GERRYMANDER, ger'i-man-ckr (hard g: now chiefly used as a verb), the arranging of election districts by the party in power in a State when passing a redistribution act so as to concentrate its opponent's majorities and dis tribute its own, thus giving itself as many with light majorities and its rival as few with heavy ones as possible. Many States are to some ex tent gerrymandered by nature, the heaviest vote of one party being compacted into a minor sec tion: Indiana and New York are notable cases — the one on account of the southern agricul tural population having been kept from expan sion by more energetic streams of a different character, the other from the development of a vast city at political odds with the rural parts. Law usually and fairness necessarily provide that the State shall be districted in solid blocks of contiguous territory, so that (subject to the above limitation) the district elections shall correspond roughly to the popular majorities in the State. But since early in the century, allparties in turn have violated political equity by establishing artificial gerrymanders when in power; sometimes creating a popular revolt which has cost them the object of the scheme, but the rival party has rarely learned wisdom from that result, usually reversing the gerrymander for its own profit. As counties are fair models of what election districts should be, the gerrymander is generally worked by dis regarding them; but the following illustration of its working with them is the simplest form. Suppose nine counties casting 10,000 votes each, the whole lying in a block thus arranged, and the votes divided between party A and party B as indicated within: Now let one dis trict be formed from the diagonal counties 1, 5 and 9, and three others, respectively, from 2 and 4, 3 and 6, and 7 and 8. Party A has 52,000 against B's 48,000 altogether or a popular major ity of 4,000; but it only carries one district out of foul' because the gerrymander has made it waste most of its votes and its rival wastes almost none. Yet the law
has been observed, as all the counties in each district are contiguous. Of course, in practice such perfect cases do not occur, and towns or counties are grouped raggedly in forms often grotesque. As a political expedient it dates from 1709, when a combination of Pennsyl vania's counties sought to deprive Philadelphia of its proper representation.
The origin of the name was probably from the following early case. Massachusetts, in 1812, had its senatorial districts identical with the counties; the State constitution gave the legislature the power of redistricting, however, and the Republicans (corresponding to the Democrats of to-day), carrying the legislature in that year over the Federalists, at once gerry mandered it in a very outrageous fashion. The Boston Sentinel published a colored map of one district in Essex County, whose sprawling towns with a huge prong to the northwest seemed like some monstrous animal of fable; and on an indignant Federalist saying that it °looked like a salamander,* another retorted, Better call it Gerrymander," from the Re publican governor, Elbridge Gerry (q.v.), whose signature had made it law. Gilbert Stuart (q.v.), the artist, drew a completion of it into an ungainly bird, which figured largely as a campaign document. The Federalists re captured the legislature the next year and re pealed the bill. The most famous of many great gerrymanders in the United States is the "Shoestring District* (Sixth Congressional) of Mississippi, formed to minimize the negro vote, and consisting of all the counties in the State touching the Mississippi River; it is about 300 miles long by an average of 20 broad. (See APPOINTMENT). Consult Griffith, E. C., 'Rise of the Gerrymander) (Chicago 1907) ; and article by Dean in the 'New England Historical and Genealogical Register) (Vol." XLV, Boston 1892).