1949

(The poll tax was generally considered by most as a fee paid for the right to vote, its origins dating back as far as the year 1275 when it was levied on the populace in order to fund wars.  But, the term has been most often and primarily associated with the suppression of African Americans’ voting rights in the South and, until 1965 when the voting rights act was passed on the national level, the paying of poll taxes was mandatory.  As can be imagined, until that year, such a bill—anti-poll tax—experienced a great deal of difficulty in getting passed.  This August 6, 1949 BEHIND THE HEADLINES piece written by my father illustrates just one of the hurdles it faced, but also predicts the eventual demise of that hideous encumbrance to one of the freedoms which Americans currently enjoy.)

“It occasioned no great surprise that the House last week, for the fifth time in the past seven years, passed the highly controversial anti-poll tax bill.   And, by the same token, there is not likely to be any lifting of eyebrows when the measure is killed in the Senate by the inevitable filibuster, provided it gets that far before adjournment of the 81st Congress.

What is surprising, however, is the fact that with public opinion so overwhelmingly opposed to the levy, which as a Representative from Arkansas said recently is used to ‘enfranchise the dishonest poor and to disenfranchise the honest poor,’ certain reactionary diehards in the Senate still cling stubbornly to their opposition and plot to bring about its defeat each time it even threatens to come up in that body.

By all the rules of logic, the very fact that the poll tax bill has been approved in the House five different times—each time by substantial majorities--would seem to constitute a mandate to the elected representatives of the people most vitally concerned.  But it simply has not worked out that way.  In addition to last week’s vote of 273 to 116, the measure received House approval in 1942, 1943, 1945 and 1947 but each time met its death in the Senate either without a vote, by a filibuster, or a threat of one.

A rather desultory attack on the filibuster technique was made in the Senate about three years ago but, as was to be expected, ended in dismal failure.  In the spring of 1946 a bloc of big shot Republicans spearheaded by Senator Robert A. Taft, of Ohio, announced that they would seek amendment of Senate rules to make possible the closing of debate so that a vote could be reached on legislation such as the anti-poll tax bill and similar controversial measures.

The Republican steering committee, according to Senator Taft, agreed in closed session that the cloture rule (limitation of debate) should be amended ‘so that the various dilatory methods of preventing its application can be eliminated,’ which was just another way of dressing Mr. Filibuster up in his Sunday best. Senator Leverett Saltonstall, erstwhile governor of Massachusetts, was delegated to draw up a proposal for modifying the rule designed to bring about this parliamentary miracle.

Of course, the gesture was purely political what with the summer and fall congressional and senatorial elections in the offing at that time and, as was to be expected, the move got exactly nowhere.  But even giving the sponsors of the gesture the benefit of the doubt, and as salutary as the overall effects might have been, it nevertheless provided a sad commentary on our vaunted democratic processes that it required a debate on the then proposed $3,750,000,000 loan to Great Britain to provoke this progressive move.

While it may sound a trifle trite, one fact stands out with crystal clearness and will bear repetition again and again: The price tag on the ballot as a pre-requisite to voting in any election—Federal, State, or local—is undemocratic in both theory and practice.  It is a discriminatory political weapon against the poor Negro and the impoverished white alike in the seven Southern states which still cling to this medieval ball and chain.

Moreover, it ‘gives aid and comfort’ to political machines in the purchase of votes, but more importantly, its elimination by law would be entirely constitutional, its bitterest opponents to the contrary notwithstanding.

The New York Times observes: ‘The question of the constitutionality of anti-poll tax legislation has been long and vigorously debated.  Five times the House has emphatically held that it is constitutional.  It is reasonably certain that, if a vote were permitted, a majority of the Senate would take the same view.

“‘A filibuster is surely no argument; in fact it is a negation of argument.  If that minority of Senators who argue that an anti-poll tax law would be unconstitutional are sincere, they will, after voting against it, be content to let the Supreme Court decide the question.  They will not resort to the tactics of a filibuster.’

But by far the most forceful argument for complete abolition of the price tag on the ballot is the fact that its existence permits a comparative handful of voters in any given state to impose their will on the majority which is altogether contrary to the democratic ideology.

And it is on this basis that I believe an awakened America will eventually rise up and doom it forever.”

= Albert L. Hinton