Speech #890039958

I hope that the New York State Legislature will deal with this matter in a more flexible way and more desirably. but we will move in the Senate as wellas I have already pledged in a statement which is on file in the Senatein the absence of effective action on the part of New York State. I have completely gone along with the Senator in this matter. It is only fair to say that it cannot be a red herring across the trail of what we are trying to do. because the courts have held. for instance. in the Comacho case. that it is reasonable to have a literacy test requiring ability to read and write in English. which can be satisfied by an eighth grade education. which is the New York law. So long as such a fact is fairly applied without discrimination. as it is in New York. there is nothing in the Constitution against it. hence. the thrust of the bill is not directed against it. We could not pass the bill if literacy tests of reasonable and modest character were being administered in Louisiana. or in other States similarly affected by this bill. in a nondiscriminatory way. We might inveighas the Senator hasagainst the fact that persons should be able to qualify in Spanish. or in Tagalog. or in some other language. if it were germane to the situation. as in the case of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. But that should not divert us from the fundamental reason to enact the bill. which is that the tests in many places have either been such as to involve such discretion on the part of the registrar as to make him a czar as to whether a person could vote. or they have been discriminatorily applied.