LOWERING THE MINIMUM VOTING AGE
polls. Twenty-one, said Mr. Truman,
is a better age for enfranchisement,
and 24 would be better still. . . ,"18
". . . The history of civilization
shows that society constantly tends to
become more and more complex.
Consequently the period for fully re-
sponsible citizenship has tended to be-
come longer. That is one of the
reasons why children remain in school
longer than did their parents and
grandparents. This proposal to lower
the voting age runs directly counter
to human experience. . . ,"19
"This [the proposed amendment
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granting the franchise to 18 year olds]
is a rather drastic extension of the
principle of 'equality or, to use the
contemporary jargon, another step
toward 'broadening the democratic
base' by removing more of those dis-
tinctions which, to an earlier genera-
tion, seemed to have been imposed
by nature itself. . . ."
"Another effect . . . would be to
accelerate the tendency toward gov-
ernment by executive innovation and
improvisation; for younger men and
women are by temperament more
easily persuaded that difficult prob-
lems can be solved by heroic reme-
dies. . . ."20
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B. Nearly all representative democracies have a minimum age requirement for
voting of at least 21 years.
". . . Many factors contributed to
the rise of the symplifying [sic] ty-
rants of our age, but the greatest
factor that enabled Lenin, Mussolini,
Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung to ride to
power was their success in capturing
and misusing the youth of their coun-
tries, especially among the student
groups whose book learning had not
yet been tempered by practical ex-
perience. It is significant that the
great majority of the democracies
have kept the voting age at 21 or
higher. . . ."21
"... Leaders of radical movements
understand that patience is not a par-
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ticular virtue of the young. Through-
out the ages, radicalism has had the
greatest appeal to the youth between
the ages of 18 and 21. So with the
communist movement today. In the
Middle East and in India and Pakis-
tan, and in Italy from where I have
just returned, the most intense and
concentrated action of the communist
movement has been in the universi-
ties where concentration is upon the
youth exactly between the ages of 18
and 21. Hitler and Mussolini under-
stood this: they advocated and ac-
complished the granting of the vote
to the eighteen-year-olds. . . ,"22
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C. The argument that "those old enough to fight are old enough to vote" is specious.
Physical maturity is quite different from political and social maturity.
". . . To my mind, the draft age
and the voting age are as different as
chalk is" from cheese. The thing called
18 Washington Post, Jan. 11, 1954, at 10,
col. 2 (editorial).
19 Statement of Dr. Alonzo F. Myers, Profes-
sor of Education, New York University, supra
Note 1 at 15.
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for in a soldier is uncritical obedience,
and that is not what you want in a
voter.
20 Washington Post, Jan. 11, 1954, at 10,
col. 2 (editorial).
21 N. Y. Times, Jan. 12, 1954, at 22, col. 3
(editorial).
22 Statement of Representative Emanuel
Celler, supra Note 1 at 15.
57
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