constituents to elect others that would do so.  With reference to the Independents from Carroll, he said the situation was slightly different.  They had been elected as Independents under conditions which did not obligate them to enter the Republican caucus or support the candidates thereof.  They had pledged themselves not to support the Democratic caucus nominees, nor to aid that party in the organization of the House.  Up to that time they had not made a move, nor given a vote that could be construed into a violation of the pledge under which they had been elected, but they had publicly declared on several occasions that they had been elected as Independents or Alcorn Republicans.  In other words, they had been elected as friends and supporters of the Alcorn administration, and of that type of Republicanism for which he stood and of which he was the representative.  If this were true then they should not hesitate to take the advice of the man to support whose administration they had been elected.  He informed them that if they meant what they said the best way for them to prove it was to vote for the Republican caucus nominees for officers of the House, because he was the recognized leader of the party in the State and that the issue involved in the elections was either an endorsement or repudiation of his administration as Governor.  Republican success under such circumstances meant an endorsement of his administration, while Republican defeat would mean its repudiation.  The most effective way, then, in which they could make good their ante-election pledges and promises was to vote for the candidates of the Republican caucus for officers of the House.

The two Carroll County Independents informed the Senator that he had correctly outlined their position and their attitude, and that it was their purpose and their determination to give a loyal and effective support, so far as the same was in their power, to the policies and principles for which he stood and of which he was the accredited representative; but that they were apprehensive that they could not successfully defend their action and explain their votes to the satisfaction of their constituents if they were to vote for a colored man for Speaker of the House.

“But,” said the Senator, “could you have been elected without the votes of colored men?  If you now vote against a colored man,—­who is in every way a fit and capable man for the position,—­simply because he is a colored man, would you expect those men to support you in the future?”

The Senator also reminded them that they had received very many more colored than white votes; and that, in his opinion, very few of the white men who had supported them would find fault with them for voting for a capable and intelligent colored man to preside over the deliberations of the House.

“Can you then,” the Senator asked, “afford to offend the great mass of colored men that supported you in order to please an insignificantly small number of narrow-minded whites?”