The Apathetic Voter
McCarthy, Abigail
THE APATHETIC VOTER ABIGAIL MeCARTHY Before the national election he was the object of speculation and alarm. On election day itself commentators and reporters, encouraged by long lines at the...
...It is one of the recurring subjects in Bader's book...
...The labor movement is pressing for a universal voter-registration law...
...We see the expanding market for children's books, the growth of publishers devoted to children's literature, nineteenth-century illustration in its glory, the continuing conflict between the moralists and the story tellers...
...Commonweal welcomes letters on subjects treated in its pages...
...Al~nericou Cas~nnse Federation, Saint Mary's Abbey, k4orrlstowm, New Jersey 07~40...
...It's been too hard for r many too long, and the labor movement believes it's high time to erase the pointless laws that limit voter participation . . . . Our people will vote if it's made easier for them...
...Despite a handicap that only the author's peers will be alerted to, he has written an introductory volume at a level of exposition where he has few peers...
...One-room schools and small chapels m~d to bu constructed...
...Funds should be sent to: FL PAUL EWEtS, MISION COMBONIANA |ORION, CASILLA 6S...
...For bcm numbers add S0c per Imortio m Classified payable wltit order...
...O]ERARD S . SLOYAN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 AbigaU M~arrkg (Cent...
...Letters of not more than 250 or 300 words naturally have a better chance o/ being published...
...First month $300...
...Ilrown, Collins, MacKen,zie, Mowry, Pritchard...
...The emphasis on the apathetic voter before the election was not the result of the idle speculation of poIRical writers .looking for a new topic...
...Care to join...
...S4c, seven times...
...Why, for example, do fewer Hispanic, Irish and French Cathlic citizens vote than their proportion of the general population...
...He ascribes the rather minimal effect of registration-by-mail laws in large part to the failure of political parties, other interest groups, and election officials to stimulate its use adequately...
...The survey also picked up strange trends which do not augur well for democracy...
...One result is that the treatment of a saying or incident by two or more evangelists will be handled in reasonably satisfactory fashion but within a particular evangelist's total framework less well or not at all...
...ESMERALDAS, ECUADOR (Airmail 31r Commonweal: 127...
...Why is it that the majority of non-voters watch television and read newspapers daily but could not name the President and their governor...
...Nearly 70 million eligible Americans failed to go to the polls election day...
...Does that lust not speak of a people tired of the burden of citizenship, or reluctant to carry it...
...three distinguished re,says $1...
...Continued on page 127) Commonweal: 105 Orson, Pilgrim's Progress and Gulliver's Travels in later years--were at first "adopted" by children and later, when a market for children's books became apparent, adapted for them...
...Under new state laws it is not necessary for voters to register before going to the polls...
...The commentary contained in the latter is done by biblical chapters and clusters of verses (pericopes...
...The startling and disturbing fact uncovered was that the non-voter was not just failing to vote, but that he was choosing not to vote...
...This simple book is of great worth...
...Pre-reglstsatlou necessary...
...New York...
...Apathy is too weak a word for the attitude of these former voters...
...Why do they generally believe that they cannot trust the ordinaxy sources of information...
...It was triggered by the publication of a survey by Peter B. Hart Associates commissioned by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, on whose board I serve, and the University of Denver...
...100It...
...OOOOOOOOO IM BRIEF L[otrr ON TIlE GOSPELS: A Rv.AVBX's Guxm~, by John L. McKenzie, Thomas More Press, $9.95...
...Universal registration is one remedy but the national illness seems to require patient care, study and attention and the discovery of many mote...
...I think there is no doubt that universal simplified voter registration would raise the number of voters, especially that of the number of committed union members, who are either quite highly motivated on their own, or respond to motivation from their leaders...
...A second startling and disturbing fact was that as many as 15 million Americans who have formerly been regular participants in the political process have ceased participating...
...Doubt, disgust and anger cannot be dismissed as 'ennui'," read the committee's post-election report...
...But, as we know, fantasy and fable win out," writes Ryskamp, but, as we really know, that battle has never been won...
...former Governors John Love, Ned Breathitt, John Gilligan, Terry Sanford, Frank Sargent, and Philip Hoff...
...There are other troubling aspects of the problem to be considered, however...
...liberal publisher Gilbert Harrison...
...Follow|ng four weeks, S~0...
...COMkIONWEAL, 232 Madison Ave...
...monthly in advance for more th*n three rims...
...They need only prove their eligibility upon arriving at the voting place--in Wisconsin it is only necessary for a voter to "walk in on Election Day, provide a driver's license or other proof of age and residence and go into the booth and pull the levers...
...At the moment the fantasists are in the ascendant with Bruno Bettelheim riding shotgun for them in the pages of The New Yorker, but--a ponent?---Sendak, who took us gloriously to Where the Wild Things Are in 1963 is ponderously preaching at us in Some Swell Pup...
...And why do they long to put their trust in "a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders...
...Reeommtruetion To rehabilitate an area stricken byth4 flooding of the Santiago River in Ecuador, rite 9QvQrnment, the Red Cross and private aqencles I~lve |n.~'ograss din 4Mective reConstruction I~oqrem...
...What Gottlieb's catalogue makes clear is that the children's book has multiplied and changed form, style, intention as entrepreneurial greed joined hands with educational theory to reach children wherever they were or wherever experts and parents thought they were (or should be...
...An eight-page introduction to the genre gospel and its four canonical expressions is followed by interspersed introductions to the individual gospels and four chapters on each of them...
...The books change as the concept of the child alters from that of miniature adults to be drilled into knowledge to---after John Locke---that of person in the making who can be seduced into learning...
...lmtOtute |ISLICAL INSTITUTE, Trinity College, krlingt(m, Vermont 0S401...
...The survey showed that people did not participate in the political process for "attitudinal" rather than "structural" reasons...
...June/9.24...
...The labor movement was the only organization fully promoting use of this new tool, and we registered some 6 million of our members for an over-all AFL-CIO member-registration rate of 80 percent, 10 points higher than the electorate at large...
...when kouses are mov';d to higl~r, safer 9round or built on goverament-specifled sites, fin r~xtas ate turnished to those who build their own haines...
...Non-voting, (admittedly a poor word in this context) is, for many people, a way of making a statement...
...Write: Director...
...conservative historian Richard Whelan...
...nguxge i LEARN SPANISH...
...Among the board members troubled enough to share their concern are former CBS President Frank Stanton...
...McKenzie's prose style is clean and his grasp of the ideas that matter masterful, Absorption in his recent published work on the Hebrew Bible (1968 and 1974) may account for an overall inattention to the enriching findings of current redaction and composition criticism...
...On election day itself commentators and reporters, encouraged by long lines at the polls in large population centers, decided that he or she was a myth...
...roLL Bnu~mot~M Classified RATES: 60c _9 word, nee time...
...Details: Apdo, 410, Cunrnaveca, Mexico...
...The voting habit is perhaps :the tip of the iceberg in a story of institutional decline...
...The election process as we know it historically is obviously no longer relevant to millions of citizens...
...But when the dust had cleared and the statistics were all in, the fact remained that President Carter was chosen by only 27 percent o f the eligible electorate...
...The study on non-voting and political alienation began in l~te 1975 with the observation of its directors, Curtis B. Gans and Maurice Rosenblatt, of "one simple political phenomenonwthat despite the liberalization of voting and registration requirements during the past decade, a smaller percentage of eligible Americans were casting their ballots in each succeeding Presidential and Congressional election...
...We look at Canada and othex natio,-s where the government says to the citizen, 'Don't worry about registration, we'll handle that all you have to do is show up at the polls and vote Election Day.' We think this is exactly how it should, and would, work here...
...7c, three tinuu...
...Why are they conspicuous non-joiners...
...The Hart survey not only documented the numbers of non-voters but it also identified significant groups of non-voters, and their reasons for not voting...
...The weakening of political parties, the fragmentation of social groups and families, the quiescence on :the campus, the possible narcotizing effect of saturation media, the growing disparity between the 'we' of the citizenry and the 'they' of the government are all part of a long list of social changes that have altered accepted voting behavior...
...If yc~ really went tO learn Spanish quickly, fluently end correctly, and if you have the courage and stamiou for intensive and dis~:lpll~d study, come for at least o~e montk to Cuernaveca Language School of CIDOC...
...MacBride got about 172,000 votes, heating out Lester Maddox though not Eugene McCarthy, and the LP plans to field more candidates in 1978...
...There were three non-voters for every voter...
...Tentatively, since the history of publishing is uncertain in its beglnnngs, Gottlieb points to a first printed book for children apart from Latin grammars (a fifteenth-century courtesy book), a first illustrated textbook in the modern sense (Louis Couvay's Latin grammar of 1649...
...Private tutor available nt $3S0 for H hours...
...He points to the record in Wisconsin and Minnesota this year...
...Sic, thirteen times, Twelve worcb minimum...
...OOOOOOOOO CORRESPONDENCE (Continued ~tom page 99) that called for dismantling the state "security" apparatus, deregulating (and desubsidizing) the economy, and establishing a non-interventionist foreign policy...
...Alexander E. Barkan, director of the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (in a recent Newsweek article) makes a persuasive case for registration law and regulation as a source, if not the source, of the problem...
...Fdmays knedictlne Monachism and Contuml~rery Culture...
...sociologist Elise Boulding and others with like credentials...
...American Picturebooks is a detailed extension of the general history of children's literature growing out of the happy discovery in the twentieth-century that the child was ready for the book long before she was ready to read it...
...They stayed away because "they had lost faith in the political leaders of today and the present programs of government...
Vol. 104 • February 1977 • No. 4
