Youth Movement

For a nation that has historically concerned itself with enlarging the electorate, the U.S. has always treated one large group of citizens with curious neglect. Over the years, five major groups have been added to the voting ranks: the landless (under the Constitution), Negroes (1870), women (1920), Washingtonians (1961) and refugees from the poll tax (1964). Yet America, a nation obsessed with youth, with nearly half its population under 25, does not let a citizen vote until he is 21.* An 18-year-old can be drafted, and he can be held fully responsible before the law, can even be given the death penalty in some states, but he cannot cast a ballot except in Kentucky and Georgia. An Alaskan can vote at 19, a Hawaiian at 20. Last week Lyndon Johnson moved to enfranchise all the 10 million Americans between 18 and 21.

The President's proposed 26th constitutional amendment is not a new notion. The idea first reached Capitol Hill in 1942, and Eisenhower lost a 1954 bid to lower the nation's voting age by a mere five votes. But the idea seems to be gaining favor. In recent years, polls have found that the majority of the population favors giving 18-year-olds the vote, and L.B.J.'s proposal joins more than 50 similar submissions that have been made to the 90th Congress. The opposition is typified by such stands as that of the New York Daily News, which facetiously urged that the voting age be raised to 30, or lowered to two. Johnson sees today's 18-year-olds "prepared by education, experience and exposure to public affairs." Letting them vote would be a signal "that they are trusted." This trust will have to permeate Congress and the legislatures of 38 states before the electorate gets its infusion of youth.

*By common law, 21 is the voting age in most of the English-speaking world. France also makes it 21, Japan and Germany 20, Russia and some Latin American nations 18, Norway and Sweden 23, and Denmark 25.

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