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1326 An American Dilemma
County, which had three Negro committeemen in 1940, representing three separate
communities.) See Bunche, “The Political Status of the Negro,” Vol. 5, p. 1066.
Lewinson, op. «/., pp. 107 ff; Bunche, “The Political Status of the Negro,” Vol.
4. Bunche quotes a number of these statements from his interviews, including some by
Southern senators. They represent one of the traditional stereotypes. Stone says:
“The Negro masses in fact do not have to be excluded. They will disfranchise
themselves if left to their own devices.” (A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race
Problem [1908], p. 374.)
Occasionally a Negro author will agree to the white rationalization. Bertram W,
Doyle writes:
“. . . the Negro masses are, in general, not interested. The situation serves as tfn
illustration to draw the distinction between the controls established by laws and formal
regulation and those fixed in custom and habit. The Negro masses look on the white
man as chosen to rule and on the ballot as a means to that end. They feel out of place
participating in such. They accept their status as nonvoters and expect to be guided
thereby. They would much prefer that “quality” white people govern them; but, even
in other instances, they exhibit a lack of interest. From this standpoint the battle for
and against Negro suffrage, on principle, or on a platform of the enforcement of the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the Constitution, is hampered by the under-
lying sentiments and habits of the Negroes themselves. Voting and participation in
governmental affairs seem not to be in the mores of the Negro group.” (The Etiquette
of Race Relations in the South [1937], pp. 13 9- 140.)
Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deef South (1941),
p. 487.
For general traits of nonvoters, see Charles E. Merriam and Harold F. Gossnell,
Non-Voting (1924), and Herbert Tingsten, Political Behavior (1937).
The political boss of a large city in the Deep South, who openly conceded to the
author that he bought votes, gave a sort of democratic motivation for vote-buying which
might be recorded because of the light it throws on the psychology of corrupt politics.
“Why,” he said, “shouldn’t the poor devil, who doesn’t own more than his shirt, have
the right to expect a couple of dollars for his vote, when the big shots get so much
more out of politics. ... If you were a local business man,” he continued, “wouldn’t
you expect favors from me, if you helped me into office? Well, what about the common
citizen? Should he be entirely forgotten in this big game?”
In Detroit in 1940, for example, Negroes constituted 9.2 per cent of the total
population but ii.o per cent of the population 21 years of age and over.
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelfhia Negro (1899), p. 373.
There are many forms of gerrymandering: in addition to cutting up a minority
group, it may also take the form of concentrating a group in one election district wh^n
that group could control several districts if otherwise distributed. Since the modification
of the boundaries of an election district always affects the influence of the vote in that
district, the only test for the presence of gerrymandering is to equate the total votes
of all groups over several election districts with the total influence of these groups in
electing candidates.
Gerrymandering is possible because Negroes are segregated in certain areas of the city
and because the multi-district system is used instead of proportional representation or
other systems without districts. If Negroes were distributed throughout a city or if a
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