FURTHER STATEMENT OF CLINTON N. HOWARD, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL REFORM FEDERATION AND EDITOR OF PROGRESS MAGAZINE, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. HOWARD. The address of our organization is 134 Constitution Avenue NE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the District of Columbia has a population of 800,000 of the most intelligent, prosperous, highly civilized, and best-paid people to be found anywhere on the planet, with 250,000 on the Federal payroll, with a higher average income than any other area in the world. I do not believe that it can be matched in any other city or State in the United States, and I am familiar by personal contact with them all, having traveled and lectured in all for more than half a century. UNEQUAL REPRESENTATION I believe that its 800,000 people are as much entitled to self-government, home rule, and the right of a freedman's ballot as the 318,000 people of Delaware, the 290,000 people of Wyoming, the 160,000 people of Nevada, the 277,000 people of Vermont, the 700,000 people of Rhode Island and the several States in the 500,000 to 600,000 population class, each of whom has one to four voting members in the House and two United States Senators, who count for as much in legislation as the 8 million of Ohio, 10 million of California, 10 to 11 million of Pennsylvania, and 15 million of New York. PAUPERS, LUNATICS AND CRIMINALS Why should the nearly million intelligent and prosperous people of this capital city be treated like serfs and be denied the right of suffrage when millions of foreign-born immigrants become naturalized citizens after a brief residence and vote for their local officials, for mayor, members of their State legislature, governor, Congress and the President of the United States? Why deny the citizens of the District, nearly all of whom are nativeborn Americans, the same privilege as naturalized citizens, after a brief residence, in every other State in the Union, and classify the citizens of the District with paupers, lunatics, criminals, and the Indian population in other States?" ROBBED OF MY CITIZENSHIP I was born in Pennsylvania, and there cast my first vote. I married, removed to Rochester, N. Y., resided there for more than 50 years, and voted for every office in every election, even though my profession took me all over the country, from coast to coast, and I had to return home first to register, and then again to vote, which I did, for I was proud of my American citizenship. Fifteen years ago I removed to Washington where I am the superintendent of the International Reform Federation and the editor of Progress magazine, pay every tax imposed upon its citizens, and a thousand dollars income tax to my Government and am denied the right to vote. I FAVOR HOME RULE The population of Washington is not limited to the District area. The metropolitan area, numbering more than a million people, 250,000 of whom earn their living in this Capital City, are paid by their Government, who sleep across the Potomac in Virginia, and suburban Maryland, as close as Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Chevy Chase, divided by an imaginary line, have the right to vote and to representation in Congress while those on the District side of that line are politically deaf and dumb, burdened with a crushing weight of taxation and denied representation, the very thing that our colonial forefathers rose in a successful rebellion against; I am for home rule. I prize my sovereignty as a citizen and wish to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." But when I moved to Washington 15 years ago I lost my sovereignty under the shadow of the Capitol, one-half block from its majestic dome, I lost my right to vote in every election and became a serf, without a voice in the city of my adoption or in my country, with a family ancestry of more than seven generations, while other naturalized citizens in other areas across the Nation can vote for every public office from poundmaster to President. It just doesn't make sense. The press of yesterday reports the President as recommending opening the immigration gates to admit an additional 300,000 Europeans during the next 3 years. In due course all of them will be admitted to citizenship with the right to vote, social security, and old-age pensions, which native Washingtonians are denied if they live here a hundred years. DEMANDS EQUALITY OF RIGHTS We welcome the foreigner who qualifies as a citizen of Maryland, Virginia, or any other of the 46 States of his choice; but we deny the same sacred privilege to those native-born citizens who may choose, or whose occupations require, that they live at the seat of government at Washington. This is a galling situation which the bill under consideration will not correct. PSEUDO HOME RULE Yet, Mr. Chairman, I must confess that the bill as framed bears a false label. It is a pseudo home rule, with the most important public office, that of Manager or Mayor, left to partisan politicsin other words, appointed by the President. I am not willing as a citizen to assume that risk. It would take the most important public office entirely out of our hands. The President might select a lameduck citizen, defeated by the people of his own State, unfamiliar with local problems, or representing some ulterior interest dictated by political advantage outside of this highly important Capital City. A "LAME DUCK" MAYOR The requirement in the proposed act that the appointee must have Leen a resident of Washington for 2 or 3 years is not sufficient pro tection as many "lame duck" politicians prefer to remain in Washington after their rejection by the people back home. Three years to qualify for mayor while native-born citizens have to reside 21 years to qualify to vote, and are then denied it. POWER OF THE PRESIDENT The President might make a strictly personal or political appointment of a discredited Pendergast or Tammany machine, as he has an ambassador to a foreign country, or to the office of Recorder of Deeds for the National Capital of an inexperienced manager of a rural reform school, a thousand miles from Washington, recommended for dismissal by the board of education for cruelty and failure to supply sufficient food for delinquent children, and appointed to a $10,000 appointment in Washington, on the recommendation of the President's brother, Vivian, whom, he testified before the Senate District Committee, made out application papers, whose appointment was rejected by a unanimous vote of the Senate District Committee, after spending $30,000 to send two snoopers to Kansas City to clear his record, so that the important office of the Recorder of Deeds has been left vacant for 6 months, and the President has served notice that he will appoint no other than his Kansas City political pal. Under this proposed bill the city may find itself without a mayor if the Presidential appointment may be adjudged unfit by the Senate. And this possibility is called home rule. I suggest as an appropriate name, not New Deal, or Fair Deal, but Raw Deal. PSEUDO HOME RULE This home-rule swindle gives a million citizens of the most enlightened sector of the Republic no voice in the choice of their Chief Magistrate, a right extended to every incorporated town and city in the Nation. It also proposes a dummy Representatives in Congress who may speak but not vote. A poll-parrot politician. Putting a million Washingtonians on the level with 127,000 Alaskans, including Eskimos, and 550,000 half-breed Hawaiians. Both major platforms in the last four elections have promised home rule for Washington, as they will probably do again in the coming elections. Let them put up or shut up. Pass this pseudo home-rule bill and you will postpone genuine home rule for a generation. A HOME-RULE HOAX Gentlemen of the committee, this bill as framed may well be entitled "A Home-Rule Hoax." It is a political swindle. All told there are 13 States with a smaller population than Washington with a total representation of 26 Senators and 21 Representatives, making a total of 47 Members of Congress. Washington, under this proposed home-rule bill, though it has a population larger than any one of these 13 States, will have no Senator and only one voteless Delegate in the House, the same as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, with a population of 27,000. And this is what is called home rule. THE COLOR LINE Finally, brethren, it is a tabooed consideration, but I have heard it argued that leaving the appointment of the mayor to the President would protect us from the possibility of racial control. Ha! Ha! Ha! The Kansas City nonentity appointed to the $10,000 position of Recorder of Deeds was of African descent, without any political or administrative experience, who confessed before the Senate District Committee that he was without experience and did not know what were the requirements of the office. We might get the same kind of a mayor and be told, "Take my political pal or let the office be vacant." That is a possibility under this bill. HOME RULE VERSUS CRIME RULE Whatever the action of the House District Committee may be, I express the hope that when the bill reaches the floor it will be referred back to the committee for further study, which is the graveyard of undesirable legislation. In that situation, we would have a tombstone for the Mayor of Washington. In the face of the unspeakable scandals in drug addiction disclosed in our Police Department by the Senate crime investigation under our present system of commission form of government, under Presidential appointment, it is time to grant genuine home rule to the people. Now, I will take my seat for your interrogations, if you have any. Mr. MCMILLAN. How long did you say you lived in the State of New York? Mr. HOWARD. I was a citizen of Rochester for over 50 years, close to 55 years. Mr. MCMILLAN. Do you think they have the same troubles with the police that we have in Washington? Mr. HOWARD. To some degree, yes. During that period, and I have continued to read my home-town paper since I have come to Washington, nothing at all akin to what we have been reading in the last 2 weeks here in Washington. Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you. Mr. REDDEN. You are wholeheartedly for home rule but you are positively against this bill? Mr. HOWARD. You are right. Mr. REDDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Howard. We appreciate your remarks and we will excuse you now and call another witness. Mr. HOWARD. May I add that this will go from here to my printer and a copy of it will be in the record and also the issue of the paper containing it will be in your mail as all other Members of Congress receive our publications. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. REDDEN. We will now hear from Mr. Woolsey Hall. STATEMENT OF WOOLSEY HALL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mr. HALL. The District of Columbia Federation of Civil Associations, Inc., consisting of 33 member civic associations in the District of Columbia, favors the enactment of S. 1976, to provide for home rule in the District of Columbia, and expresses the hope that this Subcommittee on the Judiciary of the House Committee on the District of Columbia will be pleased to lend its aid to the passage of this legislation by the Congress in time to permit the charter referendum to be conducted on August 5, 1952, as contemplated in the terms of S. 1976. In the opinion of our federation, S. 1976 is a great improvement over any and all former proposed legislation looking to District of Columbia home rule. Nevertheless, we respectfully submit the following comments on its provisions: Title IV, mayor: Section 402, paragraph 2, page 20, clothes the mayor with too great power in the matter of removal of personnel. He is not close enough to the people of the District of Columbia to be so empowered. He is answerable to the President of the United States. and to the Senate, as a matter of fact. Title IX, elections in the District: Section 903, page 47, stipulates 2-year terms for elective offices on the District Council, the Board of Education, and the District Delegate. While the 2-year term probably is stipulated because of the necessity of electing the District Delegate every 2 years, nevertheless the 2-year term for the Council and members of the Board of Education is too short. Three years should be minimum. Section 907, page 49, registration, contains what might be described as a latent ambiguity, to wit: SEC. 907. (a) No person shall be registered unless * * * (3) he executes a registration affidavit (unless prevented by physical disability) on a form prescribed by the Board of Elections, showing— followed by a recital of certain requirements. May we suggest that this stipulation be SEC. 907. (a) No person shall be registered unless * * * (3) he signs and swears to the form prescribed by the Board of Elections, showing— to be followed by the present recital of requirements. That is the extent of our submission of the Federation of Civil Associations and this is our comment on it. Mr. REDDEN. I assume you, like most of the others who have been here, do not approve of the provisions of this bill but look upon it as a step in the right direction? Mr. HALL. That is right. Mr. REDDEN. You don't prefer the appointment of a mayor but you prefer the election of the mayor? Mr. HALL. Yes. Mr. REDDEN. You prefer the election of all officials? Mr. HALL. Yes. Mr. REDDEN. Generally speaking, you do favor the election of the folks who represent the District? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir. Mr. REDDEN. Of course you do not approve of the appointment or election of the Representative in the Congress who will have no voice. Your preference is that he be given full voice in the Congress? Mr. HALL. We do not oppose that approach to participation. Mr. REDDEN. What you mean is that the provisions in the Case bill are better than nothing in that respect. Mr. HALL. Yes. |