education and property as prerequisites for
voting. He feels that, because he is a white man, regardless of his
possessions, a way will be found for him to vote. I would label all
such measures, "Laws to keep the poor white man in ignorance and
poverty."

As the Talladega _News Reporter_, a Democratic newspaper of Alabama,
recently said: "But it is a weak cry when the white man asks odds on
intelligence over the Negro. When nature has already so handicapped
the African in the race for knowledge, the cry of the boasted
Anglo-Saxon for still further odds seems babyish. What wonder that the
world looks on in surprise, if not disgust. It cannot help but say, if
our contention be true that the Negro is an inferior race, that the
odds ought to be on the other side, if any are to be given. And why
not? No, the thing to do--the only thing that will stand the test of
time--is to do right, exactly right, let come what will. And that
right thing, as it seems to me, is to place a fair educational
qualification before every citizen,--one that is self-testing, and not
dependent on the wishes of weak men, letting all who pass the test
stand in the proud ranks of American voters, whose votes shall be
counted as cast, and whose sovereign will shall be maintained as law
by all the powers that be. Nothing short of this will do. Every
exemption, on whatsoever ground, is an outrage that can only rob some
legitimate voter of his rights."

Such laws as have been made--as an example, in Mississippi--with the
"understanding" clause hold out a temptation for the election officer
to perjure and degrade himself by too often deciding that the ignorant
white man does understand the Constitution when it is read to him and
that the ignorant black man does not. By such a law the State not only
commits a wrong against its black citizens; it injures the morals of
its white citizens by conferring such a power upon any white man who
may happen to be a judge of elections.

Such laws are hurtful, again, because they keep alive in the heart of
the black man the feeling that the white man means to oppress him. The
only safe way out is to set a high standard as a test of citizenship,
and require blacks and whites alike to come up to it. When this is
done, both will have a higher respect for the election laws and those
who make them. I do not believe that, with his centuries of advantage
over the Negro in the opportunity to acquire property and education as