tellect and cunning, the
legislature of Mississippi has gone the full length of the power granted
it, in its efforts to keep the Negro from voting. Section 3643 of the
code of 1892 of that state, which regulates the appointment of managers
of elections, contains this remarkably clever provision:

"The Commissions shall appoint three persons to be managers of
election, who shall not be of the same political party, _if
suitable persons of different political parties can be had in the
district_."

Imagine commissioners of election of the Mississippi type regarding a
Negro, or a white man known to be favorable to Negro suffrage, as a
"suitable person!"

One would suppose that the elector having successfully passed the ordeal
of the registration officer would be allowed smooth sailing during the
remainder of the voyage to the polls. But no; having passed Scylla, he
must encounter Charybdis at the very brink of the ballot box; for
section 3644 of the above mentioned Code provides that any of the
managers of election

"May examine on oath any person duly registered and offering to
vote touching his qualifications as an elector."

The effect of the constitution of Mississippi is to set up a standard of
qualification of a much higher intellectual scale than that of any of
the most enlightened states in the Union and to deprive a hundred and
eighty thousand citizens of the elective franchise previously enjoyed by
them.

The attempt is often made by southern politicians of the dominant class
to justify the Mississippi plan of disfranchisement by pointing to the
fact that Massachusetts, a northern state, has provided for a qualified
suffrage by the adoption of an educational test. But compared with the
Mississippi provision that of Massachusetts is as modest and simple as
the average Mississippi school house.

Amendment XX to the Massachusetts Constitution is as follows:

"No person shall have the right to vote, or be eligible to office
under the constitution of this commonwealth, who shall not be able
to read the constitution in the English language, and write his
name. _Provided however_, that the provisions of this amendment
shall not apply to any person prevented by physical disability from
complying with its requisition, _Nor to any person, who now has the
right to vote_, nor to any person who shall be sixty years of age
or upwards at the time this