STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES ASHMAN, DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC

Dr. ASHMAN. Thank you, Senator.

I only wish that our academic training were not in the libraries of the university but more the Army manuals, so that the press would have been more this afternoon, because we have something to say.

On behalf of the University of the Pacific and the public affairs institute of the university, I want to thank you for the opportunity afforded the academic community in participating in these hearings. I would particularly like to note the university's permitting a student, Dennis Warren, to appear. I think, frankly, both your colleagues in the Senate and the House have been in error in not calling more on the young people who live where the action is and tell it the way it is, and who are so much concerned.

I think we are wrong, in not bringing them here to tell their views, for they are expressing concern, for they are reaching out. I recall particularly the draft card hearings which, unfortunately, did not have any students participating.

I think the views expressed today by Dr. Shao and Dennis Warren, have submitted or will submit statements that will present the prevailing opinion of both the students and the academic community. I further suggest the opportunity you have made available for student participation can be a tremendous factor in the elimination of the frustration and unrest that permeates their generation.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, we have established at the university. the public affairs institute. Its concept is to bring about a closer working relationship between the academic community, the community-at-large, and you and nine of your colleagues of the U.S. Senate have either visited or will visit our campus, not to speak, but to meet and to discuss.

One of the previous witnesses today, Mr. Sorensen, has been invited to participate, and several others. We think it is an important program.

I must admit that the most significant visit to the institute this year was yours in December when you discussed with residents from throughout northern California and our university community the matters pending or that will be pending before your committee.

The results of your visit are a tribute to the energy, the initiative, the workmanship, the talents of the young people, for there is today a nationwide organization which is called LUV, which stands for Let Us Vote. Mr. Warren is the national chairman; I have the honor of serving as adviser to it.

In 3 weeks it has reached and is now active in 300 colleges and universities, 3,000 high schools. It has been formally endorsed by the National Education Association which represents 1,300,000 teachers. Immediately after this hearing we will meet with representatives of the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the Young Democrats, the Young Republicans, and the YMCA, who have formed a coalition to work toward a lowering of the voting age.

Incidental to their concern for lowering the voting age, LUV has as a secondary, but certainly equal stature, concern over the equity of the present electoral college system.

We believe that the elimination of the inequities in our present political system by an expansion of the franchise to 18-year-olds, which I hope and believe this committee will at some later date have under study, and by the return to the people of the right to pick their President and Vice President, that a large step toward the elimination of the frustration of youth which is causing problems throughout the country can be taken.

We have called upon a distinguished international scholar whom we are fortunate to have on our faculty, Dr. Shao, who holds his Ph. D. in political science and, in addition to teaching political science throughout the United States, has worked in international education, setting up study programs in Taiwan, France, and England, and has published innumerable articles on the powers of the Presidency.

At this time what I would like to do is call upon, first, Dr. Shao, to summarize his statement, and then Mr. Warren his, and then we will be very happy to answer any questions your committee may have. Senator BAYH. Thank you very much, Dr. Ashman. Dr. Shao, we are indeed fortunate to have you testify. I am anxious to see where your testimony will lead.

Off the record.

(Whereupon, there was a short discussion off the record.) Senator BAYH. Please proceed, Dr. Shao.

STATEMENT OF DR. OTIS H. SHAO, DEAN, GRADUATE SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC

Dr. SHAO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator Thurmond.

Surely, I need not now review the historical reasons and purposes of the establishment of the electoral college by our Founding Fathers, nor need I present a careful analysis of its contemporary manifestations; such summaries and arguments are well-known and available to you.

But I should like to state that a direct popular election of the President is the natural way for a democratic society. Accordingly, I support the proposal that the electoral college be abolished. Such a motion calls forth many arguments that are based on practical consideration. Yet as practical men, gentlemen, you regularly develop plausible solutions to demanding problems.

Speaking as a citizen, as well as a political scientist and an educator, I do ask you to tackle the practical problems of this desirable constitutional amendment. Such action would demonstrate the forward-looking attitude of our governing bodies both to the world at large and also to our citizens at home. Among these citizens at home, I may be thinking especially of our new maturing generation of youths and to the challenge of nurturing their vision and faith in the greatness of America.

As a political scientist, I am not sure what the outcome of such idealism would be for each of you: it might mean problems for the Repub

lican Party as well as for the Democratic Party. It could produce a more powerful two-party South and a possible realinement of the urban-rural balance of power in our political system.

But the current cost of the legal distortion of the popular vote for President includes the continued and deepening alienation of the generation now poised and ready to enter the political arena. American youth once believed in the songs and poetry and folklore of this culture; but now many thoughtful ones are probing and prying and exposing what they call sham in many areas of our common life. While I would not counsel making the world wholly over into their wishful vision, it seems to me that in this matter of the distortions caused by the electoral college, they have a sound case, and we have a task cut out for us, to explain, to justify, or to amend it.

Frankly, gentlemen, I am asking you to face the responsibility for correcting a situation which many people have termed as inappropriate. While much of the alienation of our young people may be of their own making, those of us who explain the ways of our Government to oncoming generations of students and voters find that we become artful dodgers as we attempt to justify the electoral college.

There are many things a political science professor must teach and help the students discover for themselves; students do learn to appreciate the complexities of big government, of political parties, of patronage and the informal rules of the game. So I am not asking you to simplify the system in order to make a profesor's task easier; I am urging you, though, to rid us of this distortion of popular sovereignty. Things have changed since we studied the theory of government. We knew no alternative, but to let our idealism, our rational understanding of "what ought to be" wither in the face of the onslaught of reality. But young people now belong to a generation which is convinced that they can do what they believe is right. They think of themselves as creative participants. They regard your perception of reality as the result of bowing prematurely to interests which they are convinced could have been transcended. So I urge you now to have the courage to serve this goal; namely, direct popular election of the President without regard to State lines. I further urge you to shun such misguided variations as a district system or a proportional device.

It might be argued that those of us who oppose the electoral college are really Whigs at heart; for the electoral college has operated to give the Presidency a different base from the constituency of the legislative branch.

To remove the distortions of the popular vote for the Presidency, and to bring the Constitution into line with the beliefs of the electorate concerning the value of each man's vote, however, would work to strengthen the legitimacy of the American Presidential office.

In response to the understandable reluctance of those who argue that the existing distortions serve the cause of social justice and that the current system enables smaller masses of people to strike bargains that can unshackle their oppressions, Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., argues:

If the President is to be the man of the people, if all the people are to stand on the same footing, equal masses of people must be given equal votes, equal

bargaining power. Their weight in the electoral count must be proportional to their numbers and not to the rightness or wrongness of their causes.1

Prof. Louis W. Koenig says:

The pretensions of distinguishing good groups from bad and of assigning greater electoral weight to the former than to the latter cannot be justified in democratic theory nor can it long be asserted satisfactorily in practice.'

Professors Polsby and Wildavsky, moreover, give their views as follows:

Now that the method of determining the composition of Congress is undergoing change, we can consider abolishing the Electoral College and turn to majority (or plurality) voting in electing Presidents. Other things being equal, a simpler and more direct method is preferable to the device that has outlived its usefulness.2

On this issue of abolishing the electoral college, we then have an interesting case: Can we rid ourselves of a mystification, a distortion, and, above all, an anachronism? In response to the objections that it cannot be accomplished, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, appropriately has observed, "faint heart never won fair lady."

As a citizen, a political scientist, and an educator, I therefore urge the abolition of the electoral college. As an electoral device, it has become obsolete. Furthermore, it is destructive of the tenets of popular democracy. To insure the rights of all eligible Americans-young and old, majority and minority groups, urban and rural residents-to have their voting wishes count, we need a direct election of the man who will hold the highest office in the land.

Dr. ASHMAN. Senator, the young man who is with us in this joint participation by the Public Affairs Institute, which is an outgrowth of several months of study and conversations and meetings with gentlemen like yourself, it is most appropriate that he be given an opportunity to appear.

He has a unique experience; that is, he is undergoing a unique experience. He has, as a result of the tremendous growth of the LUV campaign, been given the forum. We, fortunately, although I share Mr. Bailey's concern with the press, but on another item, and we are not being denied that forum with respect to the LUV campaign.

If the figures that the various networks use to describe their listening audiences are accurate, in this week alone he will have reached 93 million Americans as a result of combined appearances on the "Today Show" and comparable shows on the other networks.

With respect to the press, and by way of introduction to Dennis Warren, who is a former national debate and national oratorical champ, Dennis is an honor student at the University of the Pacific. He was 20 years old on December 20, when the campaign began. He has since ascended to the magical number of 21, so that by roundtable standards, he is strong enough to wear the armor and get the vote. Dennis, in addition to his academic work, has been a student leader in the university. He has had an opportunity to travel the United States the past several weekends, fortunately with minimum inter

1 Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., "The Electoral College," p. 89.

2 Louis W. Koening, "The Chief Executive." p. 57.

2 Nelson W. Polsby and Aaron B. Widavsky, "Presidential Elections: Strategies of American Electoral Politics," second edition, p. 250.

ference to his studies, and has met with student leaders as well as adult groups, on matters concerning the young people.

In a final word of introduction, I would join Mr. Bailey again in criticizing the press, but for this reason: I genuinely believe that if the frames of television, the inches of newspaper, and the minutes of radio were more devoted to the numerous constructive efforts of young people than to the isolated instances of irresponsibility that just fill our papers and screens every day, that their long, hard fight, your long, hard fight, to eliminate the electoral college and to lower the voting age would be an easier one, because their image would be different: I respectfully suggest to you today that a young man like Mr. Warren, who gives of himself and of his time for something he believes in peacefully and responsibly is the young man of today, and to those who charge that everybody who is young is a pot-smoking, hubcapstealing, irresponsible galoot, I suggest that there are responsible youngsters. But for everybody under 21 who steals a hubcap, I know, I am sure we know, people over 21 who will steal an entire car.

Mr. Warren will read a synopsis of his statement and then we will be glad to answer any questions.

Senator BAYH. Mr. Warren.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS WARREN, NATIONAL CHAIRMAN, LUV

Mr. WARREN. Senator Bayh and Senator Thurman, I am sure it is unnecessary to relate the pattern of recent events that have demonstrated to this Nation and the world the frustration, concern, and confusion that has become rampant among our youth and jeopardizes all efforts to narrow the communication gap that exists between young adults and their predecessors. I think it sufficient to say that the President and others have found it necessary to note that we are more advanced in our scientific endeavors than in our development of spirit; closer to the moon than to moral rapport on earth.

Psychologists, sociologists, educators, and political leaders agree that young adults today are confused by the values offered to them by the older generation. They are impatient and intolerant of being labeled as going through "preparation for life" for they are living; because they argue they are dying in the uniform of their country; they are marrying; they are paying taxes; they are becoming the most highly educated and best-trained generation this Nation has ever known; they are getting involved in a variety of government and private projects in every facet of industry and throughout the world and they are genuinely concerned with social and moral values.

Despite all of the things they are doing, gentlemen, it is still necessary for them to continually say, and occasionally shout, either vocally by dress or by action-"Listen to me, I have something to say.

care."

My generation is as concerned as any previous one with learning the tools of a trade, preparing to make a successful living, and insuring economic survival, but as a result of better education, travel, scientific advances, and rapid communication, we are asking poignant and piercing questions that must be answered, and they must be answered

now.