JOPLIN, Mo. —
There is great concern that Americans — some apathetic, other simply disenfranchised after a lengthy campaign — will stay home on Election Day. Sure, we can tell you why we think you should show up at the polls. But instead, we found some people far wiser than us to speak on our behalf:
“The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”
— Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th U.S. president
“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.”
— William E. Simon, 63rd U.S. secretary of treasury
“Always vote on principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
— John Quincy Adams, 6th U.S. president
"Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets."
— Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president
“To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.”
— Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th U.S. president
“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
— John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. president
“The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U.S. president
“Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: ’Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, author
“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves, and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. president
Convinced yet? Then vote on Tuesday.
Opinion
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Discussion
Our View: Why wouldn't you vote?
- Opinion
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Other Views: Still inspiring
Cutbacks in the military budget and the still-recovering economy mean this Memorial Day weekend will go down as a relatively subdued affair — relative, that is, to our usual end-of-school, official-start-of-summer blowout.
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Our View: Setting standard
The sight of hundreds of young student volunteers walking across Moore’s Fourth Street interstate overpass had to be uplifting to the city’s tornado victims.
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Our View: Safer schools
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Marilyn Beasley, guest columnist: Claiming responsibility for abuse of power
Over the past few months we’ve witnessed the abuse of power by President Barack Obama and his administration.
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Our View: ‘Why?’ has no answer
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Our View: Absent from House
We can’t figure out why two Missouri legislators think they should be elected to the U.S. House when it appears they can’t seem to show up to take care of business in the Missouri House.
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Your View: Terrible injustice
I see this Jasper County nuisance law as a terrible injustice on the rights of the residents of Jasper County.
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Your View: Should we be outraged?
Were there effusive apologies following the lockdown of Boston as most of the continent indulged vicariously in the ongoing manhunt?
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Your View: Terrorism is terrorism
In the May 13 issue of The Joplin Globe there was an Associated Press article concerning the New Orleans shooting.
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Phill Brooks, columnist: Missouri Senate did what Founding Fathers had in mind
George Washington once described the Senate as being like a saucer in which you pour coffee or tea.
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