Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1907-09-19
WHAT is YOUR VOTE WORTH ?"
What is your vote WORTH


up the momentary profit you CLEANED
and say you sold your vote for that
amount.
1t Is more than possible you have sold
your city for the puerile sum.
1t is quite likely that, in ways too
complicated for you to puzzle out, your
business will lose more as the result of
the election than your miserable gains
amounted to.
If you stay away from the polls for
pleasure, just be honest with Yourself
and admit: Il have imperiled and per
haps sacrificed the good government of
a great city and the welfare of thou
sands for one more round of the links.
or for few more highballs, or few
more dances last night that made me
late today, because l sold my privilege
of voting in exchange for some of those
things"
Inspiring. thought, isn't it?-Louis-
vile Herald.
Certainly 1t is thought we'll worth
taking to heart by every man who
recognizes that there is such thing as
civic and patriotic obligation resting
upon the citizens of the United States.
Our contemporary presents its view
with rare precision and force; and we
imagine that no one who is an habitual
non-voter can contemplate the idea thus
suggested without experiencing keen
sense of self-reproach. Itseems a hard
thing to say that in an indirect sense
the qualified suffragist who permits
selfish considerations to keep him from
the polls, barters his vote for the price
involved-for the money he would lose
as result of giving up brief period
of the day to cast his ballot-for the
pleasure or comfort that would be sacri-
feed, or for the qualification of an in
dolent disposition, as the case may be
and it may be going a bit too far per-
haps to put the case exactly in that
way. But it is nevertheless we'll to
have such man analyze the cold logic
of the Herald's proposition and catch
the real significance of the attitude and
the inevitable consequence invited by
himself and hundreds of thousands of
non-voters in this country when they
abstain from exercising one of the most
important and responsible attributes of
good citizenship. -Lynchburg News.
What idle, what senseless talk is this
from papers in States where such dis
honest suffrage and election laws are
in existence. When the Kentucky
Democrats wanted to keep their State
out of the hands of the Republicans,
they sent to Virginia and modelled theil
election laws from those that had beer
made and used by the Virginia Demo.
Gratis for the same purpose here. The
result has been that many of the best
citizens of Kentucky have become dis
gusted with elections that are controlled
by frauds, and have lost all respect fol
suffrage right that is placed at the
mercy of band of ballot thieves. They
naturally ask: What is a vote worth
that Is given under such regulation.
and such conditions?"
If it is foolish for a Kentucky paper
to make cutlery against an Indifferent
electorate in that State, how much more
so is it for Democratic newspaper II
Virginia to lecture the citizens of this
State upon their neglect to perform e
a great civic duty by voting at elections
that are controlled by partisans anc
under laws that were made to keer
men from the polls, rather than encour.
age them to vote. The Virginia Demo-
Gratis have disfranchised about one-half
of the white men in the State by vicious
registration laws and by that devilish
pitfall, the poll tax qualification for
voting. 1t is not only absurd but cruel
to urge men to perform a civic duty
when they have been robbed of all op-
portunity to do it.
In response to the question: "What
is your vote WORTH" this great host of
disfranchised citizens can truly answer,
Nothing" Those who are quail
fled to vote in Virginia can answer
the same question by saying, lone
dollar and fifty cents" for that is the
price you Democrats have put upon a
vote.
Is it any wonder that the voters of
Virginia do not consider the exercise of
suffrage a civic duty, when that suffrage
has been degraded and disgraced?