Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1941

WHO IS FIT TO VOTE IN A DEMOCRACY?

George C. Stoney
T HIS IS A DISTURBING QUESTION. It implies a kind
of reasoning about the relation of citizens to their government that is completely foreign to the more commonly accepted
idea of democracy as we know it in America. It implies that
voting is a privilege conferred upon those classified as fit citizens,
a privilege the exercise of which makes them governors of the
unfit citizens. Where that line of reasoning and of practice can
lead to is plain to see.
In eight Southern states the poll tax is effectively blocking off
two thirds of the citizens from this privilege of voting, and is, in
effect, classing them as unfit citizens, to be governed by the other
one third. In at least four other Southern states most Negroes
are denied the right of the ballot. In almost every state of the
Union purposefully shaped registration and residence laws make
it difficult for many people to exercise their right to self-government. And there is a threat that such restrictions will be increased.
In the last presidential election while 71 percent of the adult
citizens were casting ballots in the rest of the country, in these
eight poll-tax states about 19 percent voted. Actually, the number
of men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five who were
registered for the draft in these eight states was larger than the
total voting population, including both men and women from
twenty-one up.
Alabama has the most vicious poll tax of all. Alabama's poll
tax is $1.50 a year. You can pay this only between November
and February. If you do not pay the $1.50, next year it will cost
you $3.00 to "get in shape to vote," as they put it. So it goes up,
until a voter may be required to pay as much as $36.00 for his