ctical elimination of the Negro from
politics this section would become wider in its outlook and divide on
national issues. Such has not proved to be the case. Except for the
noteworthy deflection of Tennessee in the presidential election of 1920,
and Republican gains in some counties in other states, this section
remains just as "solid" as it was forty years ago, largely of course
because the Negro, through education and the acquisition of property, is
becoming more and more a potential factor in politics. Meanwhile it is
to be observed that the Negro is not wholly without a vote, even in the
South, and sometimes his power is used with telling effect, as in the
city of Atlanta in the spring of 1919, when he decided in the negative
the question of a bond issue. In the North moreover--especially in
Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York--he
has on more than one occasion proved the deciding factor in political
affairs. Even when not voting, however, he involuntarily wields
tremendous influence on the destinies of the nation, for even though men
may be disfranchised, all are nevertheless counted in the allotment of
congressmen to Southern states. This anomalous situation means that in
actual practice the vote of one white man in the South is four or six
or even eight times as strong as that of a man in the North;[1] and it
directly accounted for the victory of President Wilson and the Democrats
over the Republicans led by Charles E. Hughes in 1916. For remedying
it by the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment bills have been
frequently presented in Congress, but on these no action has been taken.

[Footnote 1: In 1914 Kansas and Mississippi each elected eight members
of the House of Representatives, but Kansas cast 483,683 votes for
her members, while Mississippi cast only 37,185 for hers, less than
one-twelfth as many.]

2. _Economic Life: Peonage_

Within fifteen years after the close of the war it was clear that the
Emancipation Proclamation was a blessing to the poor white man of the
South as well as to the Negro. The break-up of the great plantation
system was ultimately to prove good for all men whose slender means had
given them little chance before the war. At the same time came also the
development of cotton-mills throughout the South, in which as early as
1880 not less than 16,000 white people were employed. With the decay of
the old system the average acreage of holdings in the Sou