by the Commissioner-designate of the District of Columbia, Mr. F. Joseph Donohue.

The CHAIRMAN. It was very encouraging.

Mr. WENDER. I think that you have known that, well, within the past generation we have not ever had a single District Commissioner who has ever forthrightly supported the proposition that you and I support today, and which is presented in this bill, and it is very gratifying to the citizens of the District of Columbia that we at least will have a representative in the District government-and I speak with some authority because I am a representative of the District government and for 9 years have coped with the problems that fall upon me as chairman of one of your boards and I know of the great apathy that exists in the District government itself on this subject, and if we can have a man with the leadership ability that Mr. Donohue has always demonstrated, supporting us, I think it will go far to combat that apathy, and that we will eventually, and perhaps quite soon, achieve the results that we want.

I will not be able to be before your hearing next Wednesday, I believe it will be, when Mr. Donohue's appointment comes before this committee for confirmation or for consideration rather. I have a trial scheduled for that date in court, but I do want to pay tribute to him and say that I know from his own behavior as a citizen in the past and from the fine integrity that he has shown as a citizen and attorney, that he will serve the District well, and will particularly be of service to us in achieving success in obtaining relief from the "desuffrageitis."

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you for your statement.

Mr. WENDER. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Will Dr. George B. Galloway please proceed?

STATEMENT OF GEORGE B. GALLOWAY, SENIOR SPECIALIST IN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Mr. GALLOWAY. Mr. Chairman, my name is George B. Galloway. I am senior specialist in American government at your Legislative Reference Service in the Library of Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. That is an indispensable service.

Dr. GALLOWAY. Well, thank you so much.

During the Seventy-ninth Congress, I was staff director of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, which produced the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946.

One of the principal recommendations of the La Follette-Monroney committee was self-rule for the District of Columbia. The committee made that recommendation primarily with a view to reducing the work load on Congress that arises from its city-council function.

During the Eightieth Congress I was staff director of the Subcommittee on Home Rule and Reorganization of the House Committee on the District of Columbia. That committee produced the so-called Auchincloss bill, which was favorably reported in the Eight

During the Eighty-first Congress I had the privilege of serving as technical adviser on this legislation to your own subcommittee. Two years ago your subcommittee held hearings on an identical bill. I testified at those hearings, and presented a detailed analysis of the so-called Kefauver bill, and a careful comparison of the provisions of the Kefauver and Auchincloss bills.

That testimony will be found, sir, in part two of the hearings before this subcommittee held in March of 1949, and I will not detain the committee with a repetition of the testimony, but invite your attention to it, if it interests you.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you want that inserted in the record at this point?

Mr. GALLOWAY. Whatever pleases the committee on that point. Mr. Chairman, the testimony is available to you in the records of your committee, and in a House committee print which I prepared, which compares the provisions of the two bills.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, in that case it probably is not necessary to set it down in full in this record.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Rather than repeat the testimony which I presented here 2 years ago, Mr. Chairman, I would like, if I may this afternoon, to present a brief summary of the principal arguments which have been made in recent years, both for and against home rule for Washington, as those arguments have been developed by the advocates and the opponents of this legislation.

On the one hand, the advocates of home rule begin by pointing out that it was evidently the intention of the founding fathers that the inhabitants of the Federal City should enjoy a large measure of local self-government, for James Madison, who was one of the chief architects of the Constitution, as you know, informed the people back in 1788 in one of his Federalist essays, and I quote his exact words:

"That the inhabitants of the Federal City," he said, "will have a voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them," and he went on to assure them that "a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages will, of course, be allowed them."

The advocates of home rule go on to point out that these early promises and expectations were soon fulfilled, and from 1802 until 1871 Congress permitted the people of Washington to elect their mayors and town councils in annual elections.

Then, during the territorial period from 1871 to 1874, Congress allowed the people of Washington to elect each year the 25 members of their municipal house of delegates, as well as the nonvoting Delegate to the National House of Representatives, such as Alaska and Hawaii now have. Thus, we see that during the first half of the history of the Federal City, the people of Washington enjoyed a large measure of local self-government.

The proponents of this legislation further point out that the people of Washington are evidently capable of local self-government because they have an occupational acquaintance with public affairs arising

ployed in the Federal Government; moreover, it is alleged, and I think correctly so, that the people of Washington are the best educated of any American city, according to the census figures, in terms of the number of years of schooling which they have completed.

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, in your opinion, why was that backward step taken? Why were the people deprived of self-government? Mr. GALLOWAY. In 1874?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. GALLOWAY. Well, it so happened, Mr. Chairman, that during the previous territorial regime, which followed not long after the Civil War, that the National Capital City was physically very much down at the heel; the streets; were muddy, there were smelly swamps, and great need of many capital improvements.

Under the territorial regime there was a board of public works and a governor, and in order to make up for lost time, the Governor, who was known as Boss Shepherd, and the board of public works, of which he was chairman, launched an ambitious program of public works to improve the physical appearance of the Capital City. They spent over a 4-year period the horrendous sum of $18,000,000, about 4 millions of which they borrowed from the people.

Finally, the taxpayers of the community protested against this "extravagant" expenditure, and Congress responded to their protests by liquidating the territorial regime and setting up in 1875 on a temporary make-shift basis a commission form of government. The functions which had been performed by the Governor and the board of public works were transferred to the Board of Commissioners, appointed by the President.

The legislative functions which had been performed by the municipal legislature were transferred to the Congress, and all suffrage rights were suspended. This temporary make-shift scheme was made permanent by the Charter of 1878, but I would point out that the conditions about which the taxpayers complained at that time were conditions brought about by the activity of a governor and a board of public works who had been appointed by the President, and were not the result of the action of the local legislature elected by the people.

Does that answer your question?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir; it does.

Mr. GALLOWAY. The advocates of home rule also point out that taxation without representation is incompatible with our American traditions. We pay today, they say, almost $100,000,000 in taxes each year, but the taxpayers have no voice with regard either to the tax rate or as to how their tax money shall be spent.

In this connection, I would like to invite your attention to an observation made by former Speaker Champ Clark who, in his autobiography, My Quarter Century of American Politics, said this about the government of the District of Columbia, and I quote:

Two days out of every month the House sits as a common council for the half million citizens of the District of Columbia who, living under the shadow of the Capitol, have no more voice in their governmental affairs than if the were denizens of the Cannibal Islands. A man who can think of a sadder

said Champ Clark

on our boasted theory of representative government is possessed of an imagination gorgeous beyond sanity. Yet our fathers precipitated the Revolutionary War for the principle "no taxation without representation."

The advocates of home rule further point out that the people of Washington themselves have recently given proof that they desire local self-government. In unofficial plebiscites held here in recent years, they voted, first, 8 to 1 in favor of local suffrage in 1938, and in 1946 they voted 7 to 3 for it.

Three years ago the Washington Post conducted a scientific poll on this question which showed that 70 percent of the people of Washington were in favor of local self-government.

It is further argued that not only do the people here want it but that the Nation at large wants the District to have home rule. A Gallup poll a couple of years ago showed that 77 percent of the people in the Nation at large favored it.

Moreover, many leading newspapers have endorsed it editorially. They also remind us that President Truman himself endorsed this very bill now before your committee and urged its passage in a letter to the Speaker of the House on July 25, 1949.

One of the principal arguments that is frequently made by the advocates of home rule is that its adoption would relieve Congress of an onerous councilmanic burden which it ought not to have to bear in these times when great issues of peace and reconstruction are pressing for its attention.

As it is, as you know, all District legislation must pass through both Houses of Congress, and there are 28 separate stages in the passage of law through the National Legislature, whereas elsewhere, local policies are made by the single act of a city council.

We know here that it takes an act of Congress to change the names. of the streets or to save daylight time or to kill starlings or destroy weeds. It is argued that this state of affairs is not fair to the Congress, nor fair to the people of Washington, whose local needs tend to be neglected.

It is also argued that both of our great national political parties have promised suffrage to the District of Columbia residents. The plat forms of your own party have contained home rule planks, I think, since 1892.

The Democratic platform of 1948 stated: "We favor extension of the right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia." The Republican platform, in the same year, contained a similar state

ment.

The opponents of home rule have cast doubt upon the constitutionality of this legislation. They have questioned the constitutionality, for example, of the provisions of the bill which relate to the handling of legislative proposals of the District Council.

On the other hand, the advocates of the measure would invite your attention to the fact that the constitutionality of this bill has been upheld in written opinions submitted to the District Committees of Congress by the Attorney General of the United States, by House

and by several eminent constitutional lawyers, including John W. Davis, Edward S. Corwin, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt.

The CHAIRMAN. Have we not heard that Mr. West, the corporation counsel, and the Commissioners, the day before yesterday decided, in effect, that this bill was not constitutional?

Mr. GALLOWAY. I noticed that some question had been raised by the Corporation Counsel. But, in reply, I would invite your attention to an opinion on the issue expressed by that eminent constitutional authority, Prof. Edward S. Corwin, of Princeton University who, in his recent book, Understanding the Constitution, has this to say on that very point:

The Constitution does not permit Congress to grant the citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote in Federal elections, but there is no constitutional reason why they should not be allowed to elect their own local officials. At the present time, Congress, which has complete governmental powers over the District, spends a day every fortnight it is in session, passing city ordinances and serving as city council. From the viewpoint of both legislative efficiency and justice for the citizens of the District,

concludes Professor Corwin,

such a system is indefensible and the demands for a larger measure of home rule are becoming ever more insistent.

Advocates of home rule further contend that all other American cities enjoy local self-government, and they point out that all the other capital cities of countries outside the iron curtain, except Canberra, Australia, where the situation is unique, also have home rule.

It is further argued by the advocates of this bill that lack of local self-government in the Capital City of the world's greatest democracy, embarrasses the conduct of our foreign relations, and I think that has been brought to your attention already.

I have had the experience myself in recent years, since the late war, of addressing visiting delegations of Japanese and German officials from countries which we are engaged in attempting to democratize, and these officials have expressed amazement when they have learned that here in Washington the residents are not even permitted to vote for their own dog catcher.

Under the present form of local government, it is further asserted, the people of Washington have no control over the acts of their city officials. If school facilities are inadequate, if the crime rate is high, if municipal services are unsatisfactory in any respect, the local people can neither discipline nor dismiss the responsible officials.

Moreover, it is pointed out, as has already been observed, that the lack of home rule tends to dull the edge of democracy: that it weakens the citizen' ssense of civic responsibility; that their political faculties tend to atrophy through sheer lack of expression.

On this point, I would like to digress a moment, Mr. Chairman, and express a personal opinion. You yourself repeatedly referred during the clinic last week to the alleged apathy of the Washington community on this issue.

With all due deference to you, sir, I beg to submit that a review of the home-rule movement here in the last 4 years reveals widespread and sustained interest and effort in this cause. There are scores