II. SOUTHERN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS VERY GENERALLY URGE THAT THEY OPPOSE THE FEDERAL AMENDMENT BECAUSE IT WILL CONFER THE VOTE UPON THE NEGRO WOMEN OF THEIR RESPECTIVE STATES; AND THAT THAT WILL INTERFERE WITH WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE SOUTH.
It is difficult to believe this objection to be sincere, since facts do not support the contention. The facts are that woman suffrage secured by Federal Amendment will be subject to whatever restrictions may be imposed by state constitutions (provided those restrictions are in accord with the National Constitution) in precisely the same way as woman suffrage secured by state constitutional amendment. No larger number of negro women can be enfranchised by Federal Amendment than will be enfranchised by State Amendment. If the women of the South are ever to be enfranchised, it must be by (1) Federal Constitutional Amendment, or (2) State Constitutional Amendment. If their franchise is obtained by the former method, it will come by the votes of white men in Congress and legislatures; if by the second, they will be forced to appeal to voting Negroes to elevate them to their own political status. One would suppose the first would be the preferable method from the Southern viewpoint. It is possible that behind this commonly spoken objection, lies a hope and belief that Southern women will remain disfranchised forevermore. A man unfamiliar with political history, psychology, and the science of evolution might cherish such a belief in fancied security, but ideas cannot be shut outside the borders of a state. There is no Southern state in which women of the highest families are not giving their all in order to propagate this cause, and they are doing it with so noble a spirit and so eloquent an appeal that final surrender of the citadel of prejudice is only a question of time. No one has ever questioned the "fighting ability" of the South. That ability is not confined to men. Courage, intelligence, conviction and willingness to sacrifice characterize the suffrage movement in every state, and the South is no exception. The women of that section will vote; the question is how long must they work, how much must they sacrifice to win that which has so freely been granted to men of all classes?
White supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by woman suffrage.
In the fifteen states south of the Mason and Dixon line are:
8,788,901 white women, 4,316,565 negro women, or 4,472,336 more white than negro women.
The total negro population is 8,294,274, and white women outnumber both negro males and females by nearly half a million. In two states only, South Carolina and Mississippi, are there more negro than white women, and in these states there are more negro men than white men. In South Carolina, voters must read, own and pay taxes on $300 worth of property. In Mississippi, voters must read the Constitution. The other four states of the "black belt"—Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana—impose an educational test. Women voters would be compelled to submit to the same qualifications. In the other nine states white women exceed the total negro population. Woman suffrage in the South would so vastly increase the white vote that it would guarantee white supremacy if it otherwise stood in danger of overthrow. If a sly dread of female supremacy is troubling the doubter he may find comfort in the rather astonishing fact that white males over 21 are considerably in excess of white females over 21 in all except Maryland and North Carolina; negro females over 21 exceed negro males in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, but the restrictions in these states of property ownership represented by tax receipts, education and various other tests, would fall more heavily upon women than men, and thus admit fewer women than men to the vote. If the South really wants White Supremacy, it will urge the enfranchisement of women. The following table offers insuperable proof:
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| |Per Cent. of| WHITE | NEGROES
| | Negroes in | 21 Years and Over | 21 Years and Over
| STATES | Population | |
| | All Ages | Male | Female | Male | Female
+———————-+——————+————-+————-+————-+————
|Delaware ……| 15.4 | 52,804 | 50,160 | 9,050 | 8,281
|Maryland ……| 17.9 | 303,561 | 309,897 | 63,963 | 63,899
|Dist. Columbia.| 28.5 | 75,765 | 81,622 | 27,621 | 34,449
|Virginia ……| 32.6 | 363,659 | 353,516 | 159,593 | 164,844
|North Carolina.| 31.6 | 357,611 | 358,583 | 146,752 | 159,236
|South Carolina | 55.2 | 165,769 | 162,623 | 169,155 | 181,264
|Georgia …….| 45.1 | 353,569 | 343,187 | 266,814 | 269,937
|Florida …….| 41.0 | 124,311 | 105,662 | 89,659 | 72,998
|Kentucky ……| 11.4 | 527,661 | 506,299 | 75,694 | 73,413
|Tennessee …..| 21.7 | 433,431 | 419,646 | 119,142 | 122,707
|Alabama …….| 42.5 | 298,943 | 284,116 | 213,923 | 217,676
|Mississippi …| 56.2 | 192,741 | 180,787 | 233,701 | 231,901
|Arkansas ……| 28.1 | 284,301 | 248,964 | 111,365 | 102,917
|Louisiana …..| 43.1 | 240,001 | 222,473 | 174,211 | 172,711
|Texas ………| 17.7 | 835,962 | 722,063 | 166,393 | 161,959
|Missouri ……| 4.8 | 919,480 | 874,997 | 52,921 | 48,057
|Oklahoma ……| 8.3 | 393,377 | 311,266 | 36,841 | 30,208
|West Virginia .| 5.3 | 315,498 | 270,298 | 22,757 | 14,667
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Speaking of the probable enforcement of the National Constitution against the "Grandfather clause" in Southern constitutions, Walter E. Clark, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, said:
"In North Carolina such a decision would readmit to the polls 125,000 negro votes. What preparation have we made to meet such a possible result? I know of but one remedy. The census shows that the white population of North Carolina is seventy per cent. and the colored population thirty per cent. It follows that the white adult women of North Carolina are more in numbers than the negro men and negro women combined. The votes of 260,000 white women can be relied on to stand solid against any measure or any man who proposes to question Anglo-Saxon supremacy.
"I am not intimating that the admission of the white women to the polls will secure democratic supremacy (they will not impair it), nor that it will prejudice the republican element. The equal suffrage movement has never proceeded on party lines and the women would scorn to be admitted unless they were as free in their choice of party measures and candidates as the men. But what I am saying is that if the negroes are readmitted by a decision of the Federal Court to suffrage, the 260,000 votes of the white women of the State will be one solid obstacle to any measure that would impair either for them or their children the continuance of white supremacy."