444 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



great capacity. The increase in cotton acreage in 

 the South is placed at 8.7 per cent.; number of 

 acres, 25,558,000, an increase over 189!) of 2,03(>,000. 

 Ten per cent, of the increase is in North Carolina. 

 Small fruits are beginning to be largely cultivated. 

 Strawberry raising employs 700 Northern persons, 

 who have invested in land and who ship the fruit 

 north. All fruits grow well in the middle of the 

 State, and cultivation on large plantations is in- 

 creasing. The soil and climate are especially 

 adapted to apple raising. Northern capital is 

 about to establish a great sheep ranch in the moun- 

 tain region in Burke County. 



Political. The Democratic convention assem- 

 bled in Raleigh, April 11. The platform approved 

 the national platform of 1896, and further de- 

 clared : " We denounce the tariff legislation of the 

 Republican party which has increased the burdens 



of taxation upon 

 our consumers 

 and increased the 

 powers of the 

 trusts and mo- 

 nopolies to rob 

 the people. 



" We denounce 

 the Republican 

 party for its pass- 

 age of the recent 

 legislation by 

 which the gold 

 standard has been 

 fixed upon our 

 people. 



" We are in 

 favor of peaceful 

 commercial ex- 

 pansion, but de- 

 nounce imperial- 

 ism and militar- 

 ism. 



" We admire the heroism and ability with which 

 the Hon. William Jennings Bryan has defended 

 the principles of the Democratic party, and hereby 

 instruct the delegation from this State to the next 

 national Democratic convention to vote for his 

 renomination. 



" We denounce the administration of the Repub- 

 lican party in North Carolina by which negroes 

 were placed in high and responsible official posi- 

 tions which ought to have been filled by white 

 people. 



" We condemn free passes. 



" We favor the election of United States Sen- 

 ators by the people. 



" We instruct the State Executive Committee 

 to make provision for the holding of a primary 

 on the first Tuesday of next November for the 

 selection of a United States Senator by the Demo- 

 cratic voters of the State, at which every elector 

 who has voted the Democratic ticket in the State 

 election shall be entitled to cast one vote for one 

 man for United States Senate, and the candidates 

 who receive the majority of the votes so cast in 

 the whole State shall receive the support of the 

 Democratic members of the Legislature." 



The platform adopted by the Republican con- 

 vention, May 2, contained these declarations: 



" In spite of the official records, which show 

 that there has been no negro domination, and no 

 possibility of negro domination in the State or in 

 any of its counties, during the past quarter of 

 a century, the Democratic leaders have determined 

 to wage the corninjr campaign upon the race issue 

 alone, and they go before the people with a scheme 

 of disfranchiscment which is the most impudent 

 assault upon the Constitution of the United States 



CHARLES B. AYCOCK, 

 GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



and the most shocking act of party perfidy ever 

 attempted by men who recognize the obligation 

 of an oath or the sanctity of a public pledge. We 

 denounce with indignation and abhorrence the 

 Democratic proposition that the right to vote 

 should be made dependent upon heredity, and thus 

 build up an aristocracy of birth upon the ruins 

 of free government. 



" The administration of the affairs of the State 

 and of the several counties during four years ut 

 Republican ascendency has been scrupulously 

 clean, faithful, and economical. During this peri- 

 od the credit of the State, as shown by the market 

 value of its bonds, has reached the highest point 

 known in our history, and we challenge a com- 

 parison of this record with that of the Democracy 

 during any like period. 



" We are opposed to combinations of capital 

 whenever they become destructive of rights of 

 individual citizens, and such combinations should 

 be suppressed by adequate statutes enacted by the 

 Legislatures of the several States, or by Congress 

 if the resulting evils are beyond the power and 

 jurisdiction of the States. 



" The Republican party has always fostered 

 popular education; that party engrafted in the 

 organic law of the State the mandatory require- 

 ments providing public schools for both whites and 

 blacks, but that party will never brand ignorance 

 as a crime whose penalty is disfranchisement, so 

 long as the cause of that ignorance is the neglect 

 of the State." 



The following State officers (all Democrats) wereJ 

 elected: Governor, C. B. Ay cock; Lieutenant Gov- 

 ernor, W. D. Turner; Secretary of State, J. P.. 

 Grimes; Treasurer, B. R. Lacey; Auditor, B. Fl 

 Dixon; Attorney-General, R. D. Gilmer; Super- 

 intendent of Education, T. F. Toon ; Commissioner 

 of Agriculture, S. L. Patterson; Commissioner of 

 Insurance, James R. Young; Adjutant General, 

 B. S. Royster. 



The important issue in the election was the fol-, 

 lowing amendment to the State Constitution, 

 which was submitted to the people: 



" SECTION 1. Every male person born in the 

 United States, and every male person who has 

 been naturalized, twenty-one years of age, and 

 possessing the qualifications set out in this article, 

 shall be entitled to vote at any election by tin- 

 people in the State, except as herein otherwise 

 provided. 



" SEC. 2. He shall have resided in the State of 

 North Carolina for two years, in the county >iv 

 months, and in the precinct, ward, or other dr. 

 tion district in which he offers to vote four 

 months next preceding the election: Provided, that 

 removal from one precinct, ward, or other election 

 district to another in the same county shall net 

 operate to deprive any person of the right to vote 

 in the precinct, ward, or other election distriit 

 from which he has removed until four month < 

 after such removal. No person who has been COT 

 victed, or who has confessed his guilt in open 

 court upon indictment, of any crime, the puni-l 

 ment of which now is, or may hereafter be. im- 

 prisonment in the State's Prison, shall be |" 

 mitted to vote unless the said person shall 1 e 

 restored to citizenship in the manner prescribed 

 by law. 



" SEC. 3. Every person offering to vote shall be sit 

 the time a legally registered voter as herein pre- 

 scribed and in the manner hereafter provided l>v 

 law, and the General Assembly of North Carolina 

 shall enact general registration laws to carry into 

 effect the provisions of this article. 



" SEC. 4. Every person presenting himself for reg- 

 istration shall be able to read and write any section 



