In 1904 the Democratic legislature passed two new measures to disenfranchise the black
population. The first was a statute removing all political designations from the ballot in those
counties that had large black populations or regularly voted for the Republican Party.
Republicans responded with further intensive educational campaigns to recognize the names of
individual candidates, and the next decade saw a great deal of tricky maneuvering as Democrats
sought to confuse the ballot by slates of candidates for trumped up parties with names similar to
republican candidates. The second measure was a proposed constitutional amendment drafted by
Dean John Prentiss Poe. The Poe Amendment required a literacy test of all voters, but a
"grandfather" clause would permit voting by anyone who voted or who had an ancestor eligible
to vote prior to 1870 (when the fifteenth amendment was adopted).89

Led by a coalition of lawyers and ministers, the black community responded to these
threats in a variety of ways. For example, at the call of W.E.B. DuBois, Ashbie Hawkins and
Reverend Harvey Johnson attended the Niagara Conference which led to the founding of the
NAACP. (Hawkins later became president of the local branch and was the editor of its local
journal The Lancet.) Hawkins and Cummings joined with Reverend Johnson and other ministers
in establishing the Maryland Suffrage League to mobilize black opposition to the Poe
Amendment.90 The League received secret support from Booker T. Washington, who feared
exposure would weaken his political effectiveness. As Cummings wrote Washington, "I shall
guard with the greatest precaution your suggestion that no reference be made to you in the
communications." In the white community, republicans and new immigrants joined together
against the proposed law, and the combined efforts of blacks, republicans and immigrants
succeeded in defeating the amendment in 1905.91

hi 1908 Isaac Lobe Straus proposed another constitutional amendment aimed at
disenfranchising black voters.92 Even the Republican Party supported segregation. Harry Sythe
Cummings, who had delivered a speech seconding the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt at the
Republican convention in Chicago in 1904 and who had been elected once more to the city
council in 1907, was forced to sit in a segregated balcony at a Republican party reception held for
Charles Evans Hughes in 1908.93

Once more Cummings, Hawkins and others organized to defeat the disenfranchisement
movement. Again Cummings appealed to Washington for support. "I know what you did in our
last fight and it was confidential. Can you in any way help us in this struggle? Whatever you do
will be as you know 'within the Lodge.'" The combined forces of suspicious immigrants, black
voters and white republicans managed once more to repel the disenfranchisement measure.94

On a local level, the city of Annapolis enacted a version of the rejected Straus amendment
to govern voting for city offices. This was struck down in Mvers v. Anderson. 238 U.S. 368
(1915), when black plaintiffs John Anderson, William Howard and Robert Brown were awarded
damages for the refusal of the registrars to allow them to vote. Although the case was presented
by white attorneys, Howard was a lawyer himself and probably aided in the preparation of the
case.95

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