: i renchise millions. To overcome such shortcomings...the Presidential fe) ssion on Registration and Voting Participntion made a number of remedial recommendations. » «Two of the Commission's 21 recommendations raise a basic question about the purpose of the right to vote. One is the abolition of literacy tests; the other is to lower the voting age in all states to 18. B. Byrne eo(a) member of the President's Commission...eedissenting from the Commission's recommenda td.on: that literacy tests be abolished, gave his reason for dissenting: "Do you think it essential that the American voter be able to read the language in which our ballot is written?" he asked, "If you do, you'll probably differ with the Commission's recommendation. If you don't, how would you vote on the following proposition: 'Har-a-partiet, lovet mer enn det kan holde?! ‘This question in Norwegian is still Greek to me and means as much to me as American ballots do to every illiterate..!"
The journal's own ideas on this question are interesting: "Surveys reveal en appalling degree of economic illiteracy with respect to the functioning of the American free enterprise system, especially at high school and college levels, For example, only one student in three thinks that investment in factories and machinery makes a major contribution to economic growth. Many high school seniors think American business is monopoly-ridden, that profits are exorbitant. This kind of illiteracy among voters could well lead to destruction of our republic, of our liberties under representitive government. This perhaps why farsighted leaders in public and business life are exerting every effort to co-operate with educators in telling the story of miracles wrought by the American system. Robet C, Kirkwood, president of F.W. Woolworth Company, is one of these leaders. P
"Does it really matter that many of us don't understand or appreciate the private enterprise system?' he asks. Then answers 'Et most certainly does matter. Too few in this nation renlise that freedom, as we understand it today, is very much an ‘American invention'...Americans were the first people who wonamded the idea of revolution aimed at unseating a permanent and perpetuated upper class...."If we ‘wish to preserve freedom, the American invention, the responsibility must be in. the final analysis in the hands - even if they are overworked hands = of cur educutors,.'"
Today's Health has this to say about the power of states: "The power of the individual states to regulate the right of suffrage remains quite supreme and exclusive..e.All persons possessing the constitutional qualifications must be ’ officially registered on the voting lists where they reside...Disenfranchisement in 5 states results when it is found that the one who has come to register has not paid, or cannot pay, his poll tax, which varies...In some, its 50 cents, in others, one dollar; in still others, one dollar 50 cents. Failure to pass the literacy test also is reason for disenfanchisement." The article points out a a case where Congress tried to restrict the application of the poll tax (for members of the armed forces) - eventually the power of the states prevailed,