Atlanta Daily World

Truman Says He Firmly Believes In Vote Rights
National Committee To Abolish Poll Tax Is Active

WASHINGTON, D. C. --(NNPA)-- While replying to a question concerning voting in the District of Columbia, President Truman last Tuesday told his press and radio news conference that he believes every citizen in the United States should have the right to vote.

Asked to comment on Mr. Truman's statement, Mrs. Katherine Shryver, executive secretary of the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, said she believes the question of suffrage in the District of Columbia and abolition of the poll tax in southern states "are inseparable."

She pointed out that the poll tax directly affects the District of Columbia because the chairman of the Senate District Committee, Senator Theodore G. (The Man) Bilbo, Democrat, of Mississippi, comes from a poll-tax state.

OPPOSES D. C. SUFFRAGE

Bilbo has said he is unalterably opposed to suffrage in the District of Columbia because if the people here are given the right to vote colored people will seize the District government.

Mrs. Shryver said Bilbo election to the Senate was made possible by the poll tax. "It is inconceivable," she stated, "that any state with a free vote would elect a man like him to the Senate."

Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, Democrat, of California said she does not believe the District can get suffrage so long as there is a poll tax in the southern states.