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Letter to Committee Chairmen Urging Action on Bills To Encourage Voting by Servicemen.

May 12, 1952

Dear__________:

I am attaching for the information of your Committee copies of a letter which I wrote to Secretary of Defense Lovett, and his reply thereto, on the subject of voting by servicemen. The Secretary of Defense indicates in his letter of April 30, 1952, that "unfortunately, the majority of the States whose laws do not comply with the recommendations of the present Federal Voting Law, do not convene their legislatures during 1952. Therefore, the prospect for State action this year does not appear to be optimistic." Under these circumstances, it is even more important that the Congress take early action to enable hundreds of thousands of servicemen to vote this year.

I hope that your Committee will give early consideration to S. 3061 (H.R. 7571), the servicemen's voting bill, which is designed to enable those who are defending our form of Government with their lives to exercise one of the basic rights of American citizens-the right to vote.

Sincerely yours,

HARRY S. TRUMAN

Note: This is the text of identical letters addressed to the Honorable Carl Hayden, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and to the Honorable Thomas B. Stanley, Chairman of the House Committee on House Administration.

For the President's letter to Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett see Item 96. Secretary Lovett's reply, dated April 30, 1952, was released May 12 together with the text of the Presidents letter to the Committee Chairman.
See also Item 68.

Harry S Truman, Letter to Committee Chairmen Urging Action on Bills To Encourage Voting by Servicemen. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230663

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