STATEMENT OF HON. FRED SCHWENGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

Mr. SCHWENGEL. Mr. Chairman, colleagues, and members of the committee, I want to assure you it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to appear before you this morning to give you the benefit of my thinking on this important matter that is before the committee at this time. I might add that I have been thinking on this subject for a long, long time, long before I became a Member of the U.S. Congress. It has always been sort of a mystery to me to note that we have not done a better job in recognizing people who are loyal, and who, I think, are good citizens and deserve and do not have the right to have voice in government.

The last person to testify before your committee last week was Mrs. Louckheim, a charming lady and a member of the Democratic Central Committee of the District. While I agree with the position. she took on the question of home rule, I want to assure the committee I am not in complete agreement with her on all she said. For instance, she, like all those who appeared that day, kept referring to the need for a democratic representation. I think that I know what she meant. What they meant was to give the citizens of the District the right to elect representatives to represent them in local government and some in the Federal Government. So, what they were speaking for was representative government, and according to Webster's Dictionary, and others that I have checked, I find that that means republican government-Thorndike Barnhart's Comprehensive Desk Dictionary says:

1. of a republic; like that of a republic. 3. Favoring a republic. 1. a person who favors a republic.

The definition of republic is:

nation or state in which the citizens elect representatives to manage the government.

So I reiterate what I think we are working for, those of us who are representing this cause-a representative government for the District, or a republican form of government.

Mr. DAVIS. If the gentleman will pardon an interruption there, I am glad you have given some thought to the fact that we do live in a republic. So many people this day and age seem to have reached the mistaken conclusion that the United States of America is a democracy and not a republic.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. And further, if I may suggest, our forefathers always spoke of this Government as a republican form of government, and since so much has been said about what our forefathers thought and said about so many matters, I think it is good for us to note that

too.

Mrs. Louckheim also assured you that the other day that the next administration would be won by the Democratic Party. I understood her to say that while she did not think they would need the vote of the District to do that she did want to have the right to vote in the next election. I take issue with her on the prospects of the next election and point out that maybe the urgency of this legislation is such

that unless we get it now we probably will not get it in a Democratic administration for that seems to have been the record.

Mr. BROYHILL. None of the legislation that is before us will provide for a vote for President and Vice President for the people of the District of Columbia.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I understand that that is true.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Is not that the problem before the Committee on the Judiciary?

Can the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, who has been one of our most loyal workers trying to help the District of Columbia, tell me why in the world that committee does not give these people a hearing on that bill?

Mr. BROYHILL. I have been asking for a hearing on those two resolutions for the past 3 years. I have been promised hearings repeatedly, but somehow or other the very heavy schedule of the Committee on the Judiciary has prohibited them from getting around to it. That is the only answer that I can give.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Thank you.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. The political status of the District of Columbia is an anomaly in the United States of America. As the principal seat of the government of the greatest and finest system of representative government on earth, the city of Washington ought to be the showcase for both the complete expression and the practical application of our beliefs in a government of, by, and for all the people.

This is not the case. In fact, tragically, just the opposite is true. The government of the District is now, and has been for 80 years or so, what might be called, for lack of a better term, a sort of benevolent and paternalistic one. Whatever its virtues are, the theory and practice of a great republic are not among them. It is, rather, a mockery of those elements of the fine traditions that we have for so long cherished and practiced in this country.

What I have just said is, of course, not new. I claim no originality for these views. They have been stated and restated many times in the past. But they describe a fundamental weakness and a basic contradiction of a way of life in this Nation. I make no apologies for repeating these arguments. They ought to be put forth over and over again until Congress, which is the only organization that can do anything about it, restores self-government and self-respect to the residents of the District of Columbia.

We now have the opportunity, and if we do not take advantage of it we shall, I believe, have betrayed one of the finest traditions we possess the tradition of self-government by a free people.

The substance of representative government has been expressed and defined and refined in many superb and moving passages in literature of America.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I am certain that you realize the District of Columbia is a Federal site. The District of Columbia is really not a city; it is a Federal site. Is that not correct?

Mr. SCHWENGEL. It was certainly selected as the seat of government by the Federal Government.

Mr. MCMILLAN. What is the difference between this Federal site and Fort Belvoir and Fort Meade? Do you want to give them a city government?

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I am not sure that there is a need for city government. I have a bill in Congress, however, to make it possible for every citizen in those areas to vote which I think has long been neglected also.

Mr. MCMILLAN. With regard to the city of Washington, no one is compelled to stay in the Federal site except the people working with the Federal Government. The other people are here by their own choice. They are not required to stay here.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. That is true, of course. What you say is true of the people in Iowa. They are not required to stay in Iowa. But I submit we have 50 fine capitals where this situation is not true.

Mr. MCMILLAN. If a person wants to give up his or her voting rights and move to a Federal site, that is his or her prerogative.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. There are many people that-and I respect the gentleman's feelings on the matter, and I commend him for having these hearings-living in the District who can do very little about finding a place to live somewhere else. This has been their home. This is where they like to live. This is a nice place to live.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I do not blame them. The Federal Treasury is here.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. We call on them to support the Government in every way everyone else has to support it, like paying taxes, and when we have wars we expect the people here to participate in them.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I do not know anyone exempt from taxes, do you? Mr. SCHWENGEL. No, I do not.

Mr. MATTHEWS. In that connection, I think for the record it might be interesting to point that according to my information the U.S. Civil Service Commission stated that as of December 31, 1958, 162,672 citizens of the District of Columbia who lived in the District of Columbia were on the Federal payrolls. In other words, I do not think it is quite fair to compare the District of Columbia, with the Federal payroll it has, to the gentleman's own cities in Iowa. This city, regardless of what we think about home rule, is here because of the largess of the Federal Government. As I understand, it was not the great pioneering fortitude of the citizens of the District of Columbia that gave us the District of Columbia. They were not battling the British and worrying about the great problems of the imperial despotism.

The people who came to the District of Columbia were only able to come here after the taxes of all of the citizens, as I understand, retrieved the marshlands, made them habitable, and I am afraid that I cannot be converted to the idea that this is just like any other city. I think the citizens of the District have so many superadvantages in one area, you might say, that you cannot just see it as just another city. I hope the gentleman will forgive me. If I could just have the Library of Congress in the Eighth District of Florida, what a wonderful thing that would be.

Do you know what is a fact? Do you know that I would be willing to put in my questionnaire that I send out every week to the people who live in my district this question: Would you give up some of the privileges of voting if we would call a certain portion of the Eighth District of Florida a Federal city and put down there the Library of Congress? I just do not know how they would answer. I somehow

or other believe they might say—well, if it is a Federal city, and we are going to get the largess of the whole Federal system, why, maybe there are other privileges we are going to have to forgo. I want to apologize for taking up so much time. I feel somehow that the people of the District of Columbia do not appreciate what they have. They always seem to have the feeling, or express the feeling—well, we just are not treated right. We are third-class citizens.

It is the Federal city. It has certain problems, certain facts that make it different from any other city in the United States. I would just assume that when people move here in the first place they take all that into consideration.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I respect the gentleman's opinion. I note his analogy to what he thinks would be the reaction of the people of Florida if we were to agree to move the Library of Congress down there. We would like to have that kind of library in my district, but I do not believe that the people of Iowa would say they would give away some of their fundamental rights in order to get it.

Supposing we did this, and supposing those people made that decision in order to make that happen, do they actually have a right to wish this on posterity, or the people who want to live there in the future? In other words, I think we are going far afield it we assume that we have a right to give away some of our rights and expect our children to appreciate that same thing.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Let us take a virgin spot in your district in Iowa where no people are living and take a virgin spot in my district and say-in return for Federal largess here would you perhaps give up certain things? That is what happened here. Nobody had to come to the District of Columbia except the military. I suppose that both of us had to come here for a little time when we were in the service. I did not, but I spent about 4 years in the service. Other than the military most of the people in the District did not have to come here in the first place. So again my point is I just do not think it is fair to compare the great Federal city of America, the capital of the world, with cities in other parts of the country. I just cannot see the comparison.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I am talking about people's rights, sir, and I think the people of the District have as much right as anyone else any

where.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Let me ask the gentleman this other question. Do you happen to know how many people in the District vote in their respective home States? I do not imagine that you could get that exact information. I know for example that every employee that I have in my office from Florida can vote in Florida. We do vote an absentee ballot. I wonder if we have any information about how many people in the District can vote and do vote back in their respective States.

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I do not know. I know in the State of Iowa we have less than 5,000 votes from people who live here who vote in the State of Iowa, which, by comparison, would make a very small percent of the total of the citizens of the District. Besides, they are probably voting in Iowa because they have no right to vote here, and since they live here and pay taxes here, I think that it would be right to let them decide except if they were on your staff or my staff as a

Congressman. I would certainly expect them then to vote in their

districts.

But there are many examples of people who would come here and might like to make this their home and would want to participate in the Government here, and that is a right that they should have that they do not have now.

I started to talk about one of our forefathers, and so much has been said about their attitude that I would like to put in the record here a statement by one of our real forefathers, a man who knew a great deal and understood a great deal about freedom and popular government, and his name is John Hancock, and most assuredly we recognize him as one of the most distinguished and respected and admired of our forefathers. His convictions, based upon both principle and experience, were so broad and deep.

While serving as Governor of Massachusetts in 1792, he made a speech before the general court which remains to this day one of the most eloquent and stirring statements on the meaning of our Government. Permit me to read a brief excerpt. He said:

That a free government founded in the natural, equal rights of all the people is within the reach of human ability and to be prized as a principal support of natural happiness is an idea which has been long established in the minds of the greatest and wisest men in the world. *** That government may be considered as truly free where all the people are, by the constitution and laws, upon the same rank of privilege and have an equal security for their lives, liberties, and property *

Our experience as a nation has taught us the profound wisdom of these words. There are some lessons which only time can teach us. There are some values whose validity can be tested only by the passage of many years.

This is why history is so important to us. As Allan Nevins has written:

History is not merely a great teacher of patriotism, but the one indispensable teacher; the more we know about the struggles which made the Nation, the great man who led it, and the principles which sustained its people in time of trial, the deeper will be our feeling for our country.

I do not believe there is a single Member of Congress who does not believe in the rich truth voiced by John Hancock. I do not believe there is a single Member who is not proud of the history of our country, who is not aware of its lessons and its meaning for us.

Mr. SMITH. Did not John Hancock advocate property qualifications for the right to vote?

Mr. SCHWENGEL. He did at one time, but he did not mean for that to be permanent, because he subscribed completely, if you will study his life, to the Declaration of Independence and its meaning in the broadest sense, I am sure.

Mr. DAVIS. When did he change his mind?

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I am not sure. I would be glad to try to find that for the record.

Mr. DAVIS. I wish that you would.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Again, we do not have his views regarding home rule for the District of Columbia. We have these general statements. We do not know what he would do about home rule for the District of Columbia; is that not true?

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