| Show In the Senate WASHINGTON Dec 12A number of unimportant un-important bills were reported from committees com-mittees and placed on the calendar after which Plumbs resolution fixing the hour for dally meetings taken up I was was agreed to after being amended by striking out the clause for evening sessions and making it take effect after tomorrow The reappointment bill based on a representation repre-sentation of 350 members of the House of Representatives as originally proposed bv Frank of Missouri was favorably acted on by the House committee on census and it will be reported to the House today or tomorrow The resolution offered yesterday by Dolph instructing the committee oh n privileges privi-leges and elections to inquire and report whether the right to vote at any election I for presidential electors members of Congress Con-gress legislatures or officers is denied to any American citizen of any state or is abridged except for participation in rebellion rebel-lion or other crime was taken up Dolph said he particularly wanted the committee to give attention to the question whether some states had not provided in their constitutions con-stitutions or laws such voting Qualifications Qualifica-tions as were not permitted by the fourteenth four-teenth amendment to the constitution without an abridgement of congressional representation He said the constitution recently adopted in Mississippi did impose such qualifications and tho representation of that state should be abridged He sent to the clerks desk and had read the recent inaugural message of Governor Tillman of South Carolina which he said was an official declaration that the great mass of colored men of the south fit were not ft to exercise the elective franchise that the white people of the south were in control of the state government and proposed to maintain control at all hazard These propositions showed clearly Dolph said that the colored people of the south would not be permitted to vote as long as they voted the Republican ticket or where their voting would secure Republican control Vest moved an amendment instructing the committee to inquire further whether by any state legislation any citi zen of the United States was denied the right to worK on public improvements by reason of his color He read a clause cause from a recent statute of the Oregon lie poblican legislature authorizing the build of a bridge and providing that none but while laborers should ho employed on the work It might be Vest said that the provision was intended tcexclude Chinese labor but the language of the statute excluded ex-cluded Mongolian Indian and negro The Democratic states had never denied the negro the right to earn his bread by honest labor Dolph replied and in further discussion in allusion Tillmans message brought out the declaration from Buttler that he was perfectly willing to stand by tha message mes-sage Dolph said he was informed that the Senator Butler himself had h threatened I colored men in his employ that he would discharge them if they voted the Republican Repub-lican ticket Butler replied that whoever made that statement was guilty of a deliberate and willful falsehood Hoar arose and said he had made the statement state-ment having read it within twentyfour hours in a public oocument in the reply of the Senator from South Carolina before a committee in which he baid ho had told the colored people on his plantation that ho should discharge them i they voted the Republican ticket Butler then remarked I made the replies re-plies of course to the Senator from Massachusetts Massa-chusetts Hoar replied he was not to be deterred I from saying what he had to say either by the manner of Butler Tho resolution then went over until tomorrow The election bill was then taken up Blodgett and Walthall spoko in opposition to it Hoar then referred to tho incident of the morning again and had read the testimony in question which was from a minority report re-port which was made to the House in 1870 In it Butler is represented as saying that he gave tickets to his colored men and told them they had a right to vote the Republican can ticket i they pleased that they were free men but if they exercised that right and juiposed taxesupon him that would destroy de-stroy his property and prospects he should throw himself back on the same rights he had and see that they left his plantation Ho intended to inform himself how they voted The question was asked with a view to turning them off if they voted the Republican ticket Butler Not for voting the Republican ticket if they had an honest ticket but for voting for those thievesand robbers Butler But-ler said this testimony was garbled Ho had never seen the report before but said now ho had never at any time attempted to influence a single negro on his plantation in the exercise of the franchise Messrs Hoar and Butler then expressed great respect for each other and the matter dropped Jones of Arkansas then took the ate adjourned floor on the election bill and the Sen |
