Evening star., 1949-10-11
Editorial Urging Poll Tax Repeal
Scored By Virginia Readers


Scored By Virginia Readers
To the Editor of The Star:
Your recent editorial on the proposals for
abolishing Virginia's poll tax does not fairly
present, feel, the dilemma which we who
actually make up our minds about the mea-
sure and cast our votes for" or against
actually ace.
You do not go deeply enough into the 1@O-
day deadline for the closing OF registration.
for one thing. You say this is necessary to
allow time to prepare and distribute lists OF
voters" The new proposals also state that
such lists must be prepared and posted 80
days befort the primary and the general
elections Ninety from 120 leaves 80 days for
preparing such lists exactly the same
amount of time registration officers now have
for preparing such lists. Why, then, go TO
all this trouble to close books for registration
four months ahead of an election when no
campaigns and no candidates are IN 1ull
swing to stimulate the desire to register?
This is one of the suspicious aspects OF the
amendments that makes even the most
ardent advocate of poll tax repeal eye them
doubtfully.
Also, this 120-day deadline will be written
into the Constitution for the first time, so it
would take another Constitutional Amend
ment to amend this provision If experience
shows it does cut down on registration. This
doesn't assure" with your contention that
the commission which drafted the amend
ments tried to draft a proposal. which, u
adopted would not have to be changed
through another constitutional amendment.
I'd rather wait three or four years for
simple poll tax repeater than to take
chance on this one which, as one Of the can
didates for Governor expressed it. has so
many bear traps in 1t. c. E. P.
To the Editor Of The Star:
I regret your editorial in The Star for
October in favor of the Campbell amend
ments to the Virginia constitution. Please
consider the following points:
Cd The amendment would not abolish the
poll tax-it would double it. (The dictionary
defines poll tax as "a tax on the person.
as distinguished from that on property
The requirement that no license could be
issued without paying the poll tax would
mean that even the poorest people would
still have to pay it-for even poor people
have dogs and get married.
ca The poll tax as requirement for vot-
ing is now so unpopular that it is on its
way out anyway-by Federal action, II not
by State action. This amendment is merely
trick to get the voters to saddle themselves
with other onerous restrictions on voting.
which would be hard to get rid of.
go One of the basic purposes OF con-
stitution is to set forth few civil and po-
litical rights Every constitution should tell
who can vote under it. This amendment,
however, would authorize the Legislature to
set practically any requirements for voting
that it sees At. It could, for example, say
that every voter must PROSTATE himself in
the direction of Winchester each morning
and shout Long Live King Harry"
(4There would be annual registration of
voters, four months ahead of election. This
would cut down the number of voters more
than the present requirements. They talk
about renewing registration by casting vote,
but they carefully refrained from putting
that into the amendment; it is up to the
discretion of the General Assembly.
60 1t is said that the voters should
trust the General Assembly to adopt reason
able laws that would encourage voting. The
General Assembly has proven that it cannot
be trusted-if it could. it would never have
submitted to the voters this monstrosity.
Actually the machine in Virginia knows that
it is on the run: at the last election, it got
we'll under half of the votes; and it has
adopted this trick to get the power to
prevent its opponents from voting.
(6) When they wanted to let the soldiers
vote without paying poll tax, they found
they could amend the constitution in four
months-it doesn't have to take four years.
Every forward-looking Virginian should
vote mo" on the constitutional amendment.
and then demand that the General Assembly
call convention to revise the constitution.
H. HERBERT HOWE.
Editors Note-The poll tax to which
Mr.. Howe refers in paragraph % is
school tax. 1t would not have to be paid
in order to vote.)