Editorial Urges Farmers to Vote, 1940

Editorial from the Nov. 1940 issue of The Southern Planter

Go to the Polls

In the percentage of adult population voting in the last presidential election (1936), West Virginia led the Nation (92%). Michigan was the lowest voting Northern State (61%). Kentucky was the top Southern State (65%), with South Carolina the lowest in the United States (14%). In North Carolina, where the poll tax as a prerequisite to voting was abolished in 1920, 54% per of the adult population expressed a preference for president.

Democracy, rule by the people, cannot exist where the people themselves do not indicate their political views and wishes at the voting booth. It cannot exist where the candidates who are elected are chosen by the few or are controlled by a corrupt political machine in the interest of the few. Where large number of citizens chronically absent themselves from the polls or are denied the right to vote, fifth columnists will not be necessary to storm the citadel of democracy.

The ballot box is democracy’s first line of defense. As election day approaches, the patriotic duty and privilege of every American citizen is to see that this first line of defense adequately is manned and held. Go to the polls on November 5 and take our qualified neighbors with you!