Poll Tax

The Poll Tax and Poll Taxers Author(s): William M. Brewer Source: The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jul., 1944), pp. 260-299 Published by: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2714819 . Accessed: 02/04/2011 11:44
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THE POLL TAX AND POLL TAXERS The recent movement to repeal southern poll taxes stems from Reconstruction history in general and specifically from the period of depression. Some of the historical background of the present conflicting and opposing forces is pertinent to an understanding of the issues which are involved in the proposed legislation. The decision of the United States Supreme Court on October 15, 1883, in the Civil Rights Cases nullified the Civil Rights Bill which guaranteed accommodations in inns, places of amusement, and on public conveyances regardless of class or race. Mr. Justice Bradley in the majority decree -said: "On the whole we are of opinion that no countenance of authority for the passage of the law in question can be found in either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution; and no other ground of authority for its passage being suggested, it must necessarily be declared void, at least so far as its operation in the several States is concerned."'1 The significance of this decree does not consist as much in its fundamental principles as in the actuality which it accomplished. Within the first generation after the Civil War Calhoun's theory that the States rather than the central government should handle the ubiquitous race problem received sanction. This significant decision contained incidentally suggestions which were used in developing a frame of reference in which legislation could be designed to restrict southern suffrage and eliminate the participation of the Negro in politics. In the following twenty-five years the various southern disfranchisement measures, which reflect similarity in their purposes, were passed in the Solid South. These statutes conformed ingeniously to a pattern whose constitutionality
1 United States Supreme Court Beports, 109, p. 25; Ralph H. Gabriel, The Course of American Democratic Thought, pp. 135-136; Edward S. Corwin, Dictionary of American Biography, III, p. 573; Paul Lewinson, Bace, Class, and Party, pp. 46-97.

260

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depended largely upon the interpretation of the Civil Rights decision and occasionally transcended its most suggestive limits. The future Senator Carter Glass expressed the central theme of the southern restraining suffrage laws in the Virginia Convention: "By fraud, no; by discrimination yes. But it will be discrimination within the letter of the law. ... Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we propose; that, exactly, is what this convention was elected for-to discriminate to the very extremity of permissible action under the limitation of the Federal Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every Negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical It is a fine discriminastrength of the white electorate.... tion, indeed, that we have practiced in the fabrication of

this plan. 1 2
This is an extreme statement of the rather uniform ideology and opinion which derived from the bitterness of Reconstruction that dominated disfranchisement restrictions which began in 1890 and were intensified by the Populist threat to the Solid South. In the administration of codes drafted with such intention there was unlimited opportunity for even further extremity and harshness by registration and election officials. The sweeping effects of disfranchisement reveal possible motives of some of its sponsors which strikingly resemble those which the Slaughter House Cases unearthed and that Roscoe Conkling contended were in the minds of the designers of the Fourteenth Amendment for the protection of corporations. Whether or not the crusaders for the disfranchisement of Negroes had also in mind the disadvantaged poor white masses is not always clearly established. The bourbon-agrarian struggles3 of the late 1880's and early
2 Ibid., Lewinson quotes this, which has been verified, from Virginia Debates, p. 68, 1901-1902, pp. 2972-2973, 3076-3077. This is the often cited Glass Dictum. 3 Ibid., pp. 68, 70. Here is evidence of early suspicions among mass-whites.

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HISTORY JouRNAL OF NEGRO

1890's afford some evidence that restraint of mass-poor whites was connived at. Populism revived the erstwhile antagonism and hatred of the plantation aristocracy and the Piedmont yeomen4 who suspected bourbon designs in the literacy and poll tax requirements which were destined to restrict millions of southern poor whites as well as colored people.5 Singulary disfranchisement could not be and in practice was not controlled and restricted to Negroes. In time white men of disadvantage and meager opportunity fell victims to the disfranchisers and saw the ballot which is the symbol of freedom and shield of free men's liberties withheld by the excesses of southern poll tax demands. The course of southern political practices and insistence upon the shibboleth of allegiance to one party made the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan in the Civil Rights cases of 1883 prophetic of what eventually materialized in the Twentieth-Century South. He declared: "At some future time, it may be that some other race will fall under the ban of race discrimination. If the constitutional amendments be enforced, according to the intent with which, as I conceive, they were adopted, there cannot be, in this republic, any class of human beings in practical subjection to another class, with power in the latter to dole out to the former just such privileges as they may choose to grant."6 While this construction of the law is ethically and logically obvious, it exerted no influence on the mores which slavery had burned into the southern mind and the nation in devious ways had accepted7 regarding the status of colored people in the American civilization. Only recently vital humanitarian concern and the abuses of poll tax political power
4 Ibid., p. 73. Bourbon monopoly of ofifces aroused Carolinians in the early 1880's.

5 Katherine D. Lumpkin, The South in Progress, p. 217. 6 United States Supreme Court Beports, 109, p. 62. 7 Gabriel, op. cit., pp. 248-250; William J. Cash, The Mind of the South; Clarence Cason, 90 Degrees in the Shade; Bertram W. Doyle, The Etiquette of Slavery.

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263

have aroused interest in the consequences and incidence of the poll taxes in the South during the last decade. The orientation of this very brief and partial background appears necessary and relevant as a preface to understanding of the contemporary movement to repeal poll tax voting requirements. The programs of reform have awakened the country and produced cleavages of political power with particular reference to the South. There the white supremacy conventions of the late 1880's and early 1890's were so alarmed at the People's Party threat8 that they relentlessly sought to keep the vote within the ranks of white Democrats. As a result of these efforts by 1933, excepting the detour in the election of 1928 when apostasy from the Solid South's faith was frankly admitted on grounds of opposition to Alfred Simth's religion, the South followed its tradition and exerted powerful influence in dictating national Democratic policies. The " Two-Thirds Rule" had long been a perplexing issue in Presidential Democratic nominating conventions and it was seriously questioned in the party convention of 1932.9 During the first administration of the New Deal the majority leaders from the North and West concluded that the rule should be abolished and they accomplished their purpose in the convention of 1936. Until this time the South had held a sort of veto power which it had stubbornly wielded to the exasperation of other sections since the Civil War in selecting candidates for the Presidency. The loss of this power was jarring.10 When it was suggested that a "bonus of delegates" might be awarded to appease the South, actual votes in National Elections rather than census statistics of population were used as a
8 Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Judiciary United States Senate Seventy-Seventh Congress on S. 1280, Part I., pp. 266-267, March 15, 1942. 9Virginius Dabney, "Shall the South's Poll Tax Got" New York Times, Magazine Section, February 12, 1939, p. 9. 10 John T. Graves, "The Solid South Is Cracking," IAmerican Mercury, April, 1943, p. 405.

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basis of estimating quotas."' This focused attention upon the franchise practices in the Solid South which had long been known although little or no organized action was considered before the New Deal forced the elimination of the "Two-Thirds Rule" in 1936. Yielding power and prestige in National Democratic Conventionswas not so serious as the far-reaching exposure of vested interests of politicians in the poll tax States.12 Their political careers and fortunes had depended upon the maintenance not only of one party, but upon a limited and disinterested electorate that was destined to awake to its exploitation under the encouragement and stimulation of publicity. Huey Long used poll taxed constituents to make himself czar of Louisiana1'and Eugene Talmadge thus rose to supreme power in Georgia. None of these figures or their contests threatened the sacred citadels of southern political power as much as the proposed use of suffrage returns which shook the very foundations. Twenty-nine distinguished southern financiers, labor leaders, newspaper men, and other notables seized the issues in organizing the Southern Policies Committee in early 1939 that demanded the abolition of the poll tax14as a franchise requirement. Examination of statistics revealed an estimated disfranchisement of 64% of the white adult voters in the poll-tax States and in every one of these jurisdictions more whites than colored people were barred by this tax from voting.15 Action took the form of meticulous investigation of election returns and regional comparisons between the poll tax and the non-poll tax States.
'1 "Editorial,'" Christian Century, May 11, 1938, p. 581. 12 Graves, loc. cit., p. 406.

13 Dabney, "The Poll Tax Stirs Revolt," National Municipal Review, Oetober, 1942, p. 488. 14 Dabney, "SIhall the South Is Poll Tax GoI" loc. ct., p. 9. 15 Barry Bingham, Southern Conference for Human Welfare Report, 1942, P. 5.

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265

The southern suffrage laws were scrutinized and the nation became aware of the shocking disparities of political power and the disfranchisement of nearly 11,000,000 citizens in the Solid South. The following table illustrates estimates:
ELECTION OF

1942
Total Disfranchised

States

Whites Disfranchised

Colored People Disfranchised

Alabama-815,000 Arkansas-730,000 Georgia-980,000 Mississippi-490,000 South CarolinaTexas -2,220,000 Virginia -935,000 Total -6,820,000

650,000

685,000 320,000 740,000 755,000 570,000 570,000 430,000 4,070,000

1,500,000 1,030,000 1,720,000 1,245,000 1,220,000 2,790,000 1,365,000 10,890,000

These approximate figures do not include Tennessee, which would make the total number of Southern disfranchised citizens well over 11,000,000.16 Contrasts of the proportions of poll tax States and non-poll tax States voting on the basis of the 1940 Census in the elections of 1942 show that in the former 3 out of every one hundred people voted and 25 out of every one hundred people in the latter voted. The tables on page 266 portray the actual percentages of the States. The figures on disfranchisement and the comparative regional percentages of voting illustrate the thoroughgoing factual data which were employed in the movement to publicize poll tax repeal. It should not be inferred, however, that this record of voting in the South is due to poll taxes alone. There are other complicated economic, political, and social forces stemming from the very bottom of Southern history and tradition even more responsible for the differ16National Committee to Abolish the Poll-Tax Bulletin, 1943, p. 4. Table

here presented was constructedfrom data and statisties in this bulletin.

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JoURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY NON-POLL TAx STATES

Percentage of 1940 Percentage of 1940 Population Voting States States Population Voting Nevada 16 36 Arizona New Hampshire 28 32 California --New Jersey 30 29 Colorado-33 New Mexico _ __ 20 Connecticut New York 32 29 Delaware --9* North Carolina 5* Florida North Dakota 28 26 _ Idaho Ohio __ 36 -25 Illinois -38 Oklahoma 19 Indiana ---26 25 Iowa Oregon Pennsylvania -25 27 Kansas ---Rhode Island 12 33 Kentucky 4* South Dakota 27 _ Louisiana Tennessee 5 19 __ Maryland Utah 31 --27 Massachusetts Vermont 22 16 Michigan 27 Washington 25 Minnesota West Virginia 24 24 __ Missouri Wisconsin 30 _ 24 Montana 27 __ 30 Wyoming Nebraska Average participation in voting for the Non-Poll Tax States 25%o
*Abolition of the poll-tax has not solved the voting problem in these States. POLL TAX STATES

Percentageof 1940
States
Alabama Arkansas

Population Voting 2 _-

States

Percentageof 1940 Population Voting
1 4 3

5

Georgia Mississippi

2 2

South Carolina Texas Virginia

Average participationin voting for the Poll Tax States-

3%7

ence.18 For example, the "one party system" precludes competition of the kind which in the non-poll tax areas goes after and brings out voters. Florida, Louisiana, and North
17Ibid., p. 1. 18Hearings Before a Subcommitteeof the Judiciary United States Senate, Part I, p. 313, op. cit., March 15, 1942.

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Carolina, where the poll tax has been repealed, are illustrations of the presence and operation of other causes and forces which curb voting in the South. The sheer fact that for various reasons approximately 10,000,000citizens are disfranchised in the Solid South has given the repealers strong arguments for action based upon Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. There the Constitution says: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers.... But when the right to vote at any election for the

choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress .. . is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such States, being 21 years of age, and citizens of the United States, or ii any way
abridged . . . the basis of representation therein shall be

reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens 21 years of age in such State."19 The "Force Bill" of 1890 was based upon this constitutional ground which the poll tax repealers have cited in their arguments. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment also states: "The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article."20 The poll tax repealers thus have fundamental law on their side, but opposed to this are the "Southern mores" previously mentioned. There public opinion, tradition, and ideology to the contrary seem as deep as life itself and since the passage of the above cited amendment have by-passed its enforcement. Were the Fourteenth Amendment invoked and enforced in the poll tax States, their representation in the Congress would be reduced according to the following table:
l9Fourteenth 20 Ibid. Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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HISTORY OF JOURNAL NEGRo

Present Number ReducedNumberof Representatives Based upon the 1942 Election of Representatives States 1 Alabama-9

Arkansas

7

1

Georgia

7 M'ississppiSouth Carolina-- 6 21 Texas
Virginia Total _ 9 69

10

1

1 1 3

1 921

The election of 60 Congressmen from the above jurisdictions to represent voteless whites and colored people in the Congress furnished the movement for poll tax repeal some of its most convincing appeal and invaluable publicity throughout the United States. Meanwhile, merely suggesting the loss of 60 Representatives in Congress from the Solid South (which is inconceivable in the light of history) annoys Southern politicians profoundly by alleging that their election and tenure rest on exploitation. Equally shocking is Rhode Island's election of two Representatives in Congress with 314,023votes from a population of 687,000 while Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina elect 32 Congressmen with 264,419 votes from their total populations of 9,300,000!2 Such information concerning the actual results of suffrage practices in the Southern regions is making the anti-poll tax movement a sort of crusade in contemporary politics. This effort, however, is by no means new. Senator Lodge made an issue of the matter in the "Force Bill" fifty years ago. Congressman Tinkham of Massachusetts continued the fight annually until his recent retirement, but his proposals never emerged from the committees. The advocates of poll-tax repeal charge that the 69 Rep21 Table arranged from data assembled by the National Committee to Abolish the Poll-Tax, Bulletin, 1943, p. 5. 22 National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, Fact Sheet, p. 1, April, 1943.

THE

POLL TAX AND THE POLL TAXERS

269

resentatives and 14 Senators from the seven States, in addition to exploiting the economic and social plight of the poor whites, maintain a stranglehold and balance of power in the Congress of the United States. These indictments are based upon the records of Starnes and Hobbs of Alabama, Cox and Vinson of Georgia, Dies and Summers of Texas, Rankin and Bilbo of Mississippi, Smith of South
Carolina, and Smith of Virginia. The opponents of the poll tax insist that these notables are ". . . the sponsors and sup-

porters of dangerous divisive legislation, the authors of disruptive speeches, the destroyers of national unity.' Long tenure enables the poll tax bloc to develop and maintain a balance of power in the Congress although they represent only seven States with a population of 21,000,000 against forty-one States with 369 Representatives, 82 Senators, and 111,000,000 people.

Ties of allegiance and loyalty to "Southern Ideals" bind not only the 83 Representatives and Senators from the poll tax States but 55 additional members of the upper and lower Houses of Congress from Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee.24 Hence 24 Senators and 114 Representatives constitute a permanent strategic force in national legislatlon where the essential problems involve a constant interplay of sectional and regional interests in which cooperation and bargaining are fundamental. These 138 men and women know that accusation of the slightest disregard of the "color line," which is the central theme in southern history25 will be promptly punished with a vengeance. Thus the movement for poll tax repeal faces complex and subtle opposition which surpasses the ordcinary ebb and flow of factors and issues in politieal action. It appears that U. B. Phillips' predietion still holds that ". . . un23 National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, Memorandum, p. 7, June, 1943. 24 Ibd., p. 8. 25 Ulrich B. Phillips, "The Central Theme in Southern History," Amercan Historica Review, vol. xxiv, pp. 31-43, October, 1928.

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JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

til an issue arise predominant over the lingering one of race, political solidarity at the price of provincial status is maintained to keep assurance doubly, trebly sure that the South shall remain 'a white man's country.' 1126 Poll tax reformers do not pretend to suggest such an issue, but it is the lethal weapon which the powerful Southern combination is successfully using in the Senate against the abolition of the system. The poll tax repeal has come to excite vigilantes already alarmed. The progressive social legislation of the Roosevelt Administration caused apprehension and grave alarm among Southern industrial and political leaders. It is estimated that over 90 per cent of the South's corporate wealth in finance, industry, and natural resources is owned in the North.27 This was invited and encouraged by such distinguished sponsors of the New South as General Gordon, Grady, and many others who envisaged the dire necessity of capital in rehabilitating the wreckage of the Civil War in developing virgin resources in agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, mining, and transportation.28 Northern capital flowed into the exploitation of these vast fields of investment opportunity and developed vital interests which are only proportionally less formidable in their influence and control of southern politics29than the psychological and social factors previously mentioned among the Senators and Representatives of the South. The Yankee promoters, therefore, have stakes in poll tax opposition which may adversely disturb the calm and peaceful operation of Southern industry and labor. How much pressure, if any, the antipoll tax movement can expect from Northern interests is unpredictable, but they are potential and must not be overJoin the United States,"? The Nation, p. 593, 1940. May 11, I I 28 Janet Marshall, " The Ring Around the Ballot Box, " The New Republic, p. 207, September 28, 1938. 29 Report on Econoomic Conditions in the South, 1938, p. 54.
26 Ibid,j p. 43. 27 Maury Maverick, " Let's

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looked. Politicians of the North are approachable and susceptible to influences beyond their districts. The labor and security measures developed a new sense of personal concern and worth among the southern white masses. After the wages and hours legislation of 1937, President Roosevelt appointed an able commission of representative Southerners who studied economic and social conditions in the South, and the National Emergency Council published the findings in 1938.30 This was the first time that a thoroughgoing investigation of Southern life and labor had been undertaken. The findings were extensively publicized in the newspapers of the region where clergymen, social workers, and educators extended the revelations to sharecroppers, mine workers, and textile employees. The results were far-reaching in that a new consciousness began to dawn and the common white masses awakened to their plight. In this awakening reformers discerned the neglect in the South of the ballot and political power in remedying the conditions which were extensively publicized. Here the movement to abolish the poll tax took concrete form under leadership of representatives of every rank and class. They noted the stubborn opposition of their representatives in Congress who fought and delayed the security measures until the great masses of Southern agricultural and unskilled workers were excluded from benefits. The Southern politicians saw potential threats to their power in this generation and the upsurge was different from that of the Populist Revolt in that the poll tax movement is less divisive and is conducting a frontal attack upon political power in the South.31 Such anti-labor leaders as Connally, Cox, Hobbs, and Smith (of Virginia) have introduced numerous measures to obstruct and restrain unionism. The
30 Ibid. This document contains specific data on 15 areas of the South's most vital economic and social problems. 31 National Federation for Constitutional Liberties Memorandum, p. 5, June, 1943.

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last three of these Congressmen, as members of the allpowerful Rules Committee with the cooperation of Dies, have used their influence to throttle important national legislation and to attack many of the most capable workers in the federal service.82The following table shows the support which they received in the Election of 1942 and probably why they suspect serious dangers to their power in the antipoll tax movement:
OUTSTANDING POLL TAX BENEFICIARIES
Votes From Percentage of his people

Cox,

Leader of the Rules Committee-

3794

1

Ga.

10,128 Dies, Un-AmericanActivities7079 Rankin, Anti-Negro and Anti-Semitic-7,468 Hobbs, Anti-Labor -15,448 Smith, Anti-Labor 4324 Pace, Farm Bloc Leader -5,393 Brown, Farm Bloc Leader5172 Tarver, Anti-Labor Starnes, Dies Committee 11,841 7,562 Colmer, Rules Committee Fulmer, Farm Bloc Leader --4,448 Summers,ChairmanJudiciary Committee 10,568 Bland, Anti-Union 5,309 Three of these Representatives Club in the next table: Cox of Georgia Pace of Georgia Whittington of Mississippi Fulmer of South Carolina

3 3 3 5 1 2 2 4 2 1 3 2

Texas Miss. Ala. Va. Ga. Ga. Ga. Ala. Miss. S. C. Texas Va.33

belong also to The 1%

ONE PER CENTPOLL-TAX CONGRESSMEN

Hare of South Carolina Bryson of South Carolina Richardsof South Carolina MeMillanof South Carolina34

This analysis of the support of 18 Congressmen from the poll tax States is quite similar, with the exception of the "4one percenters," to that of their 120 colleagues in the
Ibid., p. 6. 38 National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, Bulletin, p. 2, 1943. 34 Ibid.
32

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273

House and Senate whose support is less than 3 per cent35of their constituents. That progressive social legislation and its impacts upon the movement to abolish the poll tax should be alarming to Southern politicians cannot be doubted. The laws regulating wages and hours intensified southern economicand political fears also because these measures conflicted with the differentials which had exerted great influence in the migration to the South of such industries as textiles and many sorts of manufacturing. In 1937 the figures from investigation showed that wages of cotton mill workers were 12 cents less per hour in the South than in the rest of the country. In the same year it was revealed that lumber, furniture, iron and steel, coal mining and other industries had a differential of 20 between the South and Besides these factors, the " stretchthe rest of the country.36 out system" (requirement of operatives to tend an increased numberof machines) operated extensively in Southern cotton mills. The minimum emergency recommended family income in 1935 was $903.24 for the United States while the average southern urban cost of living per family was $863.28 or a difference of 5 per cent. Meanwhile, the earnings of southern industrial workers were from 30 to 50 per cent below national wage averages.37 Industry was shocked throughout the South and agriculture escaped the incidence of the wages and hours legislation, but farm laborers and share-croppers were potential voters whom the anti-poll tax movement sought to arouse. A danger of tremendous political possibilities therefore accompaniedthese progressive changes and Southern mass-white awakening which they might bring. The labor movement invaded the Southern areas somewhat ahead of the New Deal to unionize the unorganized
35 National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, Memorandum, loc. cit., p. 8. 36 Beport on Economic Conditions in the South, op. cit., pp. 38-39.
37 Ibid.

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HISTORY OF JOURNAL NEGRO

masses of industrial workers. Its objectives were chiefly economic and they inevitably clashed with the ideology of "cheap labor" that derives from salvery. This Mitchell claims also ". . . dispossessed the poor whites, pushing them beyond the pale of profitable employment, and excluding them from social sympathy. They had no part in the scheme of things which slavery set up, except, indeed, to be a nuisance to the large planters, or a downright danger to the orderliness and subserviency of the Negroes.""8 Unionism is the height of effrontery to many Southern employers and they boldly charge that is imported through radical impostors from the North who are generally accused of Communism. This charge proved effective in securing State militia to put down strikes and to restrain the activities of labor organizers often during the first years of the New Deal. Between 1923 and 1937, 27 firms listed for the South spent approximately $800,000 in the retention of industrial spies, purchasing arms, and in strike breaking. From incomplete records of detective agencies 78 other firms which included textiles, oil, and coal corporations were revealed by the United States Civil Liberties Committeeas operating in the Southern States."9 The Wagner Labor Relations Law was sustained by the United States Supreme Court to the disappointment of Southern industrialists. Whether or not there is any liaison between them and the ardent anti-laborpoll tax Congressmenhas not yet been documented,but the latter are the most persistent and relentless advocates of labor restriction in the Congress. In these activities the increasingly articulate labor-masses of the South are meticulously observing and they find in the poll-tax repeal
38 Broadus Mitchell and George S. Mitchell, The Industrial B?evolutioq& in the South, p. 121. This document 39 Senate Civil Liberties Report, Part III, p. 75, 1937. contains the extensive investigation which was conducted by the United States Senate to discover violations of civil liberty with special emphasis upon charges of flagrant discrimination in the fields of labor.

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movement opportunity for revenge which the domination of one party restrains or precludes. The agencies and issues which are promoting poll tax repeal are Southern in particular and national in general. Those sponsors who are supporting this legislation are outstanding representatives of various classes in American life. Some of its most crusading and dynamic leadership has organized the Southern Electoral League with branches which are actively working throughout the South. Such distinguished southerners as Frank P. Graham, Jennings Perry, Harry Bingham, Howard Davis, Evelyn Smith, Raymond B. Bottom, John Chamberlain,William F. Cochran, Virginia Durr, Clark Foreman, David G. George, Richard W. Hogue, Frank McAllister, James H. McGill, William Mitch, James J. Morrison, Claude Pepper, Moss A. Plunkett, and Arthur Raper are the officers and general board of this organization which is working in the South for poll tax repeal. These notables have working with them national sponsors in Mrs. Sherwood Anderson, Samuel L. M. Barlow, Harry Elmer Barnes, George Gordon Battle, Alfred M. Bingham, Paul Blanshard, Wm. E. Bohn, Dorothy D. Bromley, Van Wyck Brooks, Mrs. Jacob S. Cohn, John Dewey, Mrs. Hiram Elfenbein, Walter Frank, Arthur Garfield Hayes, Sidney Hollander, the Rev. Lawrence T. Hosie, Quincy Howe, B. W. Heubsch, Gardiner Jackson, Paul Kellog, Frank Kingdon, Harry W. Laidler, Florina Lasker, Algernon Lee, Mrs. John T. Lewis, Max Lewis, Robert Morss Lovett, Lenore G. Marshall, Lucy R. Mason, Mary R. Millis, David K. Niles, Elizabeth L. Otey, Eliot D. Pratt, A. Philip Randolph, Upton Sinclair, Whitney N. Seymour, Wm. J. Schieffelin, George C. Stoney, Norman Thomas, Oswald G. Villard, and L. Hollingsworth Wood.40 In cooperation is a large group of Southern and Northern leaders in the Southern Conference on Human Welfare that has many
40Fact Sheet of the Southern Electoral July, 1943, p. 2. Beform League, Richmond, Va.,

276

HISTORY JOuRNAL OF NEGRO

of the same prominent men and women as well as many others from various seetions North and South. The American Council on Public Affairs with a similar long list of notables is working with the Southern Electoral Reform League in the poll tax repeal cause. The National Committee to Repeal the Poll Tax has headquarters in Washington, D. C., and consists of the following officersand sponsors: Jennings Perry, Will Alexander, Virginia F. Durr, Sylvia Beitscher, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Sherwood Anderson, Jos. C. Baldwin, Harry C. Bates, Geeorge H. Bender, Mary McLeod Bethune, Barry Bingham, Mrs. Louis D. Brandeis, Rabbi Barnett Brickner, Arthur Capper, Rufus Clement, William F. Cochran,Dale DeWitt, Thomas H. Eliot, Judge Henry Ellenbogen, Marshall Field, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Jos. A. Gavagan, Rev. Frank J. Gilligan, Frank P. Graham,William Green, Knute Hill, the Rt. Rev. Henry W. Hobson, Mordecai W. Johnson, Paul Kellog, Robert W. Kenney, Bishop Paul Kern, J. G. Luhrsen, the Most Rev. Robert Lucey, Dorothy S. McAllister, Bishop W. F. McConnell, Vito Marcantonio, George Meany, the Rev. A. J. Murphy, Philip Murray, James O'Connor, the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Parsons, James Patton, A. Philip Randolph, Emil Rieve, Ried Robinson, Father John A. Ryan, Donald 0. Stewart, the Rev. John B. Thompson, R. J. Thomas, Channing Tobias, Francis E. Townsend, Oswald G. Villard, William Allen White, A. F. Whitney, and J. Finley Wilson.41Working at Washington in addition to the above national figures is the Congressional Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax under the chairmanship of Representative George H. Bender, Congressman at Large from Ohio. This committee has rendered indispensable service in forcing the Geyer-Pepper Bills from committees where they were shelved three years. Through vigilance the same
41Fact Sheet of National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, p. 1, May, 1943; The Poll Tax; Bulletin of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare and the American Council on Public Affairs, p. 1, 1940.

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committee secured similar action on the Mercantonio Bill in the House, where it was passed with dispatch May 24, 1943. The following national organizations are supporting the poll tax repeal: the American Civil Liberties Union, American Federation of Labor, American Federation of Labor Women's Auxiliaries, Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, Church League for Industrial Democracy, Colored Voters' League, Congress of Industrial Organizations, Congress of Women's Auxiliaries, CouncilAgainst Intolerance in America, Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union, Fraternal Council of Negro Churches, International Labor Defense, League of Women Shoppers, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Conference of Social Work, National Council of Negro Youth, National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, National Intercollegiate Christian Council,National Lawyers' Guild, National Negro Congress, National Urban League, National Women's Trade Union League, Railway Labor Executives' Association, Southern Conference for Human Welfare, Southern Women's Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, Townsend Plan, United Christian Council for Democracy, Women's Christian Service Division of the Methodist Church, Young People's Religious Union, and the Young Women's Christian Association.42 These partial long lists of civic, labor, religious, political, fraternal and social leaders and organizations are samples of the forces that are leading the anti-poll tax movement. The cause seems unique and unlike any previous political crusade in American history. Many of the slogans and symbols strikingly resemble those of various political parties which have risen and declined. To what extent the major political parties at present will capitalize the prospects afforded by the appeals of these representative Amer42

Fact Sheet of National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, p. 2, May,

1943.

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icans and organizations of practically every class remains to be seen. It appears at present that there is very much more behind the anti-poll tax movement than most minor sporadic political parties have ever been able to claim. These leaders and organizations have staying power and the issues which they are championing rise from the depths of American democratic life. The anti-poll tax repeal also consists of the stuff which is most fundamental in the national tradition which is being reexamined and tried in the crisis of world war. Some of the abuses of poll tax political power have been previously mentioned in this discussion, but they warrant further examination to show more clearly the national awakening which they have produced. The protracted tenure of poll tax Representatives and Senators enables them under the Seniority Rules of Congress to gravitate to the chairmanships of strategic committees where they are accused of obstructing progressive legislation and reforms. The following assignments show the first and second places which were occupied in June of 1943. Seventeen out of 47 standing committees in the House and ten out of 33 similar committees in the Senate were headed by functionaries from poll tax regions with prospects of increasing assignments on the basis of sheer longevity regardless of statesmanship.
CHAIRMEN OF SENATE COMMITTEES

Agriculture-Ellison D. Smith-South Carolina Appropriations-Carter Glass-Virginia Enrolled Bills-Hattie Caraway-Arkansas Expenditures, Executive Department-Lister Hill-Alabama Finance-Walter F. George-Georgia Immigration-Richard B. Russell-Georgia Foreign Relations-Tom Connally-Texas Irrigation and Reclamation-John H. Bankhead,2nd-Alabama Pensions-Theodore G. Bilbo-Mississippi Rules-Harry F. Byrd-Virginia
NUMBER

Two

MAJORITY POSITIONS ON SENATE COMMITTEES

Banking and Currency-Carter Glass-Virginia Commerce-Hattie W. Caraway-Arkansas

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279

District of Columbia-Carter Glass-Virginia Interstate Commerce-Ellison D. Smith-South Carolina Manufactures-Ellison D. Smith-South Carolina Patents-Ellison D. Smith-South Carolina Privileges-Ellison D. Smith-South Carolina
CHAIRMEN OF HousE, COMMITTEES

Agriculture-Hampton F. Fulmer-South Carolina Banking and Currency-Henry B. Steagall-Alabama Civil Service-Robert Ramspeck-Georgia Claims-Dan R. McGehee-Mississippi Judiciary-Hatton W. Summers-Texas Merchant Marine and Fisheries-Schuyler 0. Bland-Virginia Naval Affairs-Carl Vinson-Georgia Public Buildings and Grounds-Fritz G. Lanham-Texas Patents-Frank W. Boykin-Alabama Rivers and Harbors-Joseph Mansfield-Texas World War Veterans' Legislation-John E. Rankin-Mississippi
NUMBER Two MAJORITY POSITIONS ON HOUSE COMMITTEES Accounts-Patton, Second Position (Texas); Boykin, Third Position (Alabama); McMillan, Fourth Position (South Carolina) Appropriations-Woodrum, Second Position (Virginia) Census-Rankin, Second Position (Mississippi); Gosett, Third Position (Texas) District of Columbia-McGehee, Second Position (Mississippi) Foreign Affairs-Johnson, Second Position (Texas) Labor-Ramspeck, Second Position (Georgia) Military Affairs-Thomason, Second Position (Texas) Pensions-Patton, Second Position (Texas) Roads-7Whittington, Second Position (Mississippi Rules-Cox, Second Position (Georgia); Smith, Third Position (Virginia) Territories-Peterson, Second Position (Georgia); Patton, Third Position (Texas) 43

and The disproportionate number of Representatives Senators on the committees outlined in the foregoing tables

from the poll-tax States is from 32 to 80 per cent greater

than their numbers in the Congress warrant. When estimated in terms of the influence which these legislators are
43 National Federation for Constitutional Liberties Memorandumn,pp. 8-9, June, 1943. These tables are constructed from data in the memorandum briefly and concretely to show the strategic power and positions which poll-taxers hold in the Senate and House on the basis of longevity.

280

HISTORY JOURNAL OF NEGRO

in position to exert and the votes which they have received, the proportion is 300 to 400 per cent44larger than it should be. It is a matter of record and normal procedure that measures on which the two houses of the Congress have disagreed are sent to committees. Here "Frequently these conferences involve highly controversial and extremely important issues. Hence, members of such committees have great power in shaping vital legislation. These conferees are normally appointed in the order of seniority from the available members of standing committees to which the bill in question was originally referred."45 Automatically the poll tax members, who seldom if ever face Republican or third party competition, become through tenure chairmen and majority leaders who may control whatever action may be taken. Much of the most persistent and uniform opposition to federal relief, public spending, wages and hours laws, the National Labor Relations Act, and the major portion of New Deal reforms has come from such well-knownmembers of the House as Dies, Smith, Woodrum, and Cox.46 For example, Congressman Cox succeeded in holding up the Wages and Hours Bill 18 months in his committee by refusing to allow it a rule until he was forced by a sufficient majority to do so.47 The power of such chairmen is so great that they can individually push or throttle the most progressive legislation which a majority of the people desire and urgently need.48 Even Congress must marshal a sufficient majority to override the subtle forces which operate in committees. Such tremendous power is understandable if the 30-year
44 Senate CommitteeHearing on S. 1280, op. cit., Part I, p. 438, March 14,

1942.
45 Ibid., pp. 316, 317.
46

Allan Fletcher, "Poll Tax Politics," The Nation, p. 665, March 20,

1940.
47 Stanley Rowan, "American Rotten Districts," Common Sense, p. 8, October, 1940. 48Ibid., p. 9. See also Senate Hearings on S. 1280, op. cit., p. 249, July 30, 1942.

THE PoLL TAX AND THE POLL TAXERS

281

tenure and freedom of concern about reelection of typical chairmen like Representatives Summers and Vinson and Senator Ellison D. Smith are examined. These leaders and their colleagues have little or no fear of competition at home and they always manage to please the extremely small constituency that safeguards their return to Washington. That the practices of these notables should awaken interest in the poll tax repeal movement is not difficult to understand. The poll tax Representatives and Senators work not merely in committees; they speak a "common language'" and there is considerable cooperation. For example, the 21 members of the Texas delegation in the House have lunch together every Wednesday afternoon in the private dining room of Speaker Rayburn of that State. Texas politicians, bankers, oil men, plainsmen49as well as others may be invited. The average tenure of this delegation in March, 1943, was 6.7 terms in contrast to the 4.1 terms of the 366 nonpoll tax members of the Congress. The Texans have also one member on 36 of 47 Standing Committees of the House.50 This is the pattern of cooperation which is maintained wherever any such "vital interests of the Solid South" are involved as the Poll Tax Filibuster of November, 1942, in the Senate. Moreover, the record of voting in the recent passage of the Poll Tax Bill by the House in May of 1943 shows ardent cooperation. Although Florida, Louisiana, and North Carolinahave abolished the poll tax, their Representatives voted unanimously against the Anti-Poll Tax measure.5" Failure to cooperate wholeheartedly or not to serve as "watchmen on the wall" for encroachment on " Southern mores " is the major anxiety which poll tax Representatives and Senators regard with eternal vigilance. Congressman Cox has received so much publicity this
49 National Federation for Constitrtional Liberties Memorandum, p. 9, June, 1943. 50Ibid. Also the New York World Telegram, Peter Edson, May 26, 1942. 51 "Reaction in Congress," ISpecial Section, New Republic, pp. 158-161, August 2, 1943.

282

HIsTORY JOURNALOF NEGRO

year because of his relations with the FCC that his record of helping himself and his family at the expense of American taxpayers deserves notice in this study of the movement to abolish poll taxes. To what extent this Congressman used his "good offices" in behalf of his relatives cannot be authentically established from available information. The following tables illustrate federal salaries of the Cox fam'ily in June, 1941, and July of 1943:
FEDERAL SALARIES OF THE Cox FAMLY, JUNE, 1941

Relation and Position Lamar Cox, son, Counselfor the E.H.F.A.-$ -3,900 Ode Cox, brother,Ass't House Disbursing Clerk Chas. M. Cox, nephew, Administratorof A.A.A.-3,800 Another nephew, Library of CongressClerk Another nephew, Clerk im S.E.C -3,380 Sister, Cox's Secretary . Sister, Postmistress, CaMila, Ga Brother-in-law,Ass't House DocumentRoom _ Son-in-law,Architect Housing Project, Macon,GaCox, Member of Congress
Total ---------------------$56-50

Salary 4,800 1,620 1,740 2,400 1,860 23,000
10,000

OF' FEDERALSALARIES THE Cox FAMILY, JULY 24, 1943

Rosa Cox, sister, Cox's Secretary-$ Ass't House Clerk J. Chaney Robinson,brother-in-law, Grace Cox, wife, Clerk in Cox's OfficeRobin Cox, brother,Postmaster,Donaldsville, Ga.Mrs. Jim Cox Hoggard,sister, Postmistress,Camilla, Ga.,
Cox's home----

3,380 2,120 3,120 2,400
2,550

Chas. M. Cox, nephew, Senior Administrator,Agr. Dept. 5,000 10000 -Cox Memberof Congress Total -$30,12053

The above salaries of Cox's relatives are, of course, not representative of the benefits of all poll tax Congressmen, but they illustrate an extreme case which has been exten52 Whtman Wilson, "Georgie Bottleneeks," N NI Republic, p. 786, June 9, 1941. 53 Drew Pearson, "IWashington Merry-Go-Round"Column,July 24, 1943. These two tables were constructed from data in the sources cited.

THE POLL TAX AND THE PoLL TAXERS

283

sively publicized to the discredit of those Representatives. Machines like these combatting progress are nothing new in American politics, and they are not now confined to the poll tax areas; Boss Hague of New Jersey and Kelly of Chicago are well known. The laws, however, give the poll taxers a free hand in requiring the payment of poll taxes several months in advance of the elections where receipts must be presented at the ballot boxes.54 Hence politicians have supplied funds for blocks of voters to pay their poll taxes with a view to controlling elections in municipalities and some urban-rural districts. This is not unique but the
tax ". . . by strengthening political machines, which are able

to elect the same Congressmen year after year, has placed the balance of power in many Congressional Committees in the hands of representatives of poll tax States.'"5 The Crump organization in Memphis, Tennessee, holds 100,000 votes which are used in throwing elections in any direction which the machine desires, including further influence upon the governor and legislators.56 San Antonio, Texas, has for many years been in the grip of poll tax control which retired liberal and progressive Maury Maverick from Congress. In that municipality hordes of the most disadvantaged and poverty-stricken citizens have been bought and racketeers have found the purchase of poll tax receipts profitable.57 The Alabama Bankers' Mortgage machine warned all farmers who had received loans that they would face foreclosure unless they voted against the progressive and helped to reelect the poll tax candidate.58 When the F.S.A. was making advances in behalf of the voters for liberals in Alabama, Senator Byrd summonedthe Administra54 National Lawyers' Guild Quarterly, p. 103, July, 1940. 55 Ibid., p. 107. 56 Dabney, National Municipal Review, loc. cit., p. 490.

57 George C. Stoney, "S Iuffrage in the South," Survey Graphic, p. 5, January, 1940. 58 Janet Marshall, New Republic, loc. cit., p. 209.

284

JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

tor before his committee for investigation.59 Meanwhile, the Senator's own machine was sponsoring the reelection of Howard Smith in Virginia by seeing that the poll taxes of the faithful were paid on time for the 1942 primaries through the "court house crowd" that directs local operations in the Old Dominion." National interest is keen in the consequences of poll taxmachine corruption because liberals and progressives are occasionally outvoted or have their votes nullified by representatives from "Rotten Districts. "6' It is not that irregularities have not always existed in other regions; there is full cognizance of this and that the tax is not the only cause of the peculiar control which the Southern machines exert. Collins found that "many employers at sawmills and factories pay the tax, then file the receipts away; on Election Day the receipts are turned over to employees with explicit instructions on how to vote."62 When Rhode Island, one of the smallest States, casts more votes in the choice of two Representatives than Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina do in the selection of thirty-two members of the Congress, the poll tax machines become a matter of serious national concern." Add to this the manipulation of political power and the strangleholds which southern politicians of long experience maintain in determining Congressional legislation and the nation-wide interest in the repeal movement becomes clear. Again, the lower standards of achievement and life, infinitely less wealth, and complicated nuclear political alliances based upon such Southern disparities and projecting into Congress arouse in non-poll tax regions the bitterest resentment. These sections of the
59 T. R. B., New Bepublic,p. 636, May 11, 1942.
60 Time, p. 18, September 14, 1942.

61 Stanley Rowan, CommonSense, loc. cit., p. 9. 62 Herbert R. Colins, "IPol Tax Corruption," The Nation, p. 463, April 19, 1941.
63 Henry Collins, Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, p. 145, op. cit.,

March 14, 1942.

THE PoL

TAX AND THE POLL TAXERS

285

country hold that national policies are interstate affairs64 and that in so far as poll taxes or any other abuses"5of political power produce stalemates in Congress democratic rights are jeopardized.88 At Richmond, Virginia, the Southern Electoral Reform League was founded to implement the anti-poll tax movement as a going concern to educate southern public opinion.67 This organization publishes Democracy for Dixie,68 a news and information bulletin which has become the voice of the repeal movement, and is being circulated in every section of the South. Local groups are working and forming organizations and liberal newspapers of the South are heartily supporting the campaign for enlightenment. The following general board shows the outstanding leaders: Maryland, William F. Cochran, Victor Weybright; Virginia, Colonel LeRoy Hodges, David G. George; North Carolina, President Frank P. Graham,Mrs. May T. Evans; South Carolina, Julia Peterkin, Dr. Josiah Morse; Georgia, Mrs. Josephine Wilkins, Dr. Arthur Raper, Mrs. Margot Gayle; Florida, Senator Claude Pepper, Frank McAllister; Alabama, WVilliam Mitchell, Mrs. Albert Thomas, Mrs. Virginia Durr; Mississippi, Governor Paul B. Johnson, Miss
Linda Ramey, Dr. Harold Hertz; Tennessee, Jennings Per-

ry, Mrs. Carl V. Stafford; Kentucky, Barry Bingham; Arkansas, William F. Huchins; Louisiana, Professor James Morrison; Oklahoma, Senator Josh Lee; and Texas, Dr.
Editorial, New York Timest, p. 24, May 7, 1940. G5Editorial. Christianr Centttry, p. 581, May 11, 1938. 6dNational Lawyers' Guild Quarterly, p. 106, July, 1940. Virginlus Dabney, Soith of the Potomac, p. 111, refers to substantial evidence which C. Van Woodward published on the motives which actuated the Georgia disfranchisers in 1908, 61 Eleanor Bontecu, The Poll Tax, pp. 2-3, 1942. This pamphlet by the American Association of University Women contains publication of extensive research which this national body of women conducted on all phases of the poll tax. 68 Dixie for Democracy. This is the official organ of the Southern Electoral Reform League which was founded at Richmond, Virginia, in 1941.
64

286

HISTORY JOURNALOF NEGRO

Robert Montgomery, Miss Gaynel Hawkins, and Mrs. Judd Collier.69 The power and influence of this group on the mass-opinion of the South are far-reaching and they lend additional significance to the repeal movement. The United Chlristian Council for Democracy70stated before the Senate Hearings on May 20, 1943: "The signers (476) of the appeal include outstanding spokesmen of the church from 44 States, including church leaders of every poll tax State and nearly every denomination.... We American Churchmenof many communions throughout the Nation urge the passage of anti-poll tax legislation at once. . . . We shall be in much stronger moral position to be the champions of freedom and democracy among the nations if this injustice in our own country is corrected at once.1'71 Walter White speaking for the largest American minority group and the one most intimately identified with disfranchisement, said: "Extension of the franchise will materially improve the quality of Members of the Congress, Governors and other officials elected from Southern States. Less frequent will be the appeals on the floor of Congress to racial and sectional prejudice. Less frequent will be the opposition to socially enlightened legislation which is desperately needed in times of crisis like these to preserve the
the influence of such democratic way of life.... *When civic, labor, racial, religous, and women's organizations

upon public opinion is considered, forces from the bottom of contemporary life are enlisted and mobilized for the support of the poll tax repeal movement. The seven State-wide Southern Women's Organizations with 150,000 members in the poll tax States warrant more
69 Ibid., p. 3, February 1, 1941. 70 Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, p. 330, March 14, 1942. Nathan E. Cowan speaks for 5,000,000 C.I.O. men and women. John L. Lewis, Philip Murray, and William Green have given their unqualified endorsement of the movement. 71 Congressional Becord, p. A 2683, May 20, 1943. 72 Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, p. 337, March 14, 1942.

THE POLL TAX AND THE PoLL TAXERS

287

than passing notice in this limited account of the instruments which are being used to create and cultivate favorable opinion in behalf of the anti-poll tax movement.73 The impacts of the activities of this large group of Southern women upon opinion in their section should be considerable because of their acquaintancethere with the most determined and obstinate opposition which the repeal faces. This body of civic-minded women reflects high courage as it is far more difficultto champion a despised cause in a hostile environment than it is from afar. At the same time, much local support adds incalculable strength to the movement in that it is thus free from charges of outside interferencealways the major premise of the "Fighting South." In this connection the Women's Trade Union League of America members deserves mention because of its with 1,000,00074 far-flung influencein the entire nation and especially among the mass workers of the North whose good will and approval are only less proportionately important in moulding public sentiment for causes than that of the Southern women's organizations. Any movement which has the unqualified approval and blessings of such aggregations of women is fortunate to say the least. The working of the poll tax appears in revelations of relief and investigations which have crystallized opinion and focused attention upon corroding poverty and ignorance in Southern life and labor. Dr. John Caldwell of Vanderbilt University, after making extended investigations of various phases of the incidence of the poll tax in different parts of the South, concluded: "I think that cumulative burden, $36.00 in Alabama and $47.37 in Georgia, takes on quite a very different significance from the fact that eight remaining poll tax States are all located in the South, that six of these have the lowest family incomes of any average in73 George C. Stoney, too. cit., p. 40. 74 Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, p. 199, March 10, 1942.

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JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

comes of any State in the Union."75 Many of the families in these areas have incomes of less than $100 a year and the poll taxes for the family heads alone in Mississippi would amount to 4 per cent or more of that income.76 While taxes for Georgia and Aalabama are $1.00 and $1.50 respectively, their possibilities of accumulation make voting prohibitive. Thousands of tenant and other rural and urban families received relief in the depths of depression during the 1930's and the Federal Government's awards and grants in aid for seeds, stock, food, and housing were made after investigation. The commission investigating the South found in 193777 that the average income there was $314.00 while that of the rest of the nation was $604.00 and that of Southern farm people in the prosperous year of 1929 was $186.00 in contrast to $528.00 for the farmers of the remainder of the United States. From this $186.00 southern farmers had met such basic expenses as those of tools, fertilizers, seed, taxes, and interest on debts.78 Excessive political county subdivisions in the South further aggravate the situation by making governmental expenses several times what they should be. Georgia, which is typical, has 159 counties with separate staffs of officials which consume at least three times the budget which would with substantial income be justifiable. In the absence of other available sources of revenue, the bulk of the burdens of expense is piled upon poverty-stricken masses in the form of sales taxes.79Efforts of the Southern States to spread the tax burdens meet powerful opposition from outside vested interests which own or control most of the wealth80in the South. The poll tax connects naturally with the tragedy of the
75 Ibid., Dr. John Caldwell, p. 100, March 13, 1942. 76 libid., Henry Collins, p. 260.

77Report on Economic Conditions in the South, op. cit., p. 4.
78

Ibid., pp. 21-22.

79 Ibid., p. 23.

80Ibid., p. 23.

THE

PoLI

TAX AND THE POLL TAXERS

289

sharecroppers and tenants of the South which has been extensively publicized by writers, on the stage and screen, and in the public press. The cotton kingdom extends about 300 miles North and 1,600 miles from the Carolinas to Texas. Approximately 8,000,000 individuals may well be classified as belonging to these categories in the Solid South.81 In this vast region bitterness between poor whites and Negroes was born of economic frustration in slavery; the former hated the planting aristocracy only proportionately less than they did the slaves. Reconstruction and Populism revealed the strength of the white masses and rising Southern middle classes whose just grievances were played off by the bourbons from themselves upon the Negroes who became the universal scapegoat of all woes of that area.82 King Cotton has suffered from sporadic illness through three generations and he has experienced nearly chronic inbecause of the development of cotton validism since 192383 production in Brazil, India, China, Egypt, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and other parts of the world. The depression of the 1930's intensified the malady. The millions previously mentioned represent both white and colored who became fellow-sufferers in a nearly hopeless cause. The returns from cotton production did not yield enough to balance expenses and the landlords were in a plight similar in many respects to that of the laborers, sharecroppers, and tenants. An attempt to organize sharecroppers by the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union84aroused some of the most bitter resentment in American labor history. The atmosphere was so charged with tension over the suggestion and attempts of outsiders to unionize white and colored sharecroppers that bloody riots broke loose in Arkansas with considerable
81 Howard Kester, Revolt of the Sharecroppers, p. 17. 82Ibid., p. 20.
83 84

Claudius Murchison, King Cotton Is Sick, p. 3. Kester, op. cit., p. 72.

290

JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

loss of life among the Negroes in the reign of terror during the spring of 1935.85 The Report on Economic Conditions in the South showed that "Earnings of sharecroppers ranged from $38 to $86 per person, and an income of $38 annually means only a little more than ten cents a day."86 Under such income conditions these millions existed rather than lived. Attempts in other parts of the cotton-South to unionize farm workers met with more ruthless suppression than such endeavors faced in industry because there was no color-line in "allwhite enterprises" to be disregarded or defied. The Grapes of Wrath and Tobacco Road have presented extremes of the disadvantaged whites on the stage and screen. The antipoll tax movement insists that the ballot in the hands of these nearly inarticulate millions is fundamental for the advance of education, progress, and democracy. The constitutional issues in poll tax repeal show differences of opinion as to whether or not the Congress under the Constitution has the authority to intervene in the control and regulation of State suffrage laws. The defenders of the poll taxes argue that Congressional action will violate State Rights. Mark Sullivan speaking for this group says: "Fixing the qualifications for voting is the most fundamental right a State has.... Taking this right from the States would be the beginning of a process by which the States would become little more than geographical designations such as New England and the Middle West."87 Constitutional lawyers for the poll taxers contend that the supreme law has not delegated to the Congress power to regulate suffrage qualifications of the States.88 They further insist
851Ibid., pp. 84.

86Beport on Economic Conditions in the South, op. cit., p. 22.
87 Congressional Record, p. A 4263, November 16, 1942. Insertion by Senator Bilbo ("The Man Bilbo") of an article by Mark Sullivan in the Washington, D. C., Post of the same date. 88 Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, p. 380, Attorney General Abram S. Staples, of Virginia, September 22, 1942.

THE POLL TAX AND THE POLL TAXERS

291

that any infringement of the citizen's Constitutional rights by the States may be redressed in the courts. The States' rights argument continues with the declaration that poll tax qualificationfor suffrage is a purely local problem which can better be handled by States than by a "Force Bill" of Congress.89 On this traditional theory, the opponents of poll tax repeal by the Congress aver that the privileges of voting do not derive from the Constitution, but are conferred by the States, which may condition the suffrage requirement as they deem fit and proper.90 Judge J. S. Edwards injects some of the Calhoun doctrine in saying " ...

that unless the States have in the Constitution surrendered to the Federal Government the right to decide who may vote in the several States, the right to control the qualifications remains in the several States, not subject to control by the Federal Government, unless the qualifications should violate the fourteenth, fifteenth, and nineteenth amendments "91 This seems to contain the essence of to the Constitution. the States' Rights objection which derives from pre-Civil War history and is invoked against what is construed to be in the anti-poll tax movement an encroachmentupon Southern rights. Another argument of the opponents of the anti-poll-tax action by the Congress is that the time is inopportune while the nation is facing the greatest crisis in its history. They charge that the whole movement is a continuation of deepseated determination of outsiders to interfere in the affairs of the Southern States.92 Dire warnings are expressed that the economic and social structure of the South will be de89Congressrional Record, p. 9318, November 20, 1942. Editorial from the Atlanta, Georgia, Journal inserted by Senator Russell of that State. 90Ibid., p. 9365. November 21, 1942. An opinion which Judge J. S. Edwards securedPirtle vs. Brown, Sixth United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Inserted in the Congressonal Bcord by Senator George of Georgia.
91 Ibid.

92 CongressmanJames Domeugeux. CongressionalRecord, p. A 2830, May 27, 1943.

292

HISTORY JouRNAL NEGRO OF

stroyed. The prospects of filibusters of long and bitter debates in the Senate where animosities and hatreds will distract attention from the war effort are deprecated. This faction does not stress at great length issues of constitutional law in defense of their opposition; they demand that other sections leave these matters to the discretion of the States that can in their own time and ways best adjust suffrage grievances submitted by the anti-poll tax movement.93 Governors Frank M. Dixon of Alabama and R. M. Jeffries of South Carolina, and Attorneys General John M. Daniel of South Carolina and Greek L. Rice of Mississippi followed this line of argument in their long hearings before the Senate Sub-Committeeon the Judiciary.94 They do not undertake any abstruse constitutional defense of their position and simply state that the suffrage laws do not operate unfairly and that any citizen who desires may qualify within the framework of their State suffrage statutes. Probably the most powerful opposition to removing the poll taxes by the States or Congress consists of the social and political reasons in which there appear basic elements of Southern history and tradition. The "white supremacy shibboleth"95has been used as a rallying slogan for three generations when there has really never been any threat. To the masses of poor whites emancipation was nearly as great liberation as it was for the slaves. Southern politicians prefer limited suffrage and hard restrictions because they do not desire competition of the masses of voters. "White supremacy," therefore, is emphasized because the poll taxers know it is a smoke screen which may easily be thrown over just grievances of poor whites who prize extremely the stimulating sense of personal worth which attaches to belonging and being included. Again, poll taxes
93 Congressional Becord, p. A 3001, June 5, 1943.

94 Senate Hearings, Part II, pp. 477-514, October 13, 1942. 95Dabney, New York Times, Magazine Section, op. cit., p. 20, February 12, 1939.

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293

and other restraints upon suffrage keep political power in the hands of the wealthy96or shrewd designing leaders who succeed or hope to rise the erstwhile coveted ideal of the white yeoman who yearned to own "slaves and a plantation. " This was and still is a sort of conspicuous distinction which restricted suffrage encourages. Finally, the extreme poverty97previously described in this study prevents educational opportunity and produces inarticulateness or indifference to political participation. The struggle for bare existence is so hard that concern about matters of government is necessarily precluded among large numbers of potential voters. The opponents of anti-poll-tax action by the Congress are not in agreement regarding the power of State legislatures to abrogate the tax. The State legislature of Tennessee abolished its poll-tax in the spring of 1943, but the Supreme Court of that State in Biggs vs. Beeler on July 3, 1943, declared this action unconstitutional. The court asked the question: "When the legislature in execution of a trust conferred on it by the Constitution, has, by appropriate legislation, executed that trust and put into operation and effect a constitutional mandate, may the legislature at a subsequent session revoke and qualify that which it had
done ?"
98

The court reported ". . . failure to find any re-

ported case directly in point; any case in which the courts of any State have had occasion to consider the power of a
legislature; . . . to strike down a constitutional mandate which the legislature, . . . has put in execution and effect Chief Justice Green and an Associate Justice of ..99

the court, in dissenting, said that there is no precedent in English or American law for this peculiar dictum and that
96 Ibid., p. 20. 97 Ibid., p. 20.
98

Biggs vs. Beeler. Tennessee Supreme Court Decision, July 3, 1943.

99 Ibid.

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HISTORY JOURNAL OF NEGRO

it is "unsound in principle."100 This means that an amendment will have to be submitted to the poll tax minority of voters in that jurisdiction unless the decision is reversed by the United States Supreme Court to which it will probably go. In the State of Virginia, repeal is contingent upon passage by two legislatures that have been elected by voters who have paid their poll taxes'0l and then submitted to a referendum of the same voters. Obviously there are difficulties in repeal by some States. The advocates of repeal of the poll tax argue that Congress has the power to prescribe the rules and to regulate the election of Representatives and Senators. The following ten legal scholars prepared a memorandum in which they attest the power of the Congress to intervene and repeal the poll tax laws: "George Gordon Battle of North Carolina and Virginia, leading Southern member of the New York Bar; Walton Hamilton of Tennessee, now professor of Constitutional Law in the Yale Law School; Myers McDougal of Mississippi, also of the Yale Law School; Leon Green of Louisiana and Texas, now dean of Northwestern University Law School; Robert K. Wettach and M. T. Van Hecks, dean and former dean of Law School of the University of North Carolina; Lloyd K. Garrison, dean Wisconsin Law School Faculty; Walter Gellorn of Columbia University Law School; and Edwin Borchard, specialist in Public Law and professor in the Yale Law School."102 These Constitutional lawyers, several of whom are from the poll-tax States, have examined the proposals in the poll-tax measure now pending in the Congress and they aver that it is not only constitutional but that Congress has the power to take action.
100 Jennings Perry, "Hillbilly Justice in Tennessee," The New Bepztblic, p. 68, July 19, 1943. 101 Jonathan Daniels, "Dictators and Poll-Taxes," The Nation, p. 213, February 22, 1941.

102

The Case for the Constitutionality of the Pepper Anti-Poll Tax Bill,

pp. 3-4, 1942.

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James T. Morrison, long professor of Constitutional Law in Tulane University, New Orleans, in defending the constitutionality of the action by Congress in repealing the poll tax, states as his ground, "This Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof . . . shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby; anything in constitution or laws of any state, to the contrary notwithstanding.11103 Stemming directly from the famous decree of Chief Justice John Marshall in McCulloch vs. Maryland in 1819, the lawyers hold that a federal function cannot be taxed by the States.'04 It would appear that in so far as the poll tax imposes a tax upon the federal function of voting, the Marshall decision is specifically relevant. More recently in Pitman vs. Home Owners' Loan Corporationl05the State of California imposed a prohibitive tax upon migrants to that State during the depression. Chief Justice Hughes said, in reversing the California court decision, "In this instance Congress has undertaken to safeguard the operation of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation by providing the described immunity. As we have said, we construe this provision as embracing and prohibiting the tax question. Since Congress had the constitutional authority to enact this provision, it is binding upon this court as the supreme law of the land. '106 Thus defenders of repeal of the poll tax by Congress claim that the poll tax is an imposition upon the federal function of voting and the States cannot tax the function. The Constitutional advocates of repeal go to Article IV and Section 4 of the Constitution and allege that the Congress has authority to guarantee a republican form of gov103 James T. Morrison, Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, op. cit., p. 235, July 30, 1942. 104 National Lawyers' Guild Quarterly, loc. cit., p. 107, July, 1940. 105 106

United States Supreme Court Reports 308, pp. 21, 32-33, 1939. United States Supreme Court Reports 308, pp. 21, 32-33, 1939.

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ernment and that the poll tax prohibits this pattern of government. Since the Constitutional provision is in the form of a guaranty, the Congress has power to pass legislation for its protection.107 Under the circumstances, the matter of whether or not a State maintains a republican form of government would seem to fall within Congressional authority to determine. Instances of inquiry into the election of Senators are cited to show that Congress has within comparatively recent years occasionally examined expenditures of campaign funds and other alleged irregularities in the elections of Senators and Representatives. The Newberry decision of the United States Supreme Court contains the following citation from the dissenting opinions of Justices Brandeis, Clarke, and Pitney: "For the election of Senators and Representatives in Congress is a Federal function. Whatever the States do in the matter they do under authority derived from the Constitution."1108 Poll tax repeal by the Congress seems to have sanction both in Constitutional interpretation and in the precedents of actual inquiries which have been conducted by Congress. Finally, the sponsors of repeal by the Congress hold that vested interests and controls in the retention of the poll taxes cannot be successfully attacked or restrained except through Congressional intervention. The examples of Tennessee and Virginia show that the opponents of repeal control power over their limited voting constituencies that can be restrained or induced to support the status quo. Wealth and affiliatedmachines like that of Byrd in Virginia prefer the poll tax restraint because of reasons previously set forth in this study. This type of political machine has for years easily controlled State and local politics in the poll
107 Louis B. Boudin, Virginia Law Beview, Volume XXVIII, pp. 8-9, November, 1941. 108IrvingBrant, Senate Hearings on S. 1280, Part I, op. cit., p. 209.

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tax regions.109 Next to this is the weird interest in white supremacy which is probably the most profound and abused motivating force in Southern history and tradition. Politicians of the Blease, Heflin, Long, Talmadge, Tillman, and Vardaman variety and their legions of imitators have for years used this slogan. It is still potent and can quickly be invoked against any attempt to undermine restrictions on suffrage. Since Congressional action is legitimate, the sponsors of poll tax repeal have staked their hopes in action by that body. The conclusions which may be drawn from this partial examination of the movement to repeal the poll tax are necessarily tentative at present, but they fall into several groups, three of which appear to be reasonably possible. The constitutionality of repeal by the Congress seems obvious, but there are vested inter-sectional and inter-regional exchanges of legislative cooperation and support which will permit a filibuster to sabotage final action in the Senate. Senator Bilbo has expressed confidencethat he will be able While cloture could to hold the floor for eighteen months.110 be invoked, the influences brought to bear induce Senators to absent themselves rather than to risk the possibility of incurring the displeasure of their colleagues who can retaliate in devious ways any action of Senators from other
regions.

The concern about colored people in the movement to repeal the Southern poll tax is a highly moot question which is absent or extremely negligible in the Lower South, but in the Border States and Northern States, this issue portends much in the balance of power where two parties or a third party may function in determining national elections. A study by the Harvard Law Review claims that "it is true
109 Barry Bingham,

"The Poll-Tax"

Pamphlet of the American Council

on Public Affairs and the Southern Conferenceon Human Welfare, pp. 6-7.
110 Editorial, Christian Century, p. 685, July 9, 1943.

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that action which stems from local initiative in the South cannot yet be expected to enfranchise the Negro. But in so far as the poll tax is concerned, this consideration is unimportant, for abolition of the exclusionary device would enfranchise a great number of whites but few if any Negroes."1""The Democratic white primary, invalidated in Smith vs. Allright by the U. S. Supreme Court in April, 1944, would remain and in that Southern States could, with one party, bypass colored people. Mr. Justice Cardozo's opinion in Nixon vs. Condon sanctioned the consideration which enof a political party as a voluntary organization'12 ables the State to escape liability under the Bradley decision of 1883. On the other hand, the migration of large numbers of colored people North has given the balance of power to them in several States. When the Democrats won this in 1932,l13 the Southern domination of the party began to wane and the Two-Thirds-Rule had gradually to go. The actual results of repeal by Congress would probably be resentment against unpopular national legislation for Southern jurisdictions similar to that of Reconstruction and prohibition."14 There is the difference, however, in the powerful support which anti-poll tax is receiving among Southerners. Still, enforcement will be a local problem and until the one-party domination of the South is changed, this study does not reveal that removing the poll tax alone will
The Harvard Law Beview, Volume V, p. 652, February, 1940. Court Beport 286, p. 89, Mr. Justiee Cardozo, United States Suspreme 1932. This decision was invalidated in Smith vs. Allright by the United States Supreme Court in April of 1944. 113 John T. Graves, Zoc.cit., p. 401. See also Beaction in Congress, Spefor cial Section of the New Bepusblic August 2, 1943, pp. 158-161, 162-163, for voting by Senators and Representatives from States like Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and others which have considerable or large numbers of colored voters. This supplement also contains evidenees of the unanimity of the Solid South on all issues which even remotely concern vital interests of that region. 114 The Christian Century,loc. cit., p. 685.
1II 112

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very appreciably solve the southern problems of suffrage. Enfranchisement of millions of poor whites would probably restrain some excesses of reactionary politicians from the South and pave the way for greater party competition there, which alone seems to be the eventual way out. The movement to abolish the poll tax, with the endorsement of the best leadership and thought of the South, is the most forward political step there since the Civil War and as such it represents progress.
WILLIAM M. BREWER

Miner Teachers College