SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS
"To say that he who is old enough
to fight is old enough to vote is to
draw an utterly fallacious parallel.
No such parallel exists. The ability
to choose, to separate promise from
performance, to evaluate on the basis
of fact, are the prerequisites to good
voting. . . ,"23
". . . The qualities which, accord-
ing to the generals, make young men
under 21 desirable as soldiers — impres-
sionability, pliability, automatic re-
sponse to stimuli — are the very rea-
sons that should make them undesir-
able as voters. . . ."24
". . . Women don't do as much fight-
ing as men — at least in a military
way — yet American women have
equal voting rights with American
men. Nobody argues that, because
the women don't go to the wars as
plentifully as the men, the women
should not be allowed to vote.
"Nor have we ever heard it argued
that if you're too old to fight you're
too old to vote. . . ."15
". . . That they [the eighteen-year-
olds] can fight is a credit to their
physical maturity and their realiza-
tion of the duties and responsibilities
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of citizenship to protect, as their older
brothers, fathers, and ancestors have
protected, their country. . . . Intellec-
tual maturity is a more important
basis for democratic citizenship than
physical maturity is. The catalytic
action of physical maturity and duty
and responsibility to defend the coun-
try physically does not bring about
that intellectual maturity, nor the
feeling of responsibility not to com-
mit crimes, nor the political maturity
to vote."26
"The argument for lowering the
voting age to 18 is 90 percent emo-
tionalism and political opportunism.
I have found that most of the adults
with whom I have discussed this ques-
tion have been for it at first, but have
changed their minds after calm delib-
eration. Far better than lowering the
voting age in order to demonstrate to
youth how greatly we appreciate their
valiant and indispensable war-time
services, would be to provide through-
out this country true equality for all
our nation's youth. . . . Then our
youth could know that when they
reached the voting age they had been
given an education which qualified
them to take their proper place in the
world as citizens and individuals."27
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D. Lowering the voting age would confer political rights and responsibilities upon
minors—persons not generally considered to be sufficiently mature to be held
fully responsible legally for their actions.
"In most cases a person is not re-
sponsible for his contracts until he is
twenty-one. A parent is permitted to
take a tax deduction for his offspring
23 Statement of Representative Emanuel
Celler, supra Note 1 at 15.
24 Washington Post, Jan. 11, 1954, at 10,
col. 2 (editorial).
25 Washington Times-Herald, Aug. 13,
1943, at 6, col. 1 (editorial).
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until they reach twenty-one if he is
supporting them. The age at which
one has the right to marry without
parental consent, although varying in
20 100 gong. rec. App. 588 (1954) Jan.
27, 1954. Statement from a constituent, W. C.
B. Lambert, read by Senator J. William
Fulbright.
27 Dr. Alonzo F. Myers, Professor of Edu-
cation, New York Univ., supra Note 1, at 15.
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