Intimidation

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What are we going to tell you did. You know it was an object counter and
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see peers not go out here and you are not going to hope. You know of Chicago so
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you would just as well go and get your name oh no. You don't you're not
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going you're going to be put out a bid for.
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The story of the intimidation of the Negro is a long and varied one. Harassment by mobs
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anonymous telephone calls beatings killings and bombings threats of economic and
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other reprisals have all played a part in this story. Listeners we tell part
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of the story today as we continue to explore the world of the Negro in America the last
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citizen.
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Last August in the new year when America a series of programs devoted to the extension of our knowledge of the
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largest minority group in the United States its problems and the problems it poses to all
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Americans. The last edition is produced by Radio Station a Purdue University
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under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National
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Association of educational broadcasters. The discussions are the producer of the series W.
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Rector and Dr. Louis Schneider a professor of sociology at Purdue University. Today's
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program intimidation. Here now is Mr. Richter.
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Today we begin the first of a series of three programs devoted to what we are terming
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intimidation protest and defense. We understand by intimidation
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roughly any activity involving violence or a threat of violence that will tend to
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prevent the negro from asserting rights or exercising privileges to which he
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is in some sense entitled for instance by law the intimidation may
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be consciously undertaken by whites who deliberately act to prevent the negro from
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obtaining something that something may be segregated
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education equal status in a court of law the voting rights. So on. On the
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other hand intimidation may be directed to no special purpose that those doing the intimidation
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have in mind when you go along with this Will.
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I think so.
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When you say that intimidation need not be directed to any special purpose I'm reminded of a
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verse a certain pattern of relations between Negroes and whites in various
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communities has been noted by a number of investigators. I think for instance of the
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study of deep stuff done by Allison Davis and others we find according to this
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work that negro white relations can take on a certain sort of cyclical
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form specifically in a southern community lots of Negroes over
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time become gradually less deferential to whites. They begin to
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mumble. So far in addressing white men perhaps they even experiment now and
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done with leaving out the sore altogether. They refused to give way on sidewalks they are
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insufficiently self-effacing. One day a white service in stores along with white
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customers. But one day some white person decides in a boiling up of
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temper that things have gone far enough and administers a public beating to an
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opportunity to go out. Then there may well develop a renewed tendency for Negroes to
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become deferential. Perhaps the Saar comes back plain and I'm Feyerick
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and there are corresponding changes on the sidewalks in the stores and so on. A
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certain equilibrium has been restored. Nor I suppose one could
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think of this kind of thing as involving intimidation for its own sake. And yet there
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could well be in it elements of conscious thought on the line that a
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general subordination of the Negro community must be restored. I
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suppose too that even when there are conscious elements like this you might still want to call this
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general purpose intimidation.
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I think too we should note that in immigration as in the way of the few first.
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By this I mean simply that there are many anti negro activities in which
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intimidation is a more or less incidental ordinary instrumental
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flame. It's one kind of activity undertaken among others to achieve certain
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results. You may for example want to prevent negroes from going to white
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schools and let's say this is your primary purpose. Then
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virtually any usable tactic that comes to home may be valued and you may
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turn to intimidation when promises persuasion ridicule and the like
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have failed. So also intimidation may be part of the
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armamentarium of those who wish to prevent the negro from voting or doing any of
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a number of other things.
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Well I would like for us to go out in this vein but our primary object today is to achieve a
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very concrete understanding of how intimidation works. Most of us are aware
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that the negro in the south is frequently intimidated when it comes to exercising his voting
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rights.
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But how many of us really know what intimidation means in the concrete if I may so put it
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in the flesh. What exactly does it involve. It is I think illuminating for us at
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least at times to get involved in detail. And this is again what we want to
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look for today the impact of these abstractions upon individuals. What
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intimidation means to this and that particular negro. And also how intimidation
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works in various particular areas in which the Negro seeks to assert the rights or
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exercise the privileges mentioned in our initial definition. Let's turn to
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a statement therefore pertinent to the very important area of the Negro vote. The
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statement perhaps brings out more than the sheer matter of intimidation in connection with voting in the south.
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But intimidation is a centrally important part of it. Here then is
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Dr Herman law director of the race relations department of the American Missionary
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Association at Fisk University.
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I suspect that I rather strongly believe that the major
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factor which reduces the number of negroes who are registered and who
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can vote is the fact that operate directly upon him
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in the act of seeking to get registered. Let me try to
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describe what I mean.
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Registration in the average southern community takes place in the court house.
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If this quote house is in a small town it
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has about had an average number of
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hangers on of small politicians police
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of sheriffs. A dead beat is AV
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people who in some measure are associated with the policy
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structure of that community. And of course many whites
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in the South who believe that they are then selves of
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all by the very fact that they happen to be white persons. When a
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negro goes into this unwelcome atmosphere of the county courthouse to
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register. He has not only met with this situation which is a
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is which is all inspiring to him but he has met at the desk of the
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registrar with a person who whose attitude is against He is
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his actual registering and who proceeds in the
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conversation which would ensue to place all
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sorts of hurdles. In the way of the negro seeking to
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get blanks to fill out or even in the way
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that he would interpret the questions on a blank and so on. And then
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in many cases he's met with an outon out attitude of refusal.
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Boards of registrars have expressed themselves on individual registrars as saying that I will
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not register a single negro in this county.
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Negroes don't vote in this county and many cases they will tell
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negroes that you know Negroes don't vote in this county. Well this is this is a threat this
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is. A veiled threat in some cases it's a direct threat
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and so they the process is just blocked by this kind of informal
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but nevertheless awfully powerful effort on the part of the white
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public to put every stumbling block in the way of the negro. I have an ego that
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still persists in his effort in the small town and frequently in the large community
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to vote and makes a demand to do so. Then he is
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frequently if he seeks to rally other negroes in the process and some type of
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mass effort to register you he may have direct forms of
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intimidation placed in his way.
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The shooting of Negro leader in Mississippi about two years ago I think is an example of
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this kind of direct act of violence out of my own
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experience I remember when I went to the courthouse in my hometown in
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Birmingham Alabama to de-register. This time I was teaching in college.
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It took me about an hour and a half to go through the process of filling out a single blank
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simply because a clerk at the counter did not agree with the
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interpretation that I made of the items on the blank that I had filled out.
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Now I understand that no directions were given me as to whether or
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not the items I had filled out were correct that not the blank was simply given back to me and
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saying that's not right. So I would scratch my head
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and I would try to give another interpretation and give the blank back. It would be
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returned to me just as curtly. That's not right yet. And yet beside
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me here was a clerk not only interpret ing the items to whites who was
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seeking to write but in many cases actually filling out the blanks for them.
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Why this act for me may have took a good pot of a day a half a day.
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It was a it was an act insofar as a white public was concerned who were in process of
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registering it took on a pot of 15 or 20 minutes with all kinds of assistance.
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Now if you multiply if this was difficult for me. At that
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level with it with a degree of education which I had at that time
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can you can conceive of how difficult it would be for the man who has only a fifth grade education.
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And who is not knowledge about knowledgeable about what his rights are
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in the in there in this kind of kind of situation. This
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explains more than anything else I think why you have only
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about say a million and a half probably of maybe 2 million negroes voting.
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Actually you get to devolve into each day at the present time.
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Perhaps we might extend this statement by Dr. Long. As you look over
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our wealth of materials on this entire matter of intimidation what seems to be
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appropriate to you as something to add in order to piece out again in detail
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and vividly and concretely the story of intimidation in regard to the negro
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voting in the south.
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I think perhaps the story of Gus courts as vividly a lost art of intimidation in
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connection with voting is anything we have. Let me explain this much. In the spring of
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1956 the National Leadership Council on civil rights was told
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about what had been happening to one negro citizen in the state of Mississippi. A man named Gus
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Cortes in connection with his efforts to vote Cortes lives in a county in Mississippi in which
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there are about 17000 negroes and less than half that number of whites.
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Courts assume the role of leadership in the effort to have negroes vote in his county when he
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himself first attempted to vote no negroes were registered to vote and courts tried to
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register in 1953. I think at this point we might let him and his
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questioner at the council in 1956 take up the tale.
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Well A. We we started nineteen
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hundred in 53. We went to the sheriff's
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office.
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And try to pay our pool tags which we were a few. Out of
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we would if you. Few of us got together. And
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got up about three reels about three hundred dollars. And
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had to navigate is brought against the ship and head and behold the level of grandeur.
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To make him caused him to open the book.
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Another way to live as pay poll tax.
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And upholds myself. And revel in the joy
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double E was one of the leaders and several others. Was
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some inch. Hole that grand too.
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And the shed goes up and makes his apology. That he would if they
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didn't indict him he would go back and open the book. And let us pay poll
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tax. And also let. See that the
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negroes that would reduce how many of you paid the poll.
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Well when they open up the gun when we got the books opened up about
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400 we've succeeded in getting about 400 negroes and up
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to now to pay that poll tax.
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For a hundred who paid their poll tax.