New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-07-28
The Solid ia
4 Warning 10 Republicans of VIA.

the South Means on Election Dav
To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: Your space is far too valuable
for any one to expect you to print
mere harpings upon any subject, but
venture to believe that the question
of the votes in the Southern states Is
one with which your younger readers,
at all events, ought to be made famil-
lar. For this Presidential election NAV
we'll be decided-in fact, probably will
be-by very much smaller electoral
vote than the 102 from the nine states
in question-that is, the states from
Virginia to Arkansas, North Carolina
alone excepted.
AS every state has at least one Rep
resentative, and as each state has two
Senators, and as each state has as
many Presidential electors as it has
Representatives and Senators, so small
state as Delaware has three electors,
for example, while New York has
forty-fve.
In the election of 1916 not quito
100000 votes were cast in the nine
Democratic states Virginia, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, ALABAMA,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Ar
kansas-which votes elected 102 elect
ors, or at the average ratio Of $4,000
votes for each elector.
Now. the apportionment by populs-
ton for the election of Representatives
in 1916 was 211, 877, and in states in
which woman suffrage did not prevail,
and in which normal honest elections
were held, the total vote for Con-
gressmen was between $4,000 and 40,-
600. Delaware, whose population did
not entitle it to more than one Con-
gresham, cast just under $4,000 votes
for Presidential electors, and that was
st the rate of one voter for each four
persons in its population.
Not single one of the Democrats
states in question had vote better
than one in ten. In New York it was
one in five and a trihe over, but II
must be remembered that we have an
enormous alien population. In Texas
one person in eighteen voted, in Missis-
sippi one in twenty, in Virginia one in
thirteen, and so on.
| am not writing this in any par
tisan spirit. | wish younger Tribune
readers to be fully aware Of what the
Republicans must meet in this election
for President.
The outcome of the campaign is for
US no certainty, and with the Demo-
cratic party owning 102 electoral votes
Ola with those of North Carolina, al
equally sure thing) before a ballot Is
even cast, it will be well for the re-
publican workers to realize the disao-
vantage they labor under
Let our young workers bear in niina
that 102 electoral votes were in 1910
elected by states which cast 5OV'VV'
fewer votes than were cast in Ne"
York State, where but forty-fve elecl-
ors were chosen. Let them remember
that in no single election district III
this state has the vote ever been on
a par with the votes in any one Oh
the nine Democratic states where III
the best of the returns, never moro
than one in ten Of the population -
shown to have voted. And let II %
remembered further that in national
election it is impossible for sucs .
condition OF things to exist as is fouh'
in those states through the mere
within and fancy OF the abstaining
voters. Men and women travel niles
in New York to vote; they do so every
where, except where they are not ~
lowed to vote.
AN OLD TRIBUNE READER
New York, July 81, 1920. X