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and criminals. Let me ask you to seriously
consider if, for all practical purposes, age
really is the only test? Should we not
really consider that matter dispassionately
and with reason?
I am greatly concerned that lowering
the voting age will lead to a serious, and I
submit successful, attempt to lower the
age of majority for drinking alcoholic bev-
erages. It will also lead to a reduction of
the age when young, immature adults will
be liable for contracts and mortgages.
Lowering the voting age will lead to a
reduction of the age of consent for mar-
riage.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Johnson.
Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: May 1 allot
him more time ?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: The reduction
in the voting- age will automatically call
for a reduction in the age for a member
of the House of Delegates, since this has
historically been set at the minimum vot-
ing age.
Have not experience and reason taught
us not to lower the age? A relatively un-
known delegate to the United States Con-
stitutional Convention by the name of
Butler, I believe, stated that experience
must be our only guide for reason may
mislead us.
1 urge you not to open this Pandora's
box, and I urge you to vote for this
amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Ross.
DELEGATE KOSS: Mr. Chairman, I
yield 3 minutes of my time to Delegate
Gullett.
DELEGATE GULLETT: Mr. Chairman,
we are going to hear a lot about all the
various reasons pro and con concerning
the voting age. We are going to proceed
to make a complicated matter out of what
is probably the simplest issue we have had
before us yet.
We can, if we look, find the answer in
both the majority and minority reports.
The majority say the criterion is the
combination of education and experience.
The minority say that the right should be
granted when the fundamental precepts
are met and they mention the identical
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words "combination of education and ex-
perience".
This is going to have to be a matter of
pure value judgment on the part of each
and every delegate here. Each of us must
use the sum total of his individual ex-
perience and of the experience of those
whose opinions are valued to justify the
age at which the voting franchise should
be authorized.
In my home town we probably have a
larger percentage of nineteen- and twenty-
year-olds than any other community in
Maryland. In fact, the present ratio is
about 24,000 college students to 25,000
residents.
My own experience comes with dealing
with a great many young people, students
and workers alike, on many levels of busi-
ness and social endeavor.
My considered judgment is that in fact
today's youth are eligible, they have that
proper sum of education, experience, and
social awareness, to be able properly to
exercise the franchise, which we should
properly grant to them.
There is often heard mention of student
takeover; of bloc voting- having some
drastic effect on election outcomes. I sup-
pose any politician would be glad to find a
bloc of innocents that he could mold to
suit his purposes but I suggest that this is
one egg the professional politician had
better not count on hatching- because you
will never form a bloc out of ninetcen-
and twenty-year-olds.
My experience, in fact, dictates just the
opposite. I know of no group who is less
likely to be molded into some type of
monolithic bloc, to be swayed one way or
another, than the nineteen- and twenty-
year-olds of this country. They are just
as individualistic as any other age group,
and probably even more so. On the cam-
pus of the University of Maryland we
have more movements than the Bulova
Watch Company but there is just as great
a divergence of opinion as anywhere. They
have political parties, active conventions,
Chesapeake Bay Party, Old Line Party,
Young Republicans, Young Democrats, and
dozens of other social movements.
I heard that only twenty percent of the
students participate in the student govern-
ment. This seems like a surprisingly large
number. These are students who are sup-
posed to be studying, and most of them
are. The twenty percent is a somewhat
larger turnout than the voter turnout for
the Constitutional Convention.
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