BATTLING THE POLL TAX
Meyer, Ernest L.
Battling The Poll Tax DEMOCRACY BEGINS AT HOME, by Jennings Perry. Lippincott, $3.00. Reviewed by Ernest L. Meyer HERE is a dramatic history of the impact of the poll tax on the politics of a...
...The most exciting episodes concern the battle waged by Mr...
...Perry's newspaper, at first single-handed, against the poll tax and Crump's political machine...
...The narrative is centered in Tennessee, where the author is the energetic editor of the Nashville Tennessean, and it recounts with a detailism that is never boring the rise in power of Boss Ed Crump of Memphis through shrewd control and manipulation of the poll tax vote...
...Perry's book a brave and encouraging document of our day...
...As a blow to the long uphill battle against the Tennessee poll tax the verdict was disheartening, but the battle is still going on...
...This, regardless of the immediate issue involved, makes Mr...
...Later he enlisted the active support of the Chattanooga Times, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, and the Memphis Press-Scimitar...
...Reviewed by Ernest L. Meyer HERE is a dramatic history of the impact of the poll tax on the politics of a state and the nation...
...The combined blasts of the four papers forced a reluctant, time-serving state legislature to vote a poll tax repealer, but the action was set aside by a. one-vote margin'in a decision by the state supreme court—the deciding vote being cast by a new Crump-dominated appointee...
...What is heartening, however, is this story of a newspaper aroused on the side of democracy and marshaling its power to challenge the domination of political dictatorship...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 47
