ington and approved unanimously this specific resolution. I think the new president of that organization may be heard from later before the committee.

I should like to take a few moments to state my personal position, Mr. Chairman, because I have been around a long time working for this and other legislation. It is now 31 years since I first started my civic activities, appearing before this and other committees of Congress. During that time I have served 10 years as founding chairman of the District of Columbia Recreation Board, and many years ago as president of the Federation of Citizens Associations. Mr. Norwood, its current president, has told you how many years we have been seeking national representation on suffrage.

For 30 years I have been a member of the National Committee on National Representation which may give you some idea of how long we may suffer.

My dear friend Jesse Sutback will groan and say how long before I was born he was worrying about this problem.

The fact is that those of us who are residents-I mean by that genuine residents-frankly, Mr. Chairman, are not much concerned with those persons who come to Washington in a vicarious basis and can, and do, vote elsewhere. Whatever may be done by Congress with respect to their right to vote here or elsewhere is their business and Congress business. But I would like to speak for the voteless resident of Washington, not the voting resident.

I know people, dear friends of mine, who maintain their vote elsewhere, and for good reason, principally because there is no way of voting here, and therefore they ought to, and want to, maintain an inherent and inalienable right which they have elsewhere, and which is very precious to them, and that is why they keep it.

Mr. HOLTZMAN. Don't you feel that if representation is given, if the vote is given here, that most of those voting nonresidents, as you call them, would establish their residence here and elect to vote right out of the District?

Mr. WENDER. I am sure that they would. And even in those cases where they didn't, because of their own personal and political preferences certainly they are entitled to that-I want to make it clear, Mr. Chairman, that there comes a time through just the inexorable laws of vital statistics, that death comes along, and those persons no longer are of voting residence elsewhere but their children are nonvoting residents here.

I am a victim of such a situation. My father moved here from Knoxville, Tenn., 51 years ago. I could have voted if I had stayed in Tennessee, but I came to Washington and neither he nor I have voted since. My dad passed away several years ago, but he was interviewed just before he died and pointed out what a great loss it had been to him in his 83d year that for all these years he lived in the Nation's Capital, in this great country, and didn't have a chance to

vote.

This can't be understood by a person who has never voted. Actually you gentlemen who come from States where this is part of the very life that you share with others don't know what it is like, really, to be a pariah among other people. Wherever I go, all over the country-and I have done a good deal of traveling for the past 10 or 15

years, particularly for some of the organizations with which I am connected-it is not easy to make other people understand that we don't vote here. I have actually had people bet with me that I was wrong, that I didn't know what I was talking about. I have said this before to other committees of Congress.

It isn't possible for the average person who sees the sun rise and set every day to believe that it is possible for American citizens to be born in this country and really not have the rights of citizenship.

This is a golden opportunity that we face, and that this committee faces. I have been before this committee for many years in the past and always felt a sense of frustration because there didn't seem to be the atmosphere in the Congress that we in Washington shared in wanting this legislation.

Mr. McCULLOCH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a question there, at the risk of interruption, which I do not like to do.

Mr. WENDER. That is all right, sir.

Mr. McCULLOCH. You wouldn't have the committee believe that there is complete unanimity of opinion on the part of nativeborn District of Columbia people on this question, would you?

Mr. WENDER. No, Congressman, never, never. There is never unanimity of opinion on any forward step that I have ever seen come before Congress.

Mr. McCULLOCH. In any event, there is no unanimity on this position, and there are some very well educated people with substantial business interests here who feel just exactly opposite to your feelings, aren't there?

Mr. WENDER. Mr. McCulloch, my answer to that is that I don't know of any substantial business interest or men of the caliber that you have mentioned who are opposed to this legislation.

Mr. McCULLOCH. You say you just don't know of any?

Mr. WENDER. No, sir; but I have been around

Mr. McCULLOCH. Wait just a minute.

Mr. WENDER. I am sorry.

Mr. McCULLOCH. We will get along here in a friendly manner. You wouldn't want the record left with the impression that there was near unanimity on this proposal, and that there weren't people of substance who question the propriety and the result of the effects of this resolution, would you?

Mr. WENDER. No, sir. I would not go that far.

Mr. HOLTZMAN. You wouldn't change your thinking about the justification for this legislation, even assuming that there was not unanimity, would you?

Mr. WENDER. No, Mr. Chairman, I wouldn't. And my feeling that I want to make clear is that I believe there is a stronger support for this today than there has ever been in all the years of my acquaintance with the problem in Washington. There was a time when I assumed a position of leadership in trying to get this kind of bill passed.

I remember during the war when I appealed personally in the press and by mail, and by telegram to the then President of the United States and to one who sought to be-Governor Dewey of New Yorkurging them to come out on a nonpolitical basis supporting this proposition. It was impossible then to get that done.

Mr. MCCULLOCH. I would like to ask this question: You had been interested in these proposals for a decade or more, perhaps two decades, because you go back to the war.

Mr. WENDER. Three decades.

Mr. McCULLOCH. Were you interested when Joint Resolution 35 was being considered in the Senate in 1941? I do not intend to be technical by referring to it that way. There was, I will say positively

Mr. WENDER. Indeed I do.

Mr. McCULLOCH. Senate Joint Resolution 35 considered at length in the Senate in 1941.

Mr. WENDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCULLOCH. I presume you are familiar with the report that was made by the Judiciary Committee of the Senate on that resolution?

Mr. WENDER. I am generally familiar. I wouldn't want to be asked to quote from it now, sir.

Mr. McCULLOCH. I am not trying to trap you at all. I am trying to develop a record here

Mr. WENDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCULLOCH. To which men of fair minds can turn and come to a conclusion, if they haven't already made up their minds.

Mr. Chairman, because this does go back almost two decades, and by reason of the lengthy hearings that were had on Senate Joint Resolution 35 in 1941, I would like to have made a part of the record at this time the entire report which came from the Senate Judiciary Committee, and it may be identified as Calendar No. 60, Report No. 646, 1st session, 77th Congress.

I might say for the record, that, and so that everyone will know what I am talking about, this was apparently a unanimously adverse report on a proposal which, while not entirely like the one before us, had at least one, if not three, sections which were much like this resolution. I would like to have it in the record.

Mr. HOLTZMAN. Without objection. There are several reports on this very subject, some adverse, some favorable. Without objection counsel will be directed to include all of those reports in the record.

[From Index to the Congressional Record, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 1889-90]

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTIONS

S.R. 11-Proposing an amendment to the Constitution to confer respresentation to the District of Columbia in the two Houses of Congress and in the Electoral College.

Introduced by Mr. Blair and referred to Committee on Privileges and Elections 112.-Reported back adversely 297.-Debated 802, 10026, 10119.

S.R. 18-Proposing an amendment of the Constitution to confer representation to the District of Columbia in the two Houses of Congress and in the Electoral College.

Introduced by Mr. Blair and referred to Committee on Privileges and Elections 124.-Reported back adversely 297.-Debated 802, 10026, 10119.

[From the Congressional Record, Sept. 17, 1890, p. 10119-10123]

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA REPRESENTATION

Mr. BLAIR. I renew my request that the Senate proceed to the consideration of joint resolutions which I mentioned for the purpose of giving me an opportunity of addressing a few observations to the Senate.

There being no objection, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded to consider the joint resolution (S.R. 11) proposing an amendment to the Constitution to confer representation to the District of Columbia in the two Houses of Congress and in the Electoral College, and the joint resolution (S.R. 18) proposing an amendment of the Constitution to confer representation to the District of Columbia in the two Houses of Congress and in the electoral college.

Mr. BLAIR. Mr. President, Senate resolutions No. 11 and No. 18 were introduced by me on the 5th and 9th days of December last respectively, and duly referred to the appropriate committee. On the 19th day of December they were reported back to the Senate adversely, with the recommendation that they be indefinitely postponed. The unexpectedly prompt action of the committee deprived the people of the District of Columbia of any opportunity to be heard, an opportunity which a large number of the representative men of the District, if indeed it may be said that the District has any representative men or any men whatever in the sense of American citizenship, most earnestly desired, and they were somewhat surprised that those resolutions were so summarily disposed of. I asked that they be placed upon the Calendar, hoping that an opportunity might be found for hearing in the parent body, and if not here, then presently in the country at large. No non-voting population is of much consequence in a republic, except to pay taxes, and, if men, to shed their blood in war for the support of the Government. Although the neuter condition of citizenship in this District has long been to myself, as well as to many others, a subject of serious thought, and in the last Congress I had prepared and introduced a similar proposition for a constitutional amendment giving suffrage for national purposes and representation in both Houses of Congress and in the electoral college to the District, I was then and now am prepared to find years of agitation necessary before the people of the United States, or even of the District itself, shall fully arouse themselves to remedy the evil.

It would be difficult to imagine a more striking evidence of the real political inconsequence of the manhood of the District of Columbia than is furnished by the treatment which this measure has received, supported as it is by the committee of one hundred and the great mass of the people of the District.

I believe it should be and will be generally conceded that the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections is as able and patriotic a committee as has ever existed since the adoption of the Constitution.

As it should be, that committee is acutely alive to the rights of man, and especially to those touching the sovereignty of the citizens. That committee has evolved a comprehensive and rigid bill for the regulation and security of elections in all parts of the country where men have the right to vote.

A freedom-loving House of Representatives has not only considered such a bill in committee, but has passed it with great emphasis and solemnity. But when I present and urge in two successive Congresses a proposition to make the menfolks in a community of 230,000 American citizens politically free, by giving them the right to vote and to participate by their chosen representatives in making and executing the laws which control the property and the lives of themselves and of their wives and children, the Congress can not find time to listen, their plaint for freedom is unheard, and like our forefathers in the palace of George III, they are spurned with contempt from the foot of the legislative throne, and this from a Congress as likely to give consideration to the cry of the oppressed as any that could be culled from the American people.

We seldom see anything like it save in the common treatment accorded to woman in her efforts to obtain political liberty; and I am forced to the conclusion that, in the general apprehension of the country, there are no men in the District of Columbia, but two kinds of women rather, who, politically, are in no wise to be distinguished from one another. Two hundred and thirty thousand negroes living in a State, and having under the Constitution the right to vote, would have been heard in Congress until they broke down the pillars of the Constitution but their wrongs should have been redressed; yet these alleged men, white and colored, living in the District of Columbia, calling by scores of thousands for the right to vote, get no hearing simply because time presses, cry they never so loudly, during now these two Congresses, and whether the future is more hopeful for them remains to be seen.

This is no long-haired-man application for woman suffrage, no scheme to drag angelic woman down, but simply that the lords of creation in this District may be raised to the level, to the par value, of their fellowmen in the States around them.

Woman here must wait on the progress of her sisters in the States so far as this proposed amendment is concerned. Yet I am so impressed with the innate importance of the subject, that, with slight expectation of present action, I crave the indulgence of the Senate while I endeavor to present a few thoughts which may serve as the thin wedge to force a crevice in the public mind, which time and reflection may widen until the nation shall open its head and its heart to receive the people of the District of Columbia into the body-politic. The first joint resolution is as follows:

"Joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution to confer representation to the District of Columbia in the two House of Congress and in the electoral college.

"Whereas the people of the District of Columbia are subjected to taxation without representation, contrary to a fundamental principle of all free government: Therefore,

"Resolved by Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid as a part of the Constitution, namely:

"ARTICLE XVI.

"SECTION 1. That the District of Columbia shall be entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States by one Senator and by one or more Representatives, according to the rule of apportionment established by Article XIV of the Constitution. Said District shall also be entitled to as many electors for President and Vice-President of the United States as it has members of Congress. "SEC. 2. That Congress shall provide, by law, the times and manner of choosing the Senator, the Representative or Representatives, and the electors authorized by this article.'"

Omitting the formal parts, the second joint resolution is as follows:

"ARTICLE XVI.

"SECTION 1. The District of Columbia shall be entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States by one Senator and by one or more Representatives, according to the rule of apportionment established by Article XIV of the Constitution. Said District shall also be entitled to as many electors for President and Vice-President of the United States as it has members of Congress: Provided, That such representation in the Congress shall not participate in joint convention of the two Houses, nor in any proceeding touching the choice of President or Vice-President, nor in the organization of either House of Congress, nor speak or vote upon any question concerning the same.

"SEC. 2. Congress shall provide, by law, the time and manner of choosing the Senator, the Representative or Representatives, and the electors authorized by this article."

It will be observed that the propositions are identical, with exception of the proviso in the first section of the second resolution, which restricts the proposed representation of the District from any participation in the choice of President and Vice-President by the joint convention of the two Houses, or in any proceeding touching their choice by the House, or in the organization of either House of Congress.

This proviso is of importance as a matter of detail, but I do not deem it of consequence in the discussion of the main question, upon which, without further delay, I will now proceed to offer a few brief observations.

Montesquieu, the great French legal philosopher, in his Spirit of Laws, has taught us that every form of government must be administered in conformity with its own spirit or become a failure; that a despotism must be despotic, and in all departments of administration conform to the theory of despotism; that a monarchy must be moarchic, and that the republican form of government must be consistent with its own theory, or that in their practical working these several forms of government will destroy themselves.

This is a brief way of stating a great philosophical truth founded in human nature and in the nature of things.