EXPEDIENT JUSTICE

The lack of attention given to the proposal of Congressman Tinkham of Massachusetts that the quotas of the several states in the House of Representatives should be revised so as to conform to the Fourteenth Amendment, looks suspiciously like an attempt to dodge an issue. President Harding and his party's leaders in Congress are not anxious to hamper the growth of their political influence in the South by any obnoxious investigation of the negro disenfranchisement, prevalent in many states below the Mason-Dixon line. The South has always been extremely sensitive on this point and it is indeed expedient if not just to leave a problem such as this alone.

It is not only the states in which the colored population is large that would be affected by the proposed reform. Massachusetts herself, with her literacy qualification for suffrage, would probably lose at least one congressman by a rigid application of the proposed laws regarding representation. Because of other northern states in a similar position, an investigation and its resulting readjustment would be felt in all parts of the country, although of course, in varying degrees.

That injustice is caused by having Southern whites elect representatives of negroes, supposedly voters, cannot be denied. A similar wrong is occasioned in the North by having whites choose legislators who really also represent other whites, disqualified because of ignorance.

Perhaps the opponents of the proposal honestly believe they are serving the best interests of their constituents by avoiding a question which will add to the confusion of the day. Such caution, however, would seem more admirable if the party motive did not lurk so near.