But there is another Congressman who for years has watched keenly the growth of this threatening evil, the growth of this wrong so subversive of the rights of the blacks at the South, and so harmful to the interests of our industrial democracy at the North. Five years ago he thought it was high time for the general government to address itself to that subject, and accordingly proposed from his place in Congress suitable measures for that purpose. Unfortunately for Congressman Crumpacker’s proposition the presidential election of 1900 was at the time approaching and which, in the opinion of the McKinley administration, called loudly then for silence and oblivion on this vexed question. In obedience to this loud call of the Moloch of party success at the polls, Mr. Crumpacker’s bill suffered death by asphyxiation in committee. The matter was, however, revived by Mr. Crumpacker in a subsequent Congress in the form of a resolution which provided for the appointment by the Speaker of a select committee of thirteen "whose duty it shall be, and who shall have full and ample power to investigate and inquire into the validity of the election laws of the several states and the manner of their enforcement, and whether the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of any of the states or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of any of the states, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for crime." This resolution so reasonable, moderate, and just, fell a victim, so it was reported at the time, to a shrewd bargain struck between the Southern oligarchy on the one hand and the Republican managers of Cuban reciprocity on the other. The Crumpacker resolution was put to sleep amidst the dust heaps of old congressional documents, where it has slept without waking until the present session of Congress, when its profound slumber has been disturbed by renewed attempts made in both branches of the National legislature to revive the subject, and to do what the Republican national platform of 1904 pledged that party to do in the event of its triumph at the polls, according to the plain meaning and purpose of the following plank in that platform. "We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether, by special discrimination, the elective franchise in any state has been unconstitutionally limited: and if such is the case we demand that representation in Congress and in the electoral college shall be proportionally reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States."