ADVICE TO THEColored Voters of the United States,JOHN DUKER,AUTHOR AND PROPRIETORCHAS. W. HARDEN, AgentWASHINGTON, D.C.COPYWRIGHTED. AUG. 1806.FELLOW CITIZENS:--

The cradle of the emancipated slave has this day a duty to discharge. He is to give the right direction to the moral, as well as the political thought, of the New Negro; to shape his destiny, and prepare him for inexpressible conflict of the five political parties, whose candidates are placed before us to judge upon, by their respective conventions, namely: the Democratic, the Republican, the Prohibition, the Socialistic, and the Populist. There never was a time in our history when intelligence, prudence and good judgment, were more needed than at present to consider the destiny of our country. Upon our shoulders rest the grave responsibility of the future of the race in this grand and mighty Republic. As we turn on the search light of our intelligence, mingled with that justice due to our parents we pray this day the bandage may be lifted from our eyes, that has been kept there by false leaders.

Thirty and more years have brought forth wonderful events, among them; great change of our elders, who have passed away, while we are entering; and a great change in the principle of that party whose children's father was our saviour, John Brown is dead; Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, Lovejoy, Garfield and Grant all gone, and such honored citizens of our race have joined as Pain, Garnet, Elliot Price, Fred Douglass, and my father and millions of others, who joined hands at the taps of the drum of our country's call. We have been left alone, and at this hour, the cradle speaks to the coffin. Immortal spirits! will not these ideas add to your benevolent joy to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of independent citizens, and emphatically proclaiming the day of fooling the Negro, like the spider did the fly, has passed; or for them to listen to the brassy impudence of Republicans, who say we are dishonoring our name by supporting the Democratic ticket and it is a wonder our ancestors do not rise in their graves while they with deliberate affront claim our votes in their interest as an inheritance of the war, as if we do not know more than our fathers. It should arouse the scornful indignation of every freeman in the United States who reads and thinks of himself. America today is the home of the progressive idea of its citizens and all are face to face with a generation that has lived and learned that there are some negroes fit for other things than being hewers of wood and drawers of water; and accord to him his right to think and act, and agency in the moral and material progress of the country. Not withstanding the cry of the false alarmist in negro domination, which origin has been traced, and found not only at the door of Southern Democrats, but here in the North and in your states in the East, and in the West, among national and local leaders of the Republican party who use your vote as a means for plundering the people: misrepresenting you in every form, trampling on your rights and treating your dearest interest as so much merchandise to be auctioned to the highest bidder, for cash, in the hall of their Legislature, and the proceeds placed in their own pocket, and you receive the ta, ta. This argument is one of our experience, and should be the best school-master. It is said, object lessons 00033instruct, logic has failed to convince, sophistries have deceived, eloquence has beguiled, but hard facts settle the impossible of yesterday to be an accomplished fact of today that the largest manufactories owned, and in full opperated in the northern states are by noted Republicans who debar you on the account of your color, while they open their doors to foreign born workmen, their children, and also to the so-called harvesters, who come by the thousands every year from Europe and Canada to work here during the busy season, and to return home with their savings; while in the South, controlled by Democrats, the race has the privilege of earning his living in all trades and occupations, owning hundreds of homes, with a capital of $200,000,000. In this contest do not be deceived by those bigoted and treacherous Republicans; but as American freemen stand out from under the yoke of Republican hypocrisy, whose hands now hold the chain of bandage which he will fasten not only on your throat, but every workingman's in the country. The ticket nominated by the Democratic party is composed from its head of representative men, whom all the people can confide in. The platform speaks for the people, and not for monopoly, and should enable the voters of this country to understand thoroughly the party of the plain people's position upon the living issues in the country's campaign; and none shall have cause to regret their faith, and fullness in voting up the greatest Democratic majority ever given to the party in the field. We find the other parties, equipped and ready for the encounter with candidates for President, legislature, and county officers.

We must now define the principles of the parties. First. Prohibition, whose sole object is to stop the poor man's right of freedom, that he now enjoys, which was strongly endorsed by the Republican party. Next the Socialist, who are against the established institution of government, and existing rule of society. Last the populist, whose aim is essentially identical with that of the Socialist. They attribute their failure of prosperity to the tryranny and corruption of the government. Colored citizens you have all the principles of parties in the country before you, each of you must take your place when called upon to play your part in the public affairs of the country, which is an 00044important one, the casting of your ballot on the 3rd day of November. You have food for thought, which we hope, being void of all rose coloring will act as an influence which will cause the independent voters to favor the cause of democracy, ministering more to the new generation to be with, us to keep from power such Republicans bosses, whose sentiments are the same as Ingalls or Tom Reed, who opposed every negro-contesed case in the House of Congress, while he was speaker of that body; as Benjamin Harrison, who refused to appoint a negro on the United States Court bench, when he had seven vacancies to fill; who refused a representative of the race as Commissioner on the late Chicago World's Fair board. At this time, let us point with pride to the great Democratic state of Georgia. What was objected to by Republicans was kindly given us by Democrats at its great Exposition of learning, who said the negroes are a part of our citizens, and entitled to social, political, humanitarian rights as themselves. We would like for some of our Republican friends who are around saying that the Democratic party is responsible for everything that happened, and that the country is going to the dogs to awaken and gaze often and long at the revival of trade throughout the country and to take note of the Democratic national Convention held in Chicago on the 7th day of July, 1896. The truth has had a hearing; panic and fear have passed away, the Sherman Silver law which was one of the greatest causes of the depression of business with business men, farmers, and laborers, which required the government to purchase annually 54,000,000 ounces of silver, and to pay for the same in Treasury note, has been repealed by the Democratic Congress, and replaced by the Wilson Bill under which our prostrated industries are paying higher wages and the workingmen today are paying less than before for all the necessaries of life which has brought back the strength of the Democratic arms which have enlisted for a warfare.

My Colored Brothers:--

Read and think for yourselves, awake to your own interest and throw off the yoke of political oppression and be independent citizens for the time has come that we, as American citizens must think and act for our own interest. Let us consider that we have in the United States two great parties, the Republican and the Democratic. The Republican party has heretofore been by us acknowled our friend, and the Democratic party our enemy. Now my brothers the Republican party has had our support ever since we were granted the rights of faanchise, and what have they given us? The two principle acts of the Republican party for the direct benefit of the Negro race were first, the establishment of a financial institution known as the National Freedmen's Saving Bank, where $30,000,000 of the poor negroes' savings of this country were stolen from them by a Republican Congress, Senate and United States Supreme Court; and then the Republicans will tell us that they are our friends. How can a man be your friend when he will rob you? Now if you will look at the Statute books of the United States you will find that when the Hon. Fred Douglass asked the United States Senate to make the bank solvent, they told him, that the Negro had no bank, and no rights to respect. Now we have had three Republican Presidents since the bank were wrecked, and not one of them would recommend in their message to Congress to pay the Negro his money; and when President Cleveland was elected he in both of his message to Congress recommended that we be paid dollar for dollar all the money we had in the wrecked bank. Now my brothers, has it ever occurred to the reading and thinking Negro that if the Republican party had let the bank remain solvent that the Negro race today would have been worth $100,000,000 and would have been in a position to demand respect from the white man, but with all the confidence of the Negro he trusted his supposed friend and the result is, he was robbed of his all? Now it will take us fifty years to regain the loss of that memorable day in the year, 1873.

The second act of the Republican party against us was a bill known as the Civil Rights Bill, that made the Negro better than a white man, and while our friend, the Republican party, held full control of all branches of the government, the bank was wrecked and the hard earned money of hundreds of the negroes of this country was swept away, and the Civil Rights Bill was in the Supreme Court, presided over by Republican judges, decided unconstitutional. Thus we see the great things started in the interest of the Negro ended in a deplorable failure. Now brothers, being brought face to face with these facts of abused confidence, blighted hopes and trampled rights, let us now consider the condition of the Negroes, while the government is under the administration of the party who has been avowed the Negroes' enemy.

Now we have in this country 3,166,649 colored voters, notwithstanding that only 21/2 percent of this vote was cast for the Democratic party in 1892. We had on July 1st 1894, 2,400 colored employes in the government employment, at Washington, D.C. under the Democratic administration, drawing a salary $1,371,103.98 annually, this was when the Democrats had full control of all branches of government. Now since the enemy has shown such good results towards the Negro, does it not look wise on his part to give the Democratic party some of his support in return for the favors that he has received from the Democratic party which throughout the country is the party of the poor man, and as we are idential with element of the adapted American citizens, we can better protect our interests by allying ourselves with this party that has always shown itself to be the true friend of the masses, an not of the classes of the citizens of this grand an noble country. Now my brothers we ask you to think well before acting. Carefully consider the principles of the two great parties, as to how they will affect your interests, and progress. Now, we as colored advocates of the principles of the Democratic party feel it our duty to urge and pray the colored citizens to be more liberal with their political support to the party that will at all times give us an honest and impartial administration of the affairs of the government and will share the patronage with us of the country.

Hoping this appeal may be the cause of opening the eyes of our colored brothers to a sense of their duty, to their friend of today, the Democratic party, and such of the race that see the advisability of thinking and acting as independent citizens, will give the subject the consideration 'they think it should have. We as American citizens think the Negro has been a slave to the Republican party long enough, and that if we ever intend to be free American citizens we must throw off the political shackles of our would-be friends, the Republican party and stand as freemen and not political slaves to either great party.

The Negro As Farmer And Home Owner In The North And South.Now we will see how the Negro is situated in the south. The Republicans will tell you that the Democrats will not let the Negroes own their homes. The report of the Agriculture Department for the year 1895 tells that 21 per cent of the negroes in the South own their homes and farms, that the assessed value of said property in the south is twentyfour million dollars; and now we look at the situation in the North where the Republicans have all the co-operations and factories under their control and we find that the Negro only has 8 per cent to his credit. The entire wealth of the Negro in the northern states is less than seventeen millions as against twenty-four millions in the south. Now gentlemen, these are facts that we can prove. How can my Republican friend have the nerve to tell intelligent colored men who read and think for themselves that the Southern Democrat is the Negro's enemy.

Now, I will show you the Negro's worst enemy in the South. It is the lazy white Northern carpet bagger who goes down South and is too lazy to work, he will come to your little home eat your ash-cake, and fat bacon and tell you that he is a moses sent from the North to help you out of your troubles, and before you know it, he will own the home that you have spent years in trying to get, and you will be working for him. Now brothers this is the man that you find the Republican party will send down south to rob you and he is a curse to Negroes in the south.

I spent years in the south and I have had the carpet bagger tell me you are too smart a man to stay down here where your people are so ignorant, when you can do so much better in the North. I always asked them what make you stay down here where the negroes are so ignorant, and they would say that the negro want the white man to teach him.

Now my brothers open your eyes and don't let them fool you any more. The Southern business man will tell any intelligent colored man, go ahead and teach your people all the good you can, for the more good they learn the better citizens they will make, and they will listen to you before they will to me or any other white man. We have in Tennessee and North Carolina what we will never have in any state where the Republicans have the control of the political affair in their hands, and that privilege is the primary elections, where they elect the delegates that nominated your different officers. Now with that privilege the negro can have a voice in the nomination of all the men who are to represent them in the different state and national offices. Now my brothers both of these states are in the South and controlled by Democrats. Show me where you as Negroes can go to the primary election an vote for your choice of the Delegates to send to your conventions. Now if the Democrats in the South will give us such privileges, can not we afford to give them part of our political support and not give it to a party that will not give us the same privileges they will the white man.

Has it ever occured to you that we have been slaves long enough to the Republican party? Let us continue the party in power that has always been acknowleged our enemy, and see if there will be any change for the better and if they will not give us any better treatment than the Republicans, then we will seek another course to persue. No master will miss his servant until he is gone.

Silver Coinage As A Check To Monopoly.

Just now the country has an object lesson. The Gold reserve has been pulled down to about $80,000,000; after feeling the public pulse, the speculative and banking syndicates decided that it will be unwise to urge the issue of another $100,000,000 00099of Government bonds, so they have resorted to two experiments first, to loan the Government $10,000,000 of Gold; second, to form a pool of $25,000,000 to prevent the further export of Gold, by selling exchange "short" that is to say, they will secure sufficient credit in Europe to carry bills of exchange, issued on this side of the Atlantic, until sufficient of the new cotton crop has been exported, to turn the tide of gold in our favor.

What a humiliating spectacle to maintain the national credit of false basis! It has to be bolstered-up by petty speculative experiments, under a rational bimetallic monetary system; such financial juggling would be unnecessary. But as Henri Cernuschi remarked twenty years ago, "pernicious in Europe, pernicious in America, pernicious in Asia, the monometallic--scheme has produced and can produce nothing but disaster."

It has been the habit of gold bugs in all their discussions to sneer at Cernuschi, because his main advocacy was for the universal use of both silver and gold as money; yet his suggestions were fully discussed in Brussels monetary conference, and his arguments against the single standard, have never been proven false. Before the National Social Association in Liverpool, in 1876, Cernuschi utterly demolished the pretentions of-----Mr. Goschen, who was English Chancellor of the Exchequer, subsequently greatly modified his attitude of hostility toward silver. At that time Mr. Cernuschi answered six objections, which English financiers had made, several are worth reproduction. The English sovereign will loose in value, its purchasing power will be impaired if silver is allowed to circulate as an unlimited legal tender.

His reply to this was, "that if silver had never been in circulation, the value of gold would have and would be greater than it is; but silver has always circulated, it still circulates and the reduction which this rivalry might impose on the value of gold; gold has already fully under gone; it has nothing more to fear. Although silver has not circulated in England (except as subsidiary coin) the value of English gold has never escaped the effect of the competition of silver. The proof of this is that English gold has never been worth more than French gold, 001010which circulate side by side with silver: with French bimetallism, the gold soveriegn was worth in silver 15 1/2 times its weight, just the same as French gold and the case will be the same under universal bimetalism. The circulation of silver in England will therefore, strike no blow at the value of the sovereign.

This Cernuschi declared a pitiful scruple. England, he said, had been in turn, bimetallic, silver monometallic, again bi-metallic and lastly gold monometallic, without drawing on herself the reproach of having at every change, committed a breach of faith. Holland, Belgium and the United States have changed monetary metal without incurring any blame. English interest, Indian interest and the interest of the whole world, demands this reform, which consist in declaring the coinage of silver free, even in England and this reform will injure nobody. To reject it, there must be good reasons, not mere pretexts or pitiful scruples of silver payments, but a breach of faith. Gold is the money of rich nations! This he declared a prejudice. France and the United States have alternately had gold money, now silver money, without being alternately more rich or less rich.

Great Britian has been prosperous with gold monometallism, but the bimetallic system, would have insured a greater independence to her monetary market; which has always needed changing one metal for the other and bimetallism would very probably have prevented or mitigated, more than one monetary crisis. People defend themselves better with two metals, than with one. The paying power of gold is very staple, therefore, gold money is the best. In answering this objection, the French statistician insisted that the stability of the paying power, was in proportion to the stability of production. The production of Gold is more irregular than the production of silver, the paying power of gold therefore, would per ct be less staple than that of silver. It was the presence of silver, in general circulation and gravitation of the French, at 15 1/2 which preserved the paying power of English so ereigns, at the time of the influx of Californian and Australian gold; irregular is the production of both gold and silver, but the two regularities neutralize each other and the bi-metallic production is very regular. For twenty 001111four years the total production of the two metals, valued at 15 1/2 represents, an almost perfectly uniform annual sum of $165,000,000 alone; the bimetallic money is of regular production, alone, it has stability of value. General conditions have changed very slightly since Cernuschi made these statements and the United States propose to meet the change, by exchanging the ratio from 15 1/2 to 16 to 1. To secure this will require a peaceful revolution, such as Samuel J. Tilden once urged, a change of system and a change of administration. It means an attack at the ballot box, by millions of wage-earners, upon the assumed perogatives of monetary and co-operate trusts, to rob the people at large of their common rights. It has been the pretense of all monopolists that they could not abridge the rights of the poorest individual, because they are granted by the government; but who has control of the government? The history of railroad legislation, show that wealth has been created for the happy possession of the inner control, to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars. Financial legislation has proceeded on similar lines. With all laws in favor of trusts and monopolies, the coercion of government has enabled the few to tax and absorb the entire earnings of the common people.

All the wealth created by the masses in mechanical arts, in industrial and agricultural pursuits, has gone into the coffers of the few. All the sophistry in the world cannot controvert this simple statement of fact and the delegates in the Chicago convention, demonstrated, that a large majority of the people realized its truth and demanded a change.

The remonetization of silver will not produce the commercial demoralization, Hon. E. O. Leech and other monometallists have predicted, first, it will give this country the full benefit of its product of the white metal, which is more than one half of the output of the world; second, it will increase the circulation medium, or foster business enterprizes and increase wages.

On his message to congress on December 4th, 1896, President Cleveland stated that between March 1st, and November 1st, 1893, the government has purchased under all laws, 503,000,000 fine ounces of silver, at a cost of $516,622,940. The government 001212had fostered great home industry, which has since been practically strangled by the repeal of the purchasing clause, in the act of July 14, 1890. Mr. Cleveland admitted, that this repeal had made "an entire change in the complexion of our currency affairs," he was not sure it was for the better, but in the nature of things, he said "it is impossible to know at this time precisely what conditions will be brought about by the change, or what, if any supplementary legislation, may, in the light of such conditions, appear to be essential or expedient." Mr. Leech, however, declared to assembled bankers in Chicago, that the silver absorption to the extent of $570,000,000, was an act of folly, that the 420,000,000 silver dollars and the $150,000,000 of legal tender notes, had been sustained at par by our gold standard. He twisted the dying statement of Secretary Windom concerning a sound currency to suit his monometallic argument omitting altogether the fact, that Mr. Windom was in favor of fostering our great silver industry, by a governmental purchase of the product of American silver mines, and issuing its equivalent in legal tender notes. He showed that the actual amount of gold money in use in the world in 1893 was $3,633,000,000 and $4,000,000,000 of silver money, with the object of proving there was plenty of money for every-body, the per capita being, $25.39, as against $18.00 in 1873 and then, to cap the climax of his peculiar reasoning, he declared "that the wage-earners today not only receive higher wages in every branch of industry than in prior years, but also that he can purchase more of the necessaries of life with his wages than ever before." This is a specimen of the strange reasoning of men, who assume that they alone possess knowledge of economic science.

It is an attempt to prove the laboring multitude, that the enormous decline in the prices of commodities, is due entirely to natural causes and the people of the New South and great West are wrong, when they declare that gold has depreciated in value, through the disuse of silver money. The mortgage ridden farmers of thirty-five States, however, know other-wise. Their eyes are opened by the cruel experience of recent years.

While the value of farm products, has steadily decreased, the mortgage shylock has never lessened his demands. The cotton planters and the wheat raiser have toiled chiefly for the benefit of the speculator and the railroad magnate. The cattle raiser is at the mercy of lumons and the cadaluye. The silver miners have been grounded beneath the wheels of golden.

He must be blind, indeed, he who fails to see that the monopolist and the non-producer, not only seek to gobble all the profits of the present enterprises of the country, and also to place a mortgage upon the profits and benefits of future development. If he can so nullify our silver production, as to bring it down to the level of pig lead and then absolutely control the money or the country, he will succeed. The question now is; Will the country stand it?