The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-16
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

of the country for purposes of appor- tioning representation in Congress.
 So you see, it's a right expensive thing to find out the number of con gressmen we are entitled to under the system in vogue; but the s2o, ooo 900 spent to settle the question is but chicken feed to what they cost us after they become our representatives 1 Once the census bureau completes it's count of the population of the country it announces the results to Congress That body then takes the figures and from them determines who shall consti- tute the House of Representatives in ! Congress during the ensuing decade, It has the constitutional right either to increase the number of representa- tives, or to increase the number of peo- pie to be represented by the average member of the body
 | The game under the playing of the politicians has become fine art in dis tricting. The aim, however, is usually to strike such an apportionment so that no state loses representative by the | procedure. Of course. the question of reducing the number of southern mem bers is held as a club over their heads whenever the south gets too much in 1 the saddle, or in some way thwarts the republicans.
 Under the apportionment of the thir- teenth census the House consists of 4s5 members, one member to each 211 SIT of population. It was this that made d representative. The Senate usually allows the House to determine the mat ters involved and then agrees to the House apportionment measure. All of this seems mighty simple and straight forward, but wait a minute
 lsAfter Congress has passed the ap- lportionment bill, providing the number lof representatives from each state, it devolves upon the legislatures of the states to divide them into districts and to provide for the election of the requisite number of representatives. Here is where the "jockeying" begins, for it's usual for party politics to con trol in the matter. It's but human for the party in control of a legislature to lay off the congressional districts so that their own candidates shall have the advantage
 The things l am setting down here are but the B c of the political game, and I only give them in order that the average man who does not bother his politicians Qike the man who lets his wife attend to the religion of the fam .ily), may get glimpse of the way in which the machine works when manip- ulated by the republican and democrat ic bosses.
 l daresay that only the professional IpSliticians in Alabama can give any idea whatever of all ,of the redistrict-
 
 since the Civil war, and what changes have been made are but small in com parison in doubtful territory like Ohio or New York. In manipulating the po- litical chess board we have all~learned to know about shoe string" districts. It was Elbridge Gerry who first prac- ticed what has been known since as "gerrymandering."
 For the novitiates in the political game will state that the word last used in the above paragraph is now a good one and can be found in the repu- table dictionaries. Here is definition from the Century: ITO district, as a state. by the unfair arrangement called gerrymander; arrange arbitrarily and unfairly, as the boundaries of political divisions for the sake of partisan ad- vantage in elections Now, you have it's meaning in a nutshell, but unless you know the tricks which have been pulled off in its name you haven't really got the faintest idea of what an elastic word it is when stretched by loyal party men.
 l The word, "gerrymander" was first used in Massachusetts in 1872 The state legislature, in which republicans had majority had passed a bill in 1911 rearranging the senatorial dis tricts of the state so as to give the re- publicans great advantage. and this bill was signed by Elbridge Gerry, one of the signers of the Declaration of h. dependence, who, however, was not re- sponsible for 1t, and did not wholly ap- prove of it. Is it not strange that . man who was in the continental Con- gress, member of the federal constitu- tional convention, governor of Massa- chusetts, and a vice president of the Limited States. lives today remembered in every political contest because his name is used both as {. verb and . noun?
 n It is not only state legislatures which play politics when a reapportionment bill comes up for consideration. For Congress is not above it, for if a polit- heal wave has swept the party then in power in the House out of power in the Legislatures, it holds up the apportion- lment bill in the hope that its fortunes may. again be in the ascendant in the legislatures of the states where the