Speech #870187780

For example. there are printed in English on the ballot synopses of proposed constitutional amendments. titles of the offices to be filled and directives as to the use of the paper ballot or the voting machine. The New York Herald Tribune. in its issue of October 26. 1961. featured an editorial heralding the decision. Entitled "A Fair Requirement for Voters." it goes so pointedly to the heart of the issue under debate that I wish to read it to the Senate: In upholding New York States requirement that literacy tests for voting be taken in English. a threejudge Federal court showed good sense. Proof of literacy is certainly a fair requirement for voting. The electorate is illinformed enough as it is. without opening the polls indiscriminately to those who cant even read and write. And if the point of a literacy test is to establish some minimum standard of competence to pass on community affairs. there is nothing arbitrary or capricious in requiring literacy in the language of the community. The case before the court was brought by Jose Camacho. a Puerto Ricanborn Bronx grocer who argued that he should be allowed to take the test in Spanish. It had a good deal of potential significance for the Puerto Rican community here.