ry of Suffrage in the United States._ By KIRK and PORTER,
Ph.D. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. Pp. 265. Price
$1.25.

Knowing that few citizens realize the restrictions on suffrage during
the early years of the republic and the difficulty with which the
right of franchise has been extended during the last half century, the
author has undertaken a scientific study in this field. How the
franchise was at first limited to persons owning considerable
property, and how some of the most popular statesmen of that day
endeavored to keep it thus restricted, and how this aristocratic test
gradually ceased, constitute the interesting portion of the book. The
author's aim, however, is to "present a panoramic picture of the whole
United States and to carry the reader rapidly on from decade to decade
without getting lost in the detailed history."

The author himself raises the question as to whether he has placed
undue stress on the Civil War and the Reconstruction periods; "but
the intention," says he, "was to pick out of Civil War history the
events and circumstances that had to do directly with suffrage and to
lay them before the reader who is not necessarily familiar with that
history. This decision to emphasize these two periods was determined
to some extent by the fact that the study of suffrage during the
colonial period has been covered by C. F. Bishop's _History of
Elections in the American Colonies_ and A. V. McKinley's _Suffrage
Franchise in the Colonies_. One of the aims of the book is to clear up
the problems of suffrage so far as the Negro is concerned.

Taking up the question of the extension of suffrage to Negroes upon
the passing of the property qualifications, the author gives some
valuable information, showing the restriction of Negro suffrage
culminating with their disfranchisement in Pennsylvania but falls into
the attitude of a biased writer in making such remarks as "New York
was not a State that suffered greatly from the presence of the Negro"
to account for its action on the question. Again on page 87 he says:
"Up to about this time the Negroes had not been a serious problem." No
large group of Negroes have ever made a State suffer, but communities
living up to the expensive requirements of race prejudice have paid
high costs for which the Negroes have not been responsible. Because of
this bias the writer betrays throughout his treatment his feeling that
Negro suffrage was justly restricted