In the State, according to the census of the United States, taken in
1890, there were: Negroes over twenty-one years of age, 132,949; whites
over twenty-one years of age, 102,567; Negro majority, 30,292. Of these
are illiterate, 58,086 Negroes and 13,242 whites. Now, it will plainly
be seen that a purely educational qualification, honestly administered,
would give the whites 89,415, and the Negroes 74,851 votes; white
majority, 14,564 votes.
But the nut for Tillman to crack is how he can disfranchise the
Negro without disfranchising the 13,242 illiterate whites, whose
votes would be lost entirely to his faction should the conservative
element nominate and vote an independent ticket. The highest vote
his faction has ever been able to poll in round numbers is 60,000,
and the Conservatives 35,000. If Tillman’s faction, therefore,
should lose 13,242 votes it would leave him only 46,758 votes, and
the Conservatives 35,000 votes, and Tillman’s majority over the
Conservatives would be only 11,758 votes.
It will readily be seen that the 74,851 Negro votes or any
considerable part of them uniting with the Conservatives would make
that faction master of the situation, and that is what Tillman wants to
prevent. He has thus far hypnotized the whites of both factions With
the scarecrow, “White supremacy,” which he has shaken in their faces
on every occasion, and which he is shrewd enough to know has the same
effect upon the whites as a red flag has upon an enraged bull.