fear it does. The State Legislature now expects some measure of this sort at each session, and in recent years has not been disappointed, although good sense has thus far triumphed. Then again men in high places, congressmen and at least one of our U. S. Senators from Georgia have begun to say some things that may easily be construed as an advocacy of disfranchisement. It occurs to me that the marked difference between the condition in my boyhood and to-day is this: then the opposition was to Republicans, to-day it is to Negroes. It is not a party line, but a race line.
Now the white primary has not done all that was claimed for it. In the first place it has not purified elections. Far from doing away with the purchase and sale of votes, it has, by lowering the supply, relatively increased the demand and brought up the price to a really fancy figure. In the second place it has failed to do that for which it was ostensibly introduced especially to do, namely; to put into office those men most eminently fitted by ability and character to administer the office to which they might be chosen. On the contrary, primary elections have been questioned on the ground of fraud; and the mayor of one very prominent Georgia city has been arrested for drunkenness. Then why is the primary kept? Well, the "fixers" for instance, can more easily fix things. With the Colored man’s vote eliminated, the work becomes simplified and even though the amount of money spent illegally may now be more than the total amount in the days when colored as well as white were in the market yet those interested in "fixing" elections can now work with more assurance; and promises may more easily be carried out in the matter of delivering the goods.
For instance, I know of a city election where the voters in one ward were so evenly divided and the candidates had calculated their strength so accurately, that one candidate felt safe in buying three white votes at the rate of one hundred ten dollars. Large corporations may now operate easily in state and city; and some of the most flagrant cases of political jobbery that have been charged against Reconstruction rule are easily equalled by the bare-faced graft and bribery by which large business interests win their way through the assistance of white voters.