In the Southern states the vast majority of the whites are democrats through opposition to the republican party which fought the war and deprived them of their slaves. The negroes on the other hand are republicans because it is to that party they owe their freedom, and from it they expect protection for themselves in the exercise of their political rights and the blessings of opportunity for education. The political question there becomes a race question, utterly regardless of the principles which the two great parties represent. Let there be a complete change of platforms and the result would be precisely the same as it has been for the past generation—the South would still remain democratic, and the votes of their presidential electors would still be cast for the candidates of that party. There is a minor race question in the feeling against foreigners, more especially Irish, Italians, and Germans, influenced to some extent by the fact that a large number of these foreigners are Roman Catholics and that there is an uneasy suspicion on the part of some Americans that the Catholic church is hostile to the spirit of democracy, a suspicion not entirely unfounded if one should judge solely by the sayings and doings of some of the prelates of that church for the past forty years. This “Know-nothing” sentiment at one time threatened to create a solid foreign vote in opposition. Germans and Irish united under the protecting wings of Tammany Hall and, aided by clergymen who hoped to obtain part of the state educational fund for their private parochial schools, formed a strong ally to the national democratic party. Happily prejudices of race and religion are dying out and neither party can now claim a monopoly of the foreign vote. Strange as it may seem, however, the Irish and German elements, so recently the objects of proscription themselves, have in late years become embittered against the Chinese. To the patient industry of the Mongolian immigrants is due the building of the Pacific railroads, when it would have been impossible to obtain white labor, and the cultivation and development of the Pacific coast states. Congress was terrorised into passing the law excluding all Chinese laborers. It was more than race prejudice which contributed to this hatred of the Chinese. The chief reason for Chinese exclusion was an economic one. Great masses of laborers feared that the Chinese by immigrating in vast numbers would deprive them of work by taking their places at lower wages, and, having the ballot, they dictated to Congress the terms of the Anti-Chinese Act.