Suchergebnisse

Toward the close of the San Francisco Conference, Czechoslovakia's Jan Masaryk remarked that his feeling toward the new Charter "was much like that of the father fondly awaiting the birth of a son. The baby finally arrives and it turns out to be a girl. At first the father is somewhat disappointed, but he soon learns to like her just the same." While the delegates as a whole believed that their work would go down in history as one of the great documents of all times, many no doubt shared Masaryk's view. For when a document as comprehensive as the Charter is framed, no one gets exactly what he wants.The article of the Charter that raised the most controversy at San Francisco and the article that epitomizes the nature of the Organization, perhaps more than any other, is the Yalta formula for voting in the Security Council. So heated did the debate on this issue become that Room 223 in the Veterans Building, where the meetings of Committee III/l were held, was dubbed the "Madison Square Garden" of San Francisco. The frankness and candor with which the delegates exchanged views constitutes, in many respects, a good example of international democracy in action.It is the purpose of this paper to review the action taken at San Francisco with respect to the Yalta voting formula and to point out the relationship of that formula to the special position of the great powers in the new Organization.

Since Negro voting, or the fear of it, is the central issue around which so many other aspects of Southern politics are oriented, it is highly relevant to examine the emergence of Negro voting wherever it occurs in a Southern state. In Texas, the federal Supreme Court's "white primary" decision of April, 1944 (Smith v. Allwright), removed the most formidable barrier to Negro participation in politics and resulted in the entry of a significant number of Negroes into the electorate in 1946. Although Texas, with its relatively small Negro population (14 per cent) may not be an exact barometer to guide us in foreseeing the emergence of Negro voting elsewhere in the South, no one interested in predicting the future of this ticklish question can afford to ignore the Texas experience.The exclusion of the Negro from Texas political life has never been complete. Texas has made use of neither the literacy or "understanding" test nor the involved registration procedures so effectively employed to limit Negro participation elsewhere in the South. In Texas, the white primary, the poll tax, and such extra-legal factors as an environment hostile to Negro assertiveness have been the only means used. The Negro has been categorically excluded only from the Democratic primary, the election that really counts. Thus, poll-tax paying Negroes have been legally eligible to vote in general elections, municipal elections, school board elections, special elections, and proposition elections concerning some special issue such as local option on liquor. Even the state-wide white primary is of fairly recent origin; it was only in 1923 that the Texas legislature passed a law barring Negroes from the Democratic primary, thus inaugurating the legal battle that produced the four Supreme Court cases on this issue.

Prepared by John B. Johnson and Irving J. Lewis for the Council of state governments. cf. Foreword. ; Mode of access: Internet.

In continuation of a previous study, the rôle of some nationality groups in the last three presidential elections has been investigated. Whereas the previous study was based upon political behavior by counties within eight states, the present work is based upon political behavior by wards within four cities. The cities were chosen because they contained large proportions of certain nationality groups, and because in these cities it was possible to order census tract material from the 1940 census by wards. Only four cities (Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh) were examined because of limitations of time and expense. New York City is not included because of appreciable changes in the boundaries of Assembly districts between elections.In order that a group be amenable to our procedure, it was necessary that there be proportionately great enough concentrations within wards so that the actual voting behavior of the group could possibly induce a shift in the election results. In this respect, it must be remembered that the proportion of foreign-born is usually about one-third of the total stock of any given group in the localities. Of the fourteen nationality groups studied here, therefore, not every one could be tested by our method.

Copyright notice stamped on t.p. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.