12019-03-12T23:56:38+00:00Stanford University Pressaf84c3e11fe030c51c61bbd190fa82a3a1a1282414plainpublished2019-10-11T19:27:00+00:00AnonymousOn August 1, 1940, the Los Angeles Sentinel ran a front page editorial calling for the abolition of the poll tax. “The poll tax is one of the most effective and vicious instruments for disfranchisements ever devised,” the editors wrote. “In the southern states, as in all tenant farming areas, there is a scarcity of cash and many voters simply cannot spare a dollar to pay the poll tax. In effect, the poll taxes disfranchise the poorer elements in the community and restrict voting to the well to do.Thus officials are always elected by a minority of the voters...As a result, a southerner can perpetuate himself in congress for years by reason of seniority [and] can rise to head of all-important committees where he can, and does, work to throttle all progressive legislation.”
The Sentinel concluded, “We will never be able to enforce our citizenship rights until our right of suffrage is secure and we will never have that right of suffrage until the poll tax is wiped off the statute books of every state.”
