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Several thousand, such as 28,000 people
in one community could really do a lot of
damage there; let us face it. A local group
of people can be completely out-voted and
out-weighed by several thousand people
freshly put on the rolls who are there to
go to school, who can register under this
three-month provision that we will adopt
now, I am sure, and who can actually de-
termine an election in a college area.
Incidentally, this reminds me of our dis-
cussions back in Goucher College. Not all
of you were in the room at the time, so I
will repeat the story.
When I heard about this proposal for
the first time of lowering the voting age.
and talking about the various reasons for
doing that, and talking about reducing
residency requirements and all the other
things, I then asked the panel up at Goucher
if it were not possible that a group of
college students, just on a whimsy, let
us face it, could take over a college town
or a college county, and it evoked a loud
laughter, and the various professors who
were there ridiculed the question.
However, when we got to the last man
on the panel, who happened to be the presi-
dent of the National Students' Association.
He gave us a very interesting answer, and
I want to tell you part of it. He said that
he was aware of a movement in California
to get a group of students to move to
Oklahoma, where the population is very
small, to make an attempt to take over
the state legislature in that state, just for
kicks.
So this is not something that is just
fantasy. We are talking about a true pos-
sibility. After all, kids these days have
money. A lot of them in school have a lot
more spending money than I have, that is
for sure. So if they decide to do a lot of
damage, they can do it. I see I made an
error when I talked about 125 people who
might register. Of course I meant 125,000,
as Madam Chairman said.
Now, what are we going to do with this
figure of 16, 18, 19 or 20? Is it just going
to be a question of letting them vote and
then say this is going to be your full par-
ticipation in government, or are we going
to go back to the legislative section now
and say, all right, they can vote, so now
we will drop the age of legislators. Is any-
one prepared to do that? Is there anyone
who is prepared to say, yes, I want sixteen
and eighteen-year-olds to sit in my legisla-
ture and spend over $1 billion a year?
Another thing which we think you should
not overlook by any means is that in most
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states, not in all states, but in most states,
the voting age is equated with the age of
majority.
You must again wonder in your own
mind as you vote on this question, that is,
if this tiny majority has left any room in
which to think about what is going to hap-
pen to the age of twenty-one as it repre-
sents the age of majority in this State.
Are you prepared to drop the age for
drinking alcoholic beverages? Are you pre-
pared to allow eighteen-year-olds to enter
into contracts for automobiles? Are you
prepared to have eighteen-year-olds making applications for small loans, $3,000 or
$4,000, to $9,000, then having to answer for
those loans for the rest of their lives?
Are you prepared to subject the legisla-
ture of this State to the tremendous pres-
sures that will immediately follow on the
heels of a decision here to reduce the age
in every commercial field immediately from
twenty-one to the age which you set, wheth-
er it be sixteen, eighteen, or nineteen?
Are you prepared to allow young mar-
ried couples at the age of sixteen or eight-
een to sign thir ty -year mortgages for
$20,000 or $22,000 ' in the purchase of
houses?
These are all things that are directly
connected, not indirectly. They are going
to follow just as sure as day follows night
and night follows day. These things will
follow immediately, not ten years or twenty
years hence, but immediately.
At this time even though we allow six-
teen-year-olds to drive an automobile, is it
not true that sitting in the financial seat is
the parent? We are all aware of this, are
we not? Many of us are aware of the fact
that most insurance companies will not
take a driver under twenty-five without a
parent being also responsible under the
same policy.
So we are talking about a very serious
problem. This is not a problem being de-
bated in the vacuum that some of us might
like to believe that it is. This is a matter
directly intertwined with practically every
facet of our legal lives.
Another factor which you cannot over-
look, we believe, is that at the time that
the age of twenty-one years was estab-
lished, the number of years, or the antici-
pated length of a life was only about one-
half of what it is today. So that when the
age of twenty-one was established, the
average person lived to thirty-eight or
thirty-nine or forty. He got an opportunity
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