Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1911-05-19
HOBBS STARTED THE CRUSADE.

constitutional right to vote by failure
to pay their poll and other tax, as re-
quired by the fundamental law.
The collection of poll taxes was not
made compulsory by the constitution
because it was hoped and believed that
over 100, 900 negroes in the State would
default, thus DISTINGUISHING themselves
and bring tranquility and prosperity
to the Commonwealth. Time has am
ply veriefd this hope. But, and the
admission is a humilating one, hundreds
and thousands of white men have de-
faulted for poll tax, and yet in many
%countie they nave been allowed to par
~ticipate in the Democratic primaries.
This evil has grown year by year until
at the State and Senatorial primary
four years ago it had become so ia
grant and SO %impudent that god men
were startled at such an extraordinary
spectacle and cried out against the IN
iquity.
Chief among these was Hon. B. 1.
Hobbs, the lamented editor OF the
Brookhaven Leader. Mr.. Hobbs was
the ablest newspaper champion OF the
Senatorial aspiration of Nardaman III
Mississippi. He loved his friends. But
he was more devoted to law and orders;
and he never hesitated to stand for the
right as he saw the right, even to his
financial and political hurt. This Will
not be gainsaid by the dead editors
tiercest adversary, now that he sleeps
the sleep of the just in the silent city
of the dead in the beautiful town OF
Brookhaven. Nor is it improper to say
for it is the truth, that B. I. Hobbs Is
mourned by his legion of friends, and
respected by those who differed from
him, from the center to the circumter-
ence of Mississippi.
Last April, under the caption OF
''Whither Are We Drifting? the
Brookhaven Leader sounded the warn
ing against poll tax delinquents voting
in primaries in a most vigorous edlto-
rial. This editorial was reproduced IN
the Clarion-Ledger of April 3Oth, 1910,
and editorially commended. Later IN
a signed communication to this paper
the Hon. j. A. P. Campbell, the seh-
retired Mississippi Gamaliel, full OF
honors-with no enemies to punish save
the enemies of good government-not
only commended the Leader editorial,
but laid the law down in the premises.
Judge SdIlpO01
peared in the Clarion-Ledger of May
4th, 1910. 1t was reproduced by Editor
Hobbs in a later issue of the Brook
haven Leader.
Editor Hobbs evidently had the idea
thai the constitution was made to be
obeyed; that it was the duty of all
good citizens to stand by the sacred
instrument, which had freed Mississippi
from pillage and misrule, and to stand
by all who stand by that sacred instru-
ment. This, regardless of who is or is
not a candidate for United States Sen
ator. A candidate may be only a
primrose by the rivers brim, but the
constitution is 30 plaything. While
stands the constitution, the State shall
sand; when falls the constitution, the
State shall fall. In short, the constitu-
ton is the supreme law of the land.
To nullify it is to invite red-handed
anarchy. So believing, the Brookhaven
Leader, a year ago, cried out against
poll tax delinquents voting in primaries,
and to the Leader, therefore, under
the fearless and conscientious control Of
the lamented Hobbs is entitled the cred
it for leading what has now become
a successful crusade against this viola
ton of the fundamental law of thu
State.
Following is the editorial appearing
in the Brookhaven Leader of last
April:
LAS one native and to the manner
born, who loves Mississippi, the editor
OF the Leader desires to sound a note
of warming. It is a notorious fact that
in many places in the State poll tax
delinuuents are allowed to vote in the
primaries. A poll tax delinquent who
votes in any primary subjects himself
to the same pains and penalties as if
he voted in the general election. The
violation of this law will forever mai
the perfume of the primary election law,
dear to the bone and sinew of Missis-
sippi.
"Ten years g it was published
from the official record that there
were $4,000 poll tax delinquents in Mis-
sIssippi. This was just ten years after
the adoption of the constitution of 1890.
If the same ratio of delinquents has
kept up for the past ten years, the
white poll tax ~delinquents of Missis-
sippi aggregate $4,000. To allow such
delinquents to vote in primaries, the
real elections in Mississippi, aside from
the violation of the law, is unjust and
unfair to those citizens of the State
who pay their poll taxes. In short, the
way things are drifting, the State 10
in danger of being governed by the nom
taxed, or at least through the votes at
the primaries of those who fail and re-
fuse to pay their poll taxes. The peo-
pie are patient and long suffering; but
endurance has its bounds. Those Dem
ocrats of Mississippi who pay their
taxes are justly %resentful of the fact