The Negro’s Political Power in the North
In another way the Southern attitude toward the Negro affects the nation. Owing to disfranchisement and “Jim Crow” laws, thousands of Negroes have moved northward and settled in the great cities, until to-day Negro voters, though they may not (as has been claimed) hold the balance of power, yet wield a great influence in the politics of at least four states—Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—and are also considerable factors in the political destiny of Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware. The potential influence of the Negro voter in the North is excellently illustrated in the recent campaign for the Republican nomination to the Presidency, especially in the fight in Ohio between Foraker and Taft and in the eagerness displayed by Taft to placate the Negro vote.
In still another way the Negro affects the entire nation. Through its attitude of exclusion the South exercises an influence on national legislation out of all proportion to its voting population. Though nearly all Negroes are disfranchised, as well as a large number of white voters, all these disfranchised voters are counted in the allotment of Congressmen to Southern states.
Out of this has grown a curious condition. In 1904 Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi, which have thirty-five members in Congress, cast 413,516 votes, while Massachusetts alone, with only fourteen Congressmen, cast 445,098 votes.
Here, for example, is the record of South Carolina:
| Total population of voting age, both white and coloured (1900) | 283,325 | |
| Total white voting population | 130,375 | |
| Total actual vote in 1902 for Congressmen | 32,185 | |
| Total Democratic vote which elected seven Congressmen | 29,343 |
Thus in South Carolina in 1902 an average of about 4,600 voters voted at the election for each Congressman (in 1904, a Presidential year, the average was about 8,100) while in New York State over 40,000 votes are cast in each Congressional district and in Pennsylvania about 38,000.
Now, I am not here criticising this condition; I am merely endeavouring to set down the facts as I find them. My purpose is to illustrate the profound and far-reaching effects of the Negro issue upon the nation. And is it not curious, when all is said, to observe how this rejected black man, whom the South has attempted to eliminate utterly from politics, has been for years changing and warping the entire government of this nation in the most fundamental ways! Did he not cause a civil war, the results of which still curse the country? And though excluded in large measure from the polls, does he not in reality cast his mighty vote for Presidents, Congressmen, Governors?
Often, looking out across the South, it appears to the observer that the Negro has a more far-reaching and real influence on our national life for being excluded from the polls than he would have if he were frankly and justly admitted to the franchise on the same basis as white men.
All the real thinkers and statesmen of the South have looked and longed for the hour when the South, free of this dominance of an ugly issue, should again take its great place in national affairs. In 1875, at the close of Reconstruction, Senator Lamar of Mississippi predicted in a speech at Jackson that the South, having eliminated the Negro from politics, would now divide on new economic issues and become politically healthy. But that has not happened; less division on real issues probably exists in Mississippi to-day than in 1875. Why? Is it not possible that the manner of the elimination of the Negro from politics is wrong? Has it occurred to leaders and statesmen that Negroes who are qualified can be eliminated into politics; that the present method in reality makes the Negro a more dangerous political factor than he would be if he were allowed to vote regularly and quietly?