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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 22. Political Practices Today - 2. Southern Techniques for Disfranchising the Negroes
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Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 483
fundamental significance of the poll tax: if poor whites are encouraged to
vote by the removal of the poll tax, they will not be any friendlier to
Negroes, but they may stir up issues and put through legislation that will
have the ultimate effect of helping all poor people, including Negroes.
There is no way of measuring to what extent nonvoting in the South
is caused by the poll tax. But there is hardly any doubt that it does have
such an effect as even a small sum means much to poor people. Many, of
course, abstain from paying the poll tax and from voting because of
political apathy, which is widespread in the South. But there is a circular
causal relationship here of a cumulative and potentially dynamic character.
When poor people abstain from voting because of the poll tax or political
apathy, this tends to keep issues which interest poor people out of politics.
Thereby political apathy and nonpayment of poll tax is enhanced. But if
the masses were encouraged to vote by the abolition of the poll tax and
other changes, the vicious circle could be set working the other way. The
poll tax would then be viewed as one strategic factor in an interrelated
causal system, tied up to political apathy and the one-party system.
The poll tax disfranchises and is subject to political manipulation not
only because it costs the voter a dollar or two, but because it must be paid
by a certain date (which is often long before anyone knows who the candi-
dates will be),*^ because officials often mis-date the receipts to violate the
date provision and pay the tax themselves and because employers force
their employees to pay the tax.^® The significance of the poll tax in keeping
even whites from voting is suggested by the fact that the states without
the tax have a larger proportion of their adult citizens voting than com-
parable states with the tax.
In 1940, Oklahoma, for example, had 60 per cent of its adult citizenry
voting compared to 18 per cent in Arkansas; North Carolina had 43 per
cent compared to 22 per cent in Virginia; and Louisiana, which has been
without the poll tax only since 1934, had 27 per cent compared to 14 per
cent in Mississippi.^’®
Similar to the poll tax, in that they restrict Negroes because they are
poor, are froferty^ educational^ and ^^character^^ requirements for voting.
These, too, are seldom applied to whites but almost always to Negroes,
and the requirements are more rigid in the states of the Deep South than
in the Border states. Also, like the poll tax, these requirements for voting
have been reduced somewhat in recent years, especially in the Upper
South. Property requirements for voting are found in Alabama, Georgia,
and South Carolina and are applicable only if the prospective voter cannot
meet the educational requirements. As such they would seem to serve as a
•
‘‘Payment of the tax must be made from six to ten months in advance of the election
in Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.” (Virginius Dabney, Belovi the Potomac
[1942] p. 120.)
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