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ee oe Moreover, “since the constitutional command is without restriction or ~ . ae limitation, the right, unlike those guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fif- teenth Amendments, is secured aqainst the action of individuals as _we 1_as of states.“ Ib. at 315 Mx. Justice Stone, for the Court, spelled out the rationale: "The right to participate in the choice of representatives for Congress . . . is protected just as the right to vote at the election, where the primary is by law made an in- tegral part of the election machinery. . . . Unless the constitutional protection of the integrity of ‘elections’ extends to primary elections, Congress is left powerless to effect the constitutional purpose. . ." 313 U.S. at 318, 319. The innumerable cases in this Circuit involving civil rights speak eloquently against the use of economic coercion, intimidation, and violence to inhibit Negroes from applying for registration. This inter- ference with nationally guaranteed rights, whether by public officials ox private persons corrupts the purity of the political process on which the existence and health of the National Government depend. No one has expressed this better than Judge Rivas in United States v. Wood, 5 Cir. 1961, 295 F.2d 772; cert. denied 369 U. 5. asola962)~ In Wood the inter- ; organizer ference was in the form of. groundless prosecution of a Negro/who had set up a registration school in Walthall County, Mississippi, where no Negroes had ever registered. He was not even qualified to vote in the county where the intimidatory acts occurred; he was a resident of another county. In reversing the district judge's refusal to stay the state prosecution, the Fifth Circuit noted that the alleged coercion was of the kind the 3957 Act was intended to reach.. Judge Rives, for the Court, said: "Th: foundation of our form of government is the consent of che governed. Whenever any person interferes with the yigat of any other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, he acts like a political termite to destroy a part of that foundation, A single termite or many termites may pass unnoticed, but each damages the foundation, and if that process is allowed to continue the whole structure may crumble and fall even before the occupants become aware of their peril. zrzdication of political termites, or at least checking their activities, is necessary to prevent irreparable damage to our Government.”