The Negroes' Vote
Very great potential importance attaches to a ruling given by the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday regard- ing the rights of negro voters. By the Fifteenth Amendment to
the Constitution, which became effective in 1870, five years after the end of the Civil War, " the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude." The object of that enactment was plain, but in the Southern States, where the negro population is numerous, it has from the first been a dead letter ; there has ostensibly been no discrimination against the negro as such, but by education tests, poll-tax payment tests or frank intimidation he has been effec- tively prevented from voting. The Supreme Court's new decision, given by eight votes to one, deals not with the ordinary State or Federal elections, but with the primaries—the publicly-regulated elections within each party to decide who the party candidate shall be. The Democrats of Texas decided that in the Democratic primaries in that State negroes should not be allowed to vote. That decision was tested before the Supreme Court—in the days before Mr. Roosevelt's " liberalisation " of that body,—and was by it very surprisingly upheld. But what the Supreme Court can do the Supreme Court can undo, and a negro named Lonnie Smith has had the enterprise to submit the question again, with the result that a decisive verdict has been registered in his favour, Justice Roberts alone dissenting. " Constitutional rights," said the Supreme Court, " would be of little value if they could be thus indirectly denied." The " thus " refers to the methods used in this particular case. It obviously applies logically, and may well be made to apply legally, to discrimination against the negro in any election. If that were so decided it would substantially affect the balance of parties in the Union, for most negroes, for historical and other reasons, would be disposed to vote Republican.
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