COLUMBIA, S. C., Sept. 30--Five of the six Negro delegates to the South
Carolina Constitutional Convention, which proposes to disfranchise the
blacks, have joined in the following address to the North, through The
World:
To the Editor of the World:
The Seventh Constitutional Convention called in South Carolina is
in session. It has been called for the purpose of dealing with the
Negro problem. Those who have advocated its assembling have been
explicit in their declaration of the purposes to be accomplished--the
disfranchisement of the Negro and the elimination of him entirely,
not from a participation in elections, for he has not since 1886 had
any show at all in any of the elections held in the State, but of
the possibility of the Negro uniting with the conservative Democratic
faction and thus oust from place and power those now in control of
the Government. The chief obstacle in the way of accomplishing what
is desired is the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal
Constitution. This difficulty removed, there will be plain sailing.
The Hon. Benjamin Ryan Tillman, who is the head and front of the
movement, has not been at all politic or hypocritical as to his
intentions. He has said that his object is to disfranchise as many
Negroes as he possibly can without disfranchising a single white man,
except for crime.