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DELEGATE PULLEN: If you will give
me a minute, please, Mr. Chairman, in all
seriousness, let us look at this matter of
suffrage.
In Maryland in 1800 Catholics could not
vote. Now, they vote, and I suspect there
are a few on this floor.
Women could not vote in 1800, could not
vote until 1918. Negroes could not vote in
many of the states. It does not make much
difference what reason you give for ex-
cluding people, they are excluded. I note
tonight the people who are speaking on
voting at a youthful age are young people.
Mr. Chairman, I have the greatest con-
fidence in them. In my experience I do not
fear them. I would give them adulthood at
eighteen. These people are far more, much
more, mature than they were in the earlier
days. I believe they are more interested
than almost any other group of citizens.
I think they can be trusted, sir, to take
care of their duties and responsibilities.
One of the mistakes we are making is
that we are treating them like children
when they are really adults. We criticize
them. We arrest them sometimes, not be-
cause of their acting unseemly, but merely
because they are acting unseemly before
the age we say they should act unseemly.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute, Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: I thought I was
going to get a minute, but that is all right.
Yesterday, Mr. Chairman, was the 191st
anniversary of the founding of Phi Beta
Kappa at the College of William and Mary.
According to my recollection, everyone of
those founders was a young man under the
age of twenty-one. Wisdom is genius and
youth. Let us give it a chance.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?
Delegate Weidemeyer.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Mr.
President, thirty-one years ago when I was
just a young lawyer at the bar, I met a
cousin one day downtown, and he said,
what are you doing. I said, well, I am
practicing law. He said, on whom.
(Laughter.)
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: I heard
one of the delegates say we should let them
vote at eighteen or nineteen so they would
have a couple of years of experience. I as-
sume that he meant, let them practice on
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us. I heard some of the politicians with
ambitions speak, and I know they are
gathering votes for the next campaign, and
I am reminded, "Gather your rosebuds
while ye may, o' time is still flying. That
same flower that blooms today, tomorrow
may be dying". Then I heard some of the
speakers expounding on this. They have
given me -words of wisdom, and I am re-
minded of another verse: "They wonder
and still the wonder grew that one small
head could carry all he knew".
But, Mr. President, it is a rather anoma-
lous situation when we here today take
those young ones who cannot carry their
own affairs and yet we want to let them
run ours.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?
Delegate Hostetter?
DELEGATE HOSTETTER: Mr. Presi-
dent, someone said please vote. We are
ready to do that, sir, but I raise a question
of particular inquiry, sir, with respect to
the pages. Two glasses of water or cups
of water have been brought to me tonight,
sir, and both of them have had the number
nineteen marked on them.
(Laughter.)
Are they paid or unpaid, sir?
(Laughter.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?
(Call for the question.)
Ring the quorum bell.
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment 1-A to Amendment No. 1 to
Committee Recommendation S&E-2. A vote
Aye is a vote in favor of the amendment
to the amendment, a vote in favor of sub-
stituting1 the age eighteen for the age
twenty-one in the amendment. A note No
is a vote against the amendment to the
amendment and will leave the age twenty-
one in the amendment. Later, you will have
the opportunity to vote on the substitution
of the amendment to the Committee Recom-
mendation. We are now voting on the
Amendment to set the voting age at eight-
een. A vote Aye is a vote in favor of the
amendment. A vote No is a vote against.
Cast your vote.
Has every delegate voted?
Does any delegate desire to change his
vote?
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