In the Spanish-American War of 1898, many Virginians fought valiantly for their country. The outstanding contributions of such Virginians as Dr. Walter Reed (birthplace, Gloucester County) and his colleague, Dr. Robert Powel Page Cooke, in discovering that yellow fever was transmitted to human beings by the bite of mosquitoes, Major-General Fitzhugh Lee (nephew of General Robert E. Lee) who served as United States Consul-General to Cuba in 1896 and who was given the command of the Seventh Army Corps in the Spanish-American War and Robley Dunglison Evans (Floyd) who was Commander of the U.S.S. Iowa at the Battle of Santiago Harbor helped considerably in the efforts of the United States to win this war. By 1900, although Virginia's population (both white and Negro) had increased at a rapid rate, Virginia ranked seventeenth in population in comparison to the other forty-four states in the Union. Virginia had approximately 1,854,000 people including approximately 661,000 Negroes. However, one-third of the area of the state--which had become West Virginia--was permanently separated. In addition, Kentucky had been carved from within the original boundaries of Virginia with the consent of the state government. _Twentieth Century Developments_ On June 12, 1901, a state constitutional convention was held in Richmond at the request of Carter Glass, an outstanding Virginia statesman from Lynchburg. The major issue of this convention was the discovery of a method of reducing the large number of illiterate Negro votes which in the 1900 election had outnumbered the white votes in one-third of the counties of the state. Since there was a large number of illiterate whites in the western mountain regions of Virginia, careful consideration had to be given to any proposed restrictions on suffrage so that these inhabitants whose ancestors had fought bravely in the Revolutionary War and in the War between the States would not be severely penalized. Consequently, the Constitution of 1902 included the requirement that a poll tax of one dollar and fifty cents had to be paid as a qualification for voting. Furthermore, a constitutional requirement demanded payment of three years' poll taxes six months before general elections. Since the Negroes were financially very poor at this time, this requirement indirectly caused a great decrease in the total number of Negro votes cast. This constitution also included an "understanding clause" provision which required voters to prove in written statements their understanding of the government of Virginia. This provision was to be replaced in 1904 by the requirement of each potential voter passing an intelligence test proving that he could properly interpret the constitution. Such provisions prevented many uneducated Negroes from participating in elections.