The Possibility of Democracy (1928)

This article was originally prepared for the Stock-Taking and Fact-Finding Conference which met in Durham, North Carolina, in December, 1927. With some additions and revisions it was delivered again before the opening meeting of the 19th Annual N.A.A.C.P. Conference at Los Angeles in June, 1928. It appears in print for the first time and will be published in two parts.

In the presidential campaign just beginning one question transcends all others. This question which transcends, in its importance and immediacy, the questions of farm relief, flood control, national control of superpower, liquor and the tariff, is the question as to how far the policies of this government are going to be controlled by the vote of its citizens.

In other words, we cannot take up the various pressing questions confronting us until we settle this matter of ultimate democratic control. Despite tradition and assumption, this question is not settled. The proportion of actual voters among the voting population of the United States is between twenty-five and thirty-three per cent out of sixty million citizens twenty-one years of age and over.

The loss of interest in voting or the prevention by various means and methods of allowing citizens to exercise the right to vote, is a national phenomenon. Nowhere in the United States is there a voting population of seventy per cent of those qualified as in Eastern Canada, or seventy to eighty per cent as in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Switzerland. We do not even reach the sixty-four per cent of Italy and South America and, of course, the eighty or ninety per cent of Australia is apparently beyond our dreams.

Or to put it another way; in 1920 we had both a presidential election and a decennial census; so that for the first time in twenty years we knew the population at the time of an election. In that election, the following percentage of citizens twenty-one years of age and over did not vote in the several states:

	Per Cent		Per Cent
South Carolina	92	Wyoming	45
Mississippi	91	Nebraska	45
Georgia	90	Michigan	45
Louisiana	88	South Dakota	44
Texas	82	New York	44
Virginia	81	Colorado	43
Arkansas	79	Kansas	43
Alabama	79	Connecticut	43
Florida	72	Rhode Island	42
Tennessee	65	New Jersey	41
Pennsylvania	58	West Virginia	39
North Carolina	56	Idaho	39
Vermont	55	Montana	39
Maine	55	New Mexico	38
Arizona	53	Nevada	38
California	52	Ohio	38
Oklahoma	51	Iowa	35
Illinois	50	New Hampshire	33
Minnesota	50	Missouri	33
Maryland	48	Utah	30
Washington	48	North Dakota	30
Wisconsin	48	Kentucky	29
Oregon	48	Indiana	26
Massachusetts	47	Delaware	25

The largest percentage of voluntary and involuntary disfranchisement is in South; but it is not confined to the South. Over one-half the adults of Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maine and California stayed from the poles and nearly one-half the voting population of Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin, Oregon, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Nebraska and Michigan. In only one state in the United States did three-fourths of the voters go to the poles and in only eight states did two-thirds go.

This is a serious thing. The theory of democracy does not call for equality of gift, universal college education or absolute individual integrity; but it does depend upon the widest possible consultation with the mass of citizens on the theory that only in this way can you consult ultimate authority and ultimate sovereignty. This theory may be wrong. Possibly the United States is ready to adopt a restricted ballot and base sovereignty upon an electorate limited by education, occupation, ability, birth, wealth, race, or some combination of these factors. Possibly we are ready for Italian syndicalistic oligarchy or Spanish dictatorship. But if this is true we must face the change frankly and adopt it logically. We must not drift further as we are doing. For a generation the possibility of any rational consultation of the public will in this country has been fading.

Today, the difference in the relative political power of the various states and groups of states is so enormous in the United States that no American has any right to sneer at Old Sarum or at the conditions that brought the first English Reform Bill. This can be illustrated by a table which shows the number of votes cast in the various states for the election of each of that state’s representatives in Congress:

1920
South Carolina	9,449	Idaho	67,471
Mississippi	10,312	North Carolina	68,592
Georgia	12,394	Maryland	71,211
Louisiana	15,733	Kansas	71,278
Texas	22,973	Connecticut	72,802
Virginia	23,100	Utah	72,914
Alabama	24,107	Colorado	73,014
Arkansas	25,801	Minnesota	73,504
Nevada	27,194	New Jersey	75,333
Florida	30,706	Oregon	76,174
Tennessee	42,863	Illinois	77,425
Vermont	44,985	Washington	78,720
Maine	49,283	New Hampshire	70,372
Pennsylvania	51,380	Michigan	81,406
North Carolina	53,570	Iowa	70,981
Rhode Island	55,795	Missouri	83,165
Wyoming	58,190	Kentucky	83,519
South Dakota	60,373	West Virginia	84,990
Oklahoma	60,572	California	85,750
Massachusetts	62,507	Montana	89,502
Wisconsin	63,753	Ohio	91,795
Nebraska	63,778	Delaware	94,758
Arizona	68,687	Indiana	97,108
New York	67,328	New Mexico	105,131

The stranger from Mars looking at this table would immediately ask: “Why is it that the citizens from South Carolina should have eleven times as much political power as the citizens of New Mexico?” Or: “How can a voter in Massachusetts have fifty per cent more power than the voter in Indiana?”

If we group the states geographically we find that in 1920 the Pacific and Northwestern States cast 1,945,504 votes for 24 representatives in Congress, or 81,067 votes per congressman. The Middle West States cast 10,088,606 votes for 127 representatives, or 79,439 votes per representative. The Border States cast 4,194,509 votes for 58 representatives, or 72,319 votes per representative. The Southwest States cast 636,893 votes tor 9 representatives, or 70,766 votes per representative. The Middle Atlantic States cast 5,649,216 votes for 91 representatives or 61,079 votes per representative. The New England States cast 967,711 votes for 32 representatives, or 61,492 votes per representative. Contrast this with the South, which cast only 2,175,007 votes and yet with them elected 94 representatives, or only 23,138 votes per representative.

Or put it another way, a million voters elect:

On the Pacific Coast—12 Congressmen.
In the Middle West—13 Congressmen.
In New England—16 Congressmen.
In the South—45 Congressmen.

New England has an enormous advantage over the Northwest and considerable over the Middle West, while the political advantage of the South is so extraordinary as to force consideration of its peculiar situation. When one gets thus far in the argument, there arises in the mind of the average American reader the fact that the whole argument involves, at least in large part, the South; and brings back the almost forgotten question of Negro suffrage. This is true; but the object of this paper is to impress the fact that the question at issue is much larger than this and that no matter what the discussion involves, it must be discussed, or else democratic government in the United States is impossible.

Senator Swanson of Virginia has just said in the Senate:

The South has exercised her constitutional rights to eliminate a class of ignorant, shiftless and corrupt voters.” Other states like Massachusetts have disfranchised the illiterate and, of course, the un-naturalized foreigners.

There is no doubt that any modern democratic community faced by a large amount of ignorance, unusual poverty and political corruption must in some way defend itself. In the defense which the South attempted to make against ignorance, poverty and corruption, she had the moral support of the majority of citizens of the United States. But it is over a half century since the 15th Amendment was proclaimed and a full generation since the new Southern disfranchisement was begun. At that time to disfranchise the poor and ignorant automatically excluded the great mass of the black men from the ballot. Today, a large number is still poor and illiterate. But today it is also true that large numbers of black men are disfranchised not because of ignorance or thriftlessness but simply and frankly because they are black. A critical time of consideration is approaching. Any day a case like the Texas primary may appear in the Supreme Court which will gravely challenge present methods and it is doubtful if any mere appeal to mob law against any such decision will be tolerated even in the South. Surely then the time has come for a careful, dispassionate consideration—not so much of the political condition of the South as of the effect which the political legislation of the South from 1890 to 1909 has had upon the politics of the nation.

First and foremost, it is necessary for the nation to ask the Southern States what it is they wish today to disfranchise—race or condition? If the first is what they propose, that is illegal and can only be done by constitutional amendment. There may be reasons which appeal to Americans why disfranchisement by race is desirable. If so, such a campaign should be inaugurated.

There has been a demand for this from a few persons North and South. But the reason that such a campaign has not been seriously suggested, is, of course, clear: the nation would logically demand first and foremost that if Negroes as such, are legally excluded from the right of suffrage, they should not be counted as a basis of representation either in Congress or the state legislatures. In the founding of the American republic, New England demanded that representation in Congress be based on the free population. Its stand was logically impregnable, and the only real, albeit unspoken argument that led to compromise, was the feeling that eventually the slave population was going to disappear, either by emancipation into freedom or by deportation. Until this time, slaves were to count two-fifths of the white population in determining representation.

With the 13th Amendment, Negroes, although still economically enslaved, counted as five-fifths. With the new disfranchising laws, they still count just as fully as the white population. But this again was permitted on the tacit assumption that these laws were temporary in their application—that when the freedmen learned to read and write, accumulated property and established a modern, cultural life, they would be allowed to vote on the same terms as other Americans. Not only was this a former assumption of the North—it was the plain statement and repeated promise of the South.

It is, then, but reasonable that if the South wishes now to change the constitution and laws of the United States and make it possible to exclude men from voting on account of race and color—that the test of its sincerity is its willingness in that case not to count the colored population as a basis for representation.

If on the other hand the South merely wishes to get rid of an electorate too ignorant, too poverty stricken and corrupt to vote honestly, it has already a multiplicity of laws on the subject. But laws of this sort ought so to be drawn and administered as to encourage education and thrift and honesty and their proper test is the gradual disappearance of illiteracy and the gradual enfranchisement of Negroes, otherwise, they are ineffective and dangerous.

As a matter of fact, just whom does the South disfranchise? It is difficult to get an official record of voting in the United States and especially difficult in the South with regard to the voting of Negroes.

In Louisiana the state furnishes a fairly accurate official record. In the election for President in 1924, there were 274,592 white persons registered and 980 Negroes. The white population of the state in 1920 was 1,096,611; the Negro population was 700,257. Of these, 564,933 whites were 21 years of age and over, and 359,251 Negroes. Of the adult Negroes 229,980 were reported as illiterate. The leaves 129,271 who can read and write. The statistics of illiteracy are inaccurate. Still, it would seem reasonable to suppose that at least 100,000 Louisiana Negroes were men of average intelligence, able to read and write. Nearly eighty percent of the Negro population, 10 years of age and over, is engaged in gainful occupations, and includes 164,109 farmers, 52,687 in manufacturing and mechanical industries, 21,802 working in transportation, 6,700 engaged in trade, 1,983 in the public service, 3,385 in professional service, 1,308 clerks and 54,370 servants. Moreover, among the Negroes there were more than 10,000 persons who owned their farms, and in addition to these farmers, 28,906 Negroes owned their homes. The total property owned by Negroes of Louisiana is not not actually known but judging from Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina, where records are kept, it cannot be less than $75,000,000.

Yet out of all these people, only 980 were allowed to register and vote and the number of Negro registered voters has decreased almost by half in the last 16 years, as there were 1,743 registered in 1908. Manifestly Louisiana is disfranchising mainly by race and not simply for illiteracy or shiftlessness.

In Alabama, there were reported 269,847 Negroes 21 years of age and over who could read and write in 1920. Careful inquiry shows that “there are not more than 3,500 Negroes voting in the state of Alabama and less than 1,000 in the city of Birmingham.”

In Macon County, for instance, where Tuskegee Institute is situated, there are 4,927 Negroes 21 years of age and over who can read and write, and of these 22 are registered voters.

In Montgomery County, containing the capital of the state, out of 13,973 literate Negroes, 21 years of age and over, 41 are registered.

In Mobile County, out of 17,375 literate Negroes 21 years of age and over, 958 are registered.

In the city of Birmingham, among the most progressive of the industrialized Negro group, out of 33,655 Negroes 21 years of age and over, who can read and write, less than 1,000 are registered voters. .

In Mississippi, according to a careful inquiry made in 1927, there are at present 850 Negroes registered, out of a total literate Negro population 21 years of age and over, of (1920) 290,782. A resident of the state writes :

The requirements for registration in this state are that the applicants must be able to ‘read and write’, or understand the Constitution when read to them and must have paid their poll] tax for the past two years prior to the time at which they offer for registration.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court in each county, or his deputy, is the sole judge of every one’s ability to qualify for registration and he is invariably a Democrat and adamant. All white folk are ‘qualified’. If a white person cannot read or write, such person is always able to ‘understand the constitution when read’. Hence, all white folk vote.
When a colored man comes up to register, as a rule, he is either unceremoniously ordered out of the office with an oath before a question even has been asked; or is told by the clerk that he is busy and hasn’t time to register him; or is given something to read or asked a question, only to have the registration book closed, slammed to, and be told that he cannot qualify.
The Negro vote is smaller now than a year ago, since the last legislature called for a new registration and it appears that it is a most difficult matter, to get as many on the rolls as were registered before. For example, in Hinds, the largest county in the State, there were 98 Negroes registered a year ago, but only 60 now.

In the state of Georgia, out of 369,511 Negroes 21 years of age and over, who can read and write, no one knows or is able to find out, apparently how many Negroes are registered. During the year 1926, 90,000 Negroes paid poll taxes and should have been entitled to vote. It is doubtful, however, if as many as 10,000 actually voted.

From Chatham County, where 22,678 Negroes 21 years of age and over can read and write, there were 2,200 registered Negro voters in 1922 and 900 in 1927.

In Floyd County, where there are 2,488 Negroes 21 years of age and over who can read and write, there are 120 colored women and 154 colored men who are registered.

In Texas the difficulties are illustrated by one incident brought to my attention in 1918. Marion County, Texas, has a population of 10,886, of which 6,667 are Negroes. There are 2,146 whites 21 years of age and over, and 2,937 Negroes. Forty-three of the whites are illiterate and 855 of the Negroes. It would look as though at least 1,500 of the Negroes were persons of intelligence and thrift, because they owned, in 1918, 85 per cent of the cultivated land and paid, outside the corporation taxes, over 50 per cent. of the taxes. Many Negroes owned farms of 1,000 acres and more,—one owning 3,200 acres. The Negroes owned 23 cotton gins, 25 grist mills, 32 saw mills and 17 shingle mills. There were 25 small merchants and one colored physician whose practice was 50 per cent. white. The six months colored county schools was “fairly good.” The town school in Jefferson ran nine months and had ten grades. And yet, in the face of that, the following election notice was issued Tuesday, September 3rd, 1918:

To the People of Jefferson:

The election to be held Tuesday, Sept. 3rd is for the purpose of voting to repeal the stock law or allowing it to stand as it is.

It was unanimously voted by the Council to allow all White Citizens, Men and Women in the City of Jefferson, 21 years of age to vote on this question as the Council wants to know how the people stand on it. The people who are in favor of Repealing this law are willing that an Ordinance be passed allowing stock to run at large from 6 A. M. from 1st day of April until 1st day of December which would be 8 months in the year and put them up the remaining 4 months. You are all interested.

So come out and vote.

The Committee.

It must be remembered that a Stock Law, which regulates the fencing of crops and the running at large of stock, is of great importance, both to the farmer and the small town worker. (To be continued in the October Crisis<.span)

Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1928. “The Possibility of Democracy.” The Crisis. 35(9):296–296, 314–315.