Deep in the Heart of Dixie

Today, in the midst of our titanic struggle to preserve such hard won rights as the right to vote, we look on while millions of Americans are denied this privilege. Eight Southern States require the payment of a poll tax before a vote can be cast, which is the same thing as withholding the right from millions of poor farmers and workers who can't afford such a levy no matter how small the amount may seem to outsiders. It is not part of democracy that people should be billed for their votes. The free, unrestricted use of that privilege is not only guaranteed by the Consitution, but supposedly has been taken for granted in advanced democractic states.

Yet here in America, the country that symbolizes democracy throughout the world, still one-sixth of the States persist in charging their electorate for the minimum right of choosing public servants, and as a result turn two-thirds of their citizens away from the polling booths. This is not just a matter of democracy spending a long time to take root. Democracy has been brazenly and defiantly legislated out of existence.

In each of the eight Southern States sanctioning the poll tax, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, a small, self-perpetuating group or class holds political control, nominating their candidates for public office while the other two-thirds of the voters have no say in the matter. This minority has entrenched itself in power in each of these States and will go to almost any extreme to maintain the status quo--their present jobs and their unchallenged political supremacy. To have the poor farmer and laborer get the vote would be to sign away their power and prestige. New men, in most cases, would most likely be elected--men who would try to help the submarginal farmer, the tenants, and unorganized labor.

This is the sort of thing the vested interests fear. They're frightened to give the people the vote, not because they really think anarchy would spread throughout the South, but because they want to hold their plush seats as long as possible. It is noteworthy that all the arguments of this determined group are couched in fear of what would happen to the South were the vote extended. But nothing revolutionary has happened in Florida, Louisiana, or North Carolina, three States that have abolished their tax--nothing except an extension of democracy. North Carolina's effective vote went up 70 per cent, Louisiana's 90 per cent, and Florida's 140 per cent.

These are times, unquestionably, when we must stand together so far as possible, but to stand silent beside those who dislike our system of democratic government, or who are crippling it because of their selfishness, is not only shortsighted, but dangerous. It is still not a choice between winning the war or maintaining our democracy. We can do both. We can pass the anti-poll tax bill in Congress and not be any further from victory. We'll be nearer the double victory that America needs.