Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1908-03-26
THURSDAY, MARCH &c, 1908.
PREPAYMENT OF POLL TAXES

CONSTITUTION requiring JnaC pou taxes
shall be paid six months prior to an
election as a prerequisite to voting, the
Democrats denied that the object of the
provision was to obstruct or curtail an
Otherwise qualified electorate. 1t was
claimed to be a benevolent measure, in
that the revenue derived from poll taxes
was to be devoted to the public free
schools. Republicans knew that this
claim was false, and so declared at the
time. 1t was well known that large
proportion of the white Republicans of
the State belonged to the poorer and
working classes. And it was thought
by those who devised the wicked scheme
that thousands of Republican votes
would be destroyed by this the most
devilish pitfall that has ever been plac-
ed between honest freemen and their
ark of safety-the ballot box.
In this poll tax matter the wicked
fowlers have been caught in their own
nets; and the people of Virginia have
witnessed another wonderful instance
of retributive justice. While thou
sands of Republicans have been dis
franchised by the poll tax qualification
for voting it has proved a constant
plague and fruitful source of discord to
the Democracy, its authors, ever since
1t was placed in practical operation.
The Democrats had expected at the
first election TO be held after the poll
tax qualification went in force to cap
ture the Ninth District from the Re-
publicans. But when the election roll
ed around it was found that the Repub-
lican candidate for Congress had re-
ceived about four thousand more votes
than the Democratic candidate This
was disappointment number one to the
Democrats, and they began seriously to
doubt the wisdom of the poll tax quail
fcation trick.
The second blow the Democrats got
from the club they had shaped to kill
Republican votes was the discovery
that it was putting to sleep many thou
sands of former Democratic voters in
the Eastern part of the State and was
reducing the Democratic electorate to
ridiculous proportions.
The third, and most alarming, shock
came when the Democrats realized that
they had bred a poisonous serpent which
was singing their own party to death
by injecting all manner of frauds into
their primary elections. Then they be-
gan to cry aloud to the courts to draw
the fangs of the serpent. The provis-
ion in the Constitution creating the poll
tax qualification for voting is as fol-
lows:
That he, unless exempted by sec
ton Twenty-Five, shall, as a prerequi-
site to the right to vote after the first
day of January, nineteen hundred and
four, personally pay, at least six months
prior to the election, all State poll taxes
assessable against him under this Con-
stitution.
The corrupt Democratic politicians in
certain of the eastern cities and coun-
ties of the State had discovered various
methods by which they could evade the
requirement for the voter to person
ally pay" his poll taxes. These meth
DDS were used largely at Norfolk in
Democratic primaries, and case was
made from that city for the courts,
which ultimately reached the Court of
Appeals. That court recently decided
the case.
The contention was that the words
personally pay" mean that the voter
must in physical person pay his poll taxes
to the treasurer. The decision of the
Court of Appeals has been a disappoint-
ment to those who wanted that con-
struction given to the two words. 1t
decides that poll taxes must be person
ally paid or in person, still leaving with
the county and city treasurers the right
to determine what is personal pay
ment.
Now the Democrats are clamoring
for more rigid and certain rule to be
laid down by the Court of Appeals, and
are insisting that the court shall declare
that poll taxes shall be paid in physical
person by the voter. To reach such a