Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1903-12-10
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1908.
TROUBLED AND ASTONISHEO.


amused at the frantic manner in which
our Democratic contemporaries, the daily
papers of Richmond, Norfolk, Lynchburg
and Roanoke, have been appealing to the
white voters of those cities to pay their
poll tax so they will be qualified to vote at
the municipal elections to be held in those
places next year. The voters have shown
great reluctance in responding to these APP
peals; and it looks like not more than
one half of the registered vote will pay the
tax in time to qualify them for voting at
tie approaching elections. Many of the
voters will never pay their poll taxes. Our
Democratic contemporaries are not only
alarmed but express much establishment
at the indifference shown by white men to
preserve their right to vote by paying the
price which the new Constitution places on
suffrage. We noticed a few days ago that
Mr.. Allen Caperton Brsxton, who was
prominent leader in the late Constitutional
Convention, had expressed great surprise
at the slowness with which voters IN Vir-
GINA were paying their poll taxes, and
their seeming indifference to preserving
their right of suffrage.
If our Democratic contemporaries and
Mr.. Braxtou will only stop and think,
Their astonishment at existing conditions
will be quickly removed. The situation as
to the suffrage in Virginia is rapidly be-
coming what the trainers of the new suf'
frage law intended it should be. The main
purpose for calling q convention and franz
ing a new Constitution was to so restrict
suffrage and reduce the electorate as to
make the control of Democratic machine
in this State perpetual. We know the Dem
ocratic leaders and newspapers have dis
puted and will dispute The statement, but
the very nature of the suffrage law dis.
closes the truth as We have stated it. The
declaration was made by the party,
through its leaders and organs, that white
men were not to be disfranchised ; and
they pleaded the understanding clause"
as an enabling act or medium by which
all white men in the Commonwealth could
and would secure permanently to them
selves the right to vote. The deception,
that the. new suffrage clauses were devised
for the sole purpose of eliminating the ne
gro voc, was used almost universally by
the Democracy. Some may have believed
it st the time and some may still have
faith, even after seeing and knowing what
has come. But how an honest, intelligent
man, who studied the understanding
cause" and the clauses making the pay
ment of poll tax prerequisite to voting,
could he misled as to the purpose of the
law and the results that would follow is in
c)mprehentible. The men who we're shrewd
enough to suggest the understanding
clause" were sufficiently familiar with hu
man nature to know that the clause would
repel a large number of sensitive, proud
men OF intelligence who would be unable
to register as soldiers or property holders
and who would be unwilling to confess, in
a measure, that they were paupers. They
also knew that it would frighten from at
tempted registration great many timid
illiterate men, who would fear that they
would expose their ignorance and yet fail
of registration. No doubt a careful COM
pulalion was made by the advocates of
restricted electorate as to the results that
would come on these lines Aud sure
enough they have not been mistaken. If
the statistics could be supplied, no doubt,
it would be found that one third of the
white men of voting age in the State have
not registered. A JOINT resolution was re-
Gently introduced In the General Assembly
to require the Auditor of Public Accounts
to ascertain from each and every county
and city in the State the plumber of white
men who were registered voters under the
old suffrage laws and the number who
have been registered under the new. The
resolution was promptly killed, as the Vir-
ginia Democracy could not afford to have
such facts brought before the public.
The architects Of the new suffrage laws
knew pretty we'll what the understanding
clause" would do in the way of wipiDg out
the negro vote and in reducing the white
electorate. But they were not willing to
rest there. The poll tax qualification was
added. If only few negroes could posi-
bly, register under the understanding
clause there could be no necessity for max.
ing the prepayment of poll tax a qualifi
cation so as to them to prevent recurrence
of the pretended danger of negro domino
ton. 1t is perfectly evident that the poll
tax qualification was intended to affect
only the white electorate. And how could
: ~ "a o-oo~.t - ...ot1.s.lf.. ~oI..o.