The Twin City star. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1910-19??, 1915-07-03

Amendment Are Illegal Says Chief
Justice White.
Washington. CHIEF Justice White in
handing down an opinion for the Unit
ed States supreme court on Monday.
June 21, dealt a deathblow to the
grandfather clause" which is effec-
tive in number OF southern states in
disfranchising the colored citizens.
The court sustained in its opinion In
the Oklahoma and Maryland cases the
fifteenth amendment, prohibiting dis
elimination against colored people, and
the Oklahoma and Maryland laws bar
ring them from the polls because their
ancestors could not vote prior to Jan. j,
1885, were Declared void by the de-
cisi0n. |S'..r. ,--s. .-~
The Oklahoma law was modelled aft
er the North Carolina and Mississippi
laws which disfranchise many. thou
sands Of colored men who are entitled
to the elective franchise. 81. ..
The opinion Of Chief Justice White
declares that state laws basing the
right Of persons to vote on the right of
their ancestors to vote before the if
teenth amendment was passed are ille-
gal, unconstitutional and imperative
The court held that states may pre-
scribe literacy and property quaiiica-
tion tests for voters, but they must not
be used as subterfuge, as in Okla
homa and Maryland, to prevent the Ne
gro from voting. .s....--..
Frank ]. Quinn and j. ]. Beal, Okla
homa election officers, were convicted
Of preventing Negroes from voting in
the 1910 congressional election and
sentenced to imprisonment for a year
and to pay a fine Of $780, They ap-
pealed to the appellate court at st.
Louis, which passed the case along to
the supreme court of the United States
without trying 1t. The constitution of
Oklahoma upon which that territory
was admitted to the Union as state,
gave something very like manhood suf-
frage. But prior to the elections of
1910 an amendment was adopted se-
verely restricting the franchise.
The amendment reads in part as fol-
lows: - IL. -"
mo person shall be registered as an
elector Of this state or be allowed to
vote In any election herein Unless he
be able to read and write any section
OF the constitution Of the state of
Oklahoma; but no person who was on
Jan. I, 1865, or at any time prior there
to, entitled to vote under any form Of
government, or who at that time resid-
ed In some foreign nation, and no lin
cal descendant of such person, shall be
denied the right to register and vote
because of his inability to SO read and
write sections of such constitution"
The government insisted that the
real question involved is the repug-
nancy Of the standard which the
amendment makes, based upon the
conditions existing on Jan. 1, 1866, be-
cause on its face and Inherently con
sidering the substance Of things that
standard is a mere denial Of the re-
strictions imposed by the prohibitions
Of the Fifteenth amendment and by
necessary result recreates and perpetu.
.tates the very conditions which the
amendment was intended to destroy"
Chief Justice White says:
'There seems no escape from the con-
clusion that to hold that there was
even possibility for dispute on the sub
ject would be but to declare that the
Fifteenth amendment not only had not
the self executing power which 1t has
been recognized to have from the be-
ginning, but that its provisions were
wholly imperative because susceptible
Of being rendered inapplicable by mere
forms Of expression embodying no ex.
ercise Of judgment and resting upon no
discernible reason other than the pur-
pose TO disregard the prohibitions of
the amendment by creating standard
or voting which on its face was In sub.
stance but q rehabilitation of the eondi-
tions which, when they prevailed in the
past, had been destroyed by the self
operative force Of the amendment.
I've are unable to discover how. un-
less the prohibition Of the Fifteenth
amendment were considered. the slight.
est reason was afforded for basing the
classification upon period Of time
prior to the Fifteenth amendment Ger
tainly4t eannot be said that there was
any peculiar necromancy in the time