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I and II, Lowlands of west Tennessee, I (of Tertiary and later age) being smoother, more productive, and more highly developed than II (of Cretaceous age); III and IV, western part of the Highland Rim, IV being rough hill country, III (the Clarksville region) less rough and especially productive of tobacco; V, the Nashville Basin or lowlands of middle Tennessee; VI, eastern part of Highland Rim and Cumberland Plateau; VII, Valley of East Tennessee; VIII, Older Appalachian Mountains. The counties containing the lowest percentages of improved land are indicated by circles.

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FIG. 10. DISTRIBUTION OF DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN VOTING STRENGTH IN TENNESSEE

Based on vote for governor in 1916

nessee (VII) is a continuation of the Valley of Virginia, part of the great trough that lies within the Appalachian mountain system. Along the Carolina border rise the great mountain masses of the harder, older Appalachian rock formations (VIII). At the west the Valley of East Tennessee is overtopped by the long ridge of Walden or Cumberland Mountain, in reality the margin of a plateau, the Cumberland Plateau (VI), that slopes away toward the Nashville Basin. This is the Tennessee equivalent of the "Mountains" of Kentucky, and is no less isolated and unproductive than the region to the north. On the west of the Nashville Basin is a similar, but lower highland, especially poor and rugged in its southern part (IV). The northern part lies better, is less dissected, and has a much more desirable soil (III). It constitutes a prosperous tobacco growing section, similar to the adjacent region in Kentucky. In economic value this area ranks immediately after the three lowland regions.

Tennessee politics are the combined result of productivity of the soil and of geographical position. The poor areas here as in the other states discussed in this paper are Republican. The rich areas are Democratic, except the Valley of East Tennessee. This is as desirable a farming area as is found in the state and is the oldest part of the state in point of development. Yet this area, older than any in the three states under discussion, is strongly Republican. It was occupied originally by small farmers, not slaveholders, who passed southward through this great structural valley, largely from the Scotch-Irish and German settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Small grains, hay, and corn remained the principal crops, and the institution of slavery never became profitable or popular with these people. Thus does the story of political faith in the border states go back even today to the causes of an institution that has disappeared two generations since. East Tennessee against the rest of the state has been the line-up in political frays almost since the state has been in existence.

The solid Republican eastern Tennessee is so situated that its gerrymandering is almost impossible, chiefly because of the attenuated form of the state. Here there are consequently two

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FIG. 12. GEOGRAPHIC REARRANGEMENT OF CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS IN TENNESSEE

regularly Republican congressional districts (fig. 11). The other eight districts, however, are Democratic. Again we find the most centrally located Democratic area used for the control of adjacent districts, in this case the Nashville Basin controlling the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th districts. The 4th district includes parts of four distinct geographic regions, ranging from Rhea County, in the East Tennessee Valley, to Sumner, on the tobacco growing uplands of the western Highland Rim. The minor Republican district of the Tennessee River hills is easily concealed in the 7th and 8th districts by the plausible device of employing the river as a boundary line. The result is quite as unfair to the sections involved as is the similar practice in Missouri.

East and middle Tennessee are easily rearranged on a geographic basis. The Valley of East Tennessee has a population equivalent to three congressional districts (fig. 12). The Nashville Basin accommodates two. The intervening Cumberland Plateau and Highland Rim, although of large area, is the equivalent of one district. The tobacco growing Highland Rim, northwest of Nashville, becomes a district by the addition of two counties west of the Tennessee. The good lowlands of west Tennessee form two districts. The remaining district would be constituted by the broken country of the southwestern Highland Rim and the inferior lowland area west of the Tennessee River. For equality of population two of the better counties of west Tennessee, Gibson and Weakley, are added. These last constitute the only serious departure from geographic unity. By this arrangement every geographic division of the state receives political expression. The result would be five certain Democratic districts, two in west Tennessee, two in the Nashville Basin, and the Clarksville portion of the Highland Rim. The three districts of east Tennessee would be Republican. The Cumberland Plateau district and the district (8) formed by the southwestern Highland Rim and the Cretaceous lowlands would be doubtful. The result would again express the relative strength of the two parties in the state.

DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
UNITED STATES ON CONSTITUTIONAL

QUESTIONS.1 II
1914-1917

THOMAS REED POWELL

Columbia University

II. POLICE POWER

The decisions of the Supreme Court during the October terms of 1914, 1915, and 1916, indicate on the whole a more tolerant attitude towards the judgment of state legislatures on questions of the police power than one would be apt to infer from the criticisms called forth by the few cases in which laws were declared invalid. The cases on these questions gave rise to more diversity of opinion among the judges than did those arising under the commerce clause. In most of the important cases there was dissent, and several were decided by a vote of five to four. Chief Justice White, and Justices Van Devanter and McReynolds were opposed to the Oregon ten-hour law, the Washington compensation law and the Washington employment agency law; while Justices Holmes, Brandeis and Clarke were in favor of all three. On certain crucial questions these six justices seem quite likely to counteract each other, and leave the balance of power with Justices McKenna, Day and Pitney. Justices Pitney and Day were in favor of the ten-hour law and the compensation law and opposed to the employment agency law. Mr. Justice McKenna was in favor of the ten-hour law and the employment agency law and opposed to the compensation law. In the Oregon Minimum Wage Case, the court was divided. four to four, Mr. Justice Brandeis not sitting. It is a natural inference from Mr. Justice Pitney's dissenting opinion in the

1 For the first installment of this article see the American Political Science Review for February, 1918, pp. 17-49.

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