Mr.. Speaker. I feel that on Friday at the end of a long day of rollcalls .and debate. the House made a serious error in deciding to deny to New Yorks Puerto Rican population the same voting rights guarantees that it extended to southern Negroes. The socalled Gilbert amendment. exempting nativeborn American citizens educated in Puerto Ricos Spanishlanguage schools from literacy tests in English. was defeated by an extremely narrow margin. I was disturbed. Mr. Speaker. by the implication of that vote. It seemed to suggest an insensitivity on the Republican side of the aisle to the voting rights of a politically powerless minority group.
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literacy tests