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I submit to you this is only ferment. This
is not the wine. This is only evidence of
immaturity in the political thinking of the
eighteen-, nineteen-, twenty-, and twenty-
one-year-olds. I think we should retain the
age of twenty-one years.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Ross.
DELEGATE ROSS: Mr. Chairman: I
yield three minutes to Delegate Byrnes.
DELEGATE BYRNES: Thank you,
Madam Koss.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to answer
Delegate Cardin, if I may. I suggest to
the Committee of the Whole, that at no
time did the Committee sug-gest that the
legal ag'e should be reduced but that inde-
pendent judgments should be made in each
one of these areas.
We said these are legislative concerns,
that we were down here discussing the vot-
ing age and not discussing tentative items
that Delegate Cardin was suggesting that
we consider. So that is why we rejected it.
We would also like to clear the record,
and suggest to you that the students found
on the campuses who said that there was
not a great deal of student participation
in these activities, made the point simply
because they did not consider student gov-
ernment to be a serious matter. But they
did certainly consider the government of
their state and county and their national
government to be a very serious matter,
and overwhelmingly, 300 to 1, they asked
us to give them the opportunity to partici-
pate in the government of their country.
Now, I suggest to you that the problem
with our political life today, I think, is that
it lacks idealism, it lacks, if you want to
call it, naivete of the people, purity of
their thoughts, absence of prejudice in their
views.
I think this is something we can all
well benefit by.
Many of us when we reach the age of
twenty-one begin to vote in the manner of
self interest; how does it affect my wallet,
and my bonds. To the extent that these
people in the nineteen to twenty-one-year-
old age group vote in a pure manner, I
think this would certainly be in the best
interests of our country and our state.
We have no evidence that these people
lack the responsibility that is necessary
to vote. Affirmatively we have found that
they do in fact possess it. The burden is on
those who would suggest that they cannot
participate in our government.
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I think the burden is on the former, and
they have not met it. Thank you, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: I call on
Delegate Johnson to speak for three min-
utes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Johnson.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman
and ladies and gentlemen of the Committee
of the Whole: I arrived at my position on
this matter by a relatively simple procedure,
but not without giving serious consideration
to both sides of the question.
I neither received a mandate from my
constituents nor did I harbor any pre-
Convention ideas on the subject matter. I
used a very easy procedure, one that I have
used in many matters that came before the
Committee of the Whole.
If our present Constitution contained an
unworkable provision and if the evidence
were clear and uncontradicted that a new
provision would be better, then I submit
that I am for the new provision.
But on the other hand, if the other
system works well without hardship, and a
proposed change may or may not be better,
then I submit that experience compels us
that there shall not be a change just
for the sake of change.
Many reasons have been given to change
our historic voting age requirement, but I
submit to you, has experience not taught
us to exercise restraint as the Committee
of the Whole did the other day on the lot-
tery question?
We cannot and we should not accept
every so-called popular theory that comes
along. In my opinion, and although I do
not advocate it, there is as much evidence
for increasing the voting age limit as de-
creasing- it, and twenty-one seems more
than a reasonable compromise. It is a
compromise because if there were advo-
cates for a higher voting age, the pro-
ponents of a lower voting age would be
more than satisfied to retain twenty-one
years of age as the voting- age.
I ask you to consider that after adult-
hood, any age is an arbitrary age. The
question is when does an individual be-
come a reasonably intelligent adult, at
least partially capable of exercising the
right of franchise ?
I am not suggesting that we use any
other test except in cases of incompetency
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