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I submit to you that these people are
capable and experienced and in today's
society they are qualified to vote.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rybczyn-
ski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: I call on
Delegate Soul to speak up to three minutes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Soul.
DELEGATE SOUL: Mr. Chairman and
fellow delegates, I rise to speak in favor
of the Minority Report, not for three min-
utes but just simply to mention the fact
that I read that the greatest factor that
lead Mussolini, Hitler, and Lenin to ride to
power was their success in capturing and
misusing' the youth of their countries.
I feel that this honorable body should not
allow our youth to be used by any particu-
lar group. Therefore I think we should con-
tinue our voting1 age at 21.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Koss.
DELEGATE KOSS: I yield three min-
utes to Delegate Fornos.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Fornos.
DELEGATE FORNOS: Mr. Chairman
and fellow delegates, it shocks me some-
what when I hear a member of our judicial
courts refer to the young- men over eight-
een in this State as children, and I am the
first one to agree with those who say that
the argument "old enough to fight — old
enough to vote" should be disassociated
from the argument which centers around
the lowering- of the voting- age.
I only hope that the five thousand young
men who have died who were under twenty-
one years of age did not die as children
but as defenders of democracy.
I am also shocked when some of the
proponents of the twenty-one-year-old pro-
posal talk about the lack of willingness to
accept responsibility, when seventy per-
cent of the registered voters of this State
refused to accept the responsibility to vote
in the most important election of their
lifetime last June 13.
I think that with the advent of the mass
media, with the ever-increasing number of
newspapers, and with the rapid communi-
cation of news, our young people today are
more aware of what is going on in the
world and are better educated than ever.
In 1867 the average education of the
citizens of this State was 2.1 years; today
as of June 30, 19G7 the average education
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is 11.4 years. Our young people, I submit
to you, have a greater sense of responsi-
bility, and a greater willingness to accept
that responsibility.
Certainly I think they would be just as
active at the polls as those sixty percent
of the eligible adults in the State who have
exercised that right. I furthermore submit
that the young' people giving their lives
should have the right of shaping their
destiny with respect to the government of
this state.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man, I call on Delegate Finch for up to
five minutes.
DELEGATE FINCH: Mr. Chairman
and Members of the Committee, I rise to
oppose the recommendation that the voting
ag-e be reduced to nineteen years, and urge
that the minimum voting age be main-
tained at twenty-one years of age.
In stating this belief, it becomes obvious
that I am opposed to giving the franchise,
the right to vote, to teenagers or those
under twenty-one. Therefore, from the
outset, and to avoid misunderstanding, I
would like to point out and, indeed, stress,
that my views on the voting age do not
reflect any feeling on my part of disrespect
or distrust of today's teenagers. On the
contrary, I look to the youth of today, to
their increased concern and participation
in many aspects of local and national af-
fairs, with great confidence and much en-
thusiasm. I feel that our youth, today, is,
predominantly, capable and conscientious,
and that tomorrow we will have an abun-
dance of distinguished leaders and re-
sponsible citizens.
My opposition to lowering the voting age
is not, then, based on any distrust of to-
day's youth because they are today's youth;
it is based on what I consider the inad-
visibility of giving- the vote to any group
of eighteen-, nineteen- or twenty-year-old
boys and girls, be they the youth of our
generation, the young people of today, or
the younger generation of future times.
The reason is basically this: youth repre-
sents promise and potential. It does not,
nor cannot represent experience and wis-
dom. When we are eighteen or nineteen, or
twenty, we are, to a great extent, educated
and learned in book knowledge, and we
have been exposed to a vast cross-section
of ideas and theories as presented or af-
forded us in our high school classes. At
this age, we may be well-read and, most
certainly, we are well-intentioned. We are
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