WHAT THE POLL TAX MEANS [caption title].

[National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax]: [Marcantonio, Vito]:

Edité par [N.p. 1944].

A scarce and compelling flyer printed by the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax near the end of World War Two. With the support of the NAACP, the American Federation of Labor, numerous other labor organizations, and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, American Labor Party representative Vito Marcantonio of New York introduced House Resolution 7 on January 3, 1944. HR 7's goal was to place a nationwide ban on the use of a capitation or poll tax as a prerequisite for voting in federal elections. The bill passed in the House by an overwhelming majority despite a last-ditch effort by poll taxers to challenge its constitutionality, and was put before the Senate Judiciary Committee that summer. This flyer was produced in the leadup to the Senate debate on HR 7, shortly after D-Day and in the midst of some of the hardest fighting of the Second World War. The authors situate the fight against the poll tax as a fight for capital "D" Democracy, and an essential part of the war effort. They make their case with clear statistics: "The poll tax locks the ballot box away from ten million white and Negro citizens in eight Southern states. In 1942, an average of only 3 per cent of the population in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia participated in Congressional elections. The poll tax prevented the others from voting. The average in the non-poll tax states was 25 per cent." Furthermore, "Fewer citizens voted to elect 32 representatives from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi than voted to elect 2 representatives in Rhode Island." Leaders of many leading national groups are quoted, including Marcantonio, the president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and Walter White of the NAACP ("This bill can and should be a part of a pattern of living and growing democracy which we exhibit in our own demonstration to the world that our way of life is something worth fighting for"). On the recto, between a border reading "TEN MILLION VOTES FOR DEMOCRACY TEN MILLION VOTES TO WIN THE WAR," the writers assure readers that the best way to help get HR 7 over the line is to write their senators and encourage them to vote in favor of a cloture motion otherwise, it is almost guaranteed that the opposition will filibuster until the bill is tabled. A cloture motion was indeed filed on the topic of "Anti-Poll Tax Legislation" in the 78th Congress, but it failed to pass with a vote of 36-44. The bill was successfully filibustered, exactly as predicted. The cloture motion on HR 7 was repeated in 1945, but once again failed, this time with a vote of 39-33. Federal anti-poll tax legislation was never enacted, but the eight poll-tax states did abolish the practice gradually on their own over the next two decades, with Mississippi as the last holdout in 1966. A rare political flyer tying issues of disfranchisement and the growing Civil Rights movement to the patriotic spirit of the Second World War. Old fold. Light tanning, minor splitting at folds. Very good. N° de réf. du vendeur 66604

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : WHAT THE POLL TAX MEANS [caption title].
Éditeur : [N.p. 1944].
Edition : Edition originale