Then the Colored vote began to divide on Democratic candidates and was exceedingly effective, holding the balance of power, as it did, in choosing white Democratic governors, congressmen, state legislators, city and county officers. This went well for awhile, but white office-seekers soon began to fear this Colored balance of power. They wanted their certainty of a majority of the white vote to guarantee their office; so the Georgia legislature passed a law making it legal to have primaries to nominate candidates for office and also throwing such safeguards about the management of primaries as aimed to secure lawful practices on these occasions. Here was a perfectly harmless movement, apparently harmless. The next step was made by the Democratic party assembled in State Convention when it decided that candidates for state and county officers on the Democratic ticket should be nominated by a primary, but leaving the conduct of the primary to the community in which it might be held, provided this should not run counter to the primary law as passed by the State. Here too, was a perfectly fair and harmless provision, apparently fair and apparently harmless. But the way was then open for the primary to take on a local coloring. In communities where the colored vote was an embarrassment, the Democratic party there decided to have a _white_ primary. In one of these communities a colored man that I know went to vote at the primary. He was a "good Negro" a very good Negro, his goodness dating back to the time when the "Yankees" were about to confiscate his master’s cotton and he claimed the cotton as his. Even this transaction did not enlarge his cranium, and after saving his master thousands of dollars and gradually amassing a fortune for himself, he still knew how to approach his former master from the kitchen door. Well, this good Negro went to cast his ballot. The courteous man at the polls said: "George, this is a Democratic primary." "Yes," said George, "but I am a Democrat." "Well," said the courteous gentleman, "but George, this is a _white_ primary." This colored man found himself without a Republican for whom he might vote, and was informed that the Democratic party was a close corporation so far as the Colored man was concerned. This is quite interesting when I tell you that white Republicans, avowedly Republicans, have not only been permitted but even requested to participate in the primaries of the Democratic and Populist parties.