Texas: Difference between revisions

In 1901, the Democratic-dominated state legislature passed a bill requiring payment of a [[Poll tax (United States)|poll tax]] for voting, which effectively [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchised]] most Black and many poor White and [[Latinos|Latino]] people. In addition, the legislature established [[white primaries]], ensuring minorities were excluded from the formal political process. The number of voters dropped dramatically, and the Democrats crushed competition from the Republican and Populist parties.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=791091 |title=Nixon v. Condon. Disfranchisement of the Negro in Texas |journal=The Yale Law Journal |volume=41 |issue=8 |pages=1212–1221 |date=June 1932 |doi=10.2307/791091|issn=0044-0094 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/6_5_3.html |title=Texas Politics: Historical Barriers to Voting |publisher=University of Texas at Austin |date=2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080402060131/http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/vce/0503.html |archive-date=April 2, 2008}}</ref> The [[Socialist Party of Texas|Socialist Party]] became the second-largest party in Texas after 1912,<ref>{{cite Handbook of Texas |id=was01|title=Socialist Party|first=Barr|last=Alwyn|date=June 15, 2010}}</ref> coinciding with a large socialist upsurge in the United States during fierce battles in the labor movement and the popularity of national heroes like [[Eugene V. Debs]]. The socialists' popularity soon waned after their vilification by the federal government for their opposition to U.S. involvement in [[World War I]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=World War I and the Suppression of Dissent {{!}} Wendy McElroy|url=https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=1207|access-date=December 28, 2020|website=The Independent Institute}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title='War against war': Americans for peace in World War I – National Constitution Center|url=https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/war-against-war-americans-for-peace-in-world-war-i|access-date=December 28, 2020|website=National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org |quote=Morris Hillquit sought to keep alive the ties of his Socialist Party to its comrades abroad. Senator Robert La Follette filled many a speech with praise for progressives in other countries who shared his hatred for militarism. Henry Ford chartered an ocean liner to transport himself and dozens of other activists across the Atlantic, where they lobbied neutral governments to embrace a peace plan they would press on the warring powers. These Americans, like most critics of the war elsewhere in the world, wanted to create a new global order based on cooperative relationships between nation states and their gradual disarmament. Militarism, they argued, isolated peoples behind walls of mutual fear and loathing. Until April 1917, this formidable coalition of idealists—or realists—did much to keep the nation at peace. They may even have had a majority of Americans on their side until just weeks before Congress, at Wilson's behest, voted to declare war. To prevent that from happening, peace activists pressed for a national referendum on the question, confident that "the people" would recoil from fighting and paying the bills in order to help one group of European powers conquer another.}}</ref>