the District Council offered us in the Kefauver bill could make no complete enactment other than an ordinary municipal ordinance. Moreover, the District Council in that bill would not really be elected by the citizens of the District of Columbia, but the balance of power in the Council would rest with the 1-year temporary residents and with the two appointed members of the Council to be named by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate.

National representation is an absolutely necessary part of franchise granted to the citizens of the District of Columbia. Citizens of the District do not need the mere right to vote for a city council in order to have a say in the writing of policies and other municipal regulations. What they need is the full right of suffrage by participation in the introduction in Congress of any proposed new law, the debates thereon, and the vote for or against its passage. This refers to laws taxing them, laws taking away their property for public use, laws holding them guilty of crime, and any and every other law of a general nature.

NO ANALOGY FOR TERRITORIES

The evolution of government in the Western States through the territorial form to statehood is not parallel with our problem. Every Territory was given a Delegate in Congress, a Governor, and a State legislature with power to enact general laws and also a municipal government in every city with power to pass municipal ordinances. The board of trade is unalterably opposed to giving up the present municipal government of the District of Columbia in exchange for anything which purports to give to its citizens the franchise as citizens of the United States of America, but upon examination is found to give nothing but the right to vote for a city council and continues to deprive them of the right to vote for any part of the general government wihch actually governs them.

The Home Rule Committee indulges in levity in likening our "real home rule argument" to the case of a beggar in rags who is offered a new suit and spurns it because it does not have two pairs of pants. Adopting the simile, we spurn the offer of the substitute suit because it is only a flimsy, new-looking suit and we can see that it is not made of as good material as the suit we now wear, which has served us well throughout the years. We refuse to give it up until we know the thing we are offered is better.

The Home Rule Committee states that: "Under the Kefauver bill no one can vote in two places for the same official. The vote in the District would be for District officials only. The vote in the home State would be for President, Senators and Congressmen, State officials, and possibly minor local officials of political subdivisions of the State."

The provision of the Kefauver bill on this point is as follows:

"SEC. 1206 (a) To be qualified to vote in the District, it is not intended that a person be required to relinquish his rights in another jurisdiction."

EFFICIENCY ALONE IS NOT THE STANDARD

There can be no question that the provision above quoted was intended to assure to the 1-year temporary resident of the District of Columbia who would vote for members of the District Council and members of the School Board under the Kefauver bill the right also to vote for similar officials in his home city.

The Home Rule Committee implies that the board of trade has placed too much emphasis upon its contention that the present municipal government is "efficient,' and in that connection goes to the extreme of citing Hitler's government and Mussolini's government as outstanding examples of "efficiency." The board of trade does not contend that the present municipal government is merely "efficient." We have already mentioned the fine record established by it. During its 71 years of history it has received compliments without number from Senators and Representatives in the debates in Congress and from authors of works on government. It has been demonstrated that the Commissioners are close to the people, in the great number of public hearings held by them which always precede any important official action. There has never been a charge of dishonesty or corruption against a member of the Board of Commissioners or against an Assistant Commissioner or any head of a department of the government. E. F. COLLADAY,

General Counsel, Washington Board of Trade.

[From the Sunday Star, July 24, 1949]

CIVIC PROBLEMS, CIVIC BODIES-AMERICAN BIRTHRIGHT IDEAS ARE CONFUSED; NOYES ON GENUINE POLITICAL BIRTHRIGHT

(By Jesse C. Suter)

AMERICAN BIRTHRIGHT IS NOT IN LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

Advocates of District home rule at the current hearings by the Judiciary Subcommittee of the House District Committee usually express their support of national representation. They, however, almost invariably undervalue its importance, particularly as to its connection with its application to participation in a local government. Regarding it largely from its national aspect, it seems to be something rather remote, difficult to acquire and of somewhat doubtful value when obtained.

Some of these emphasize that what they seek through an elective local government is to obtain their American birthright. This, as they see it is the "self rule" which they expect to realize through the Kefauver bill (S. 1527) or one of the other similar measures.

To consider local elective government the American birthright is clearly a case of mistaken identity. And to fail to properly evaluate the acquirement by the people of the District of the right to elect their own Senators and Representatives in the Congress indicates that they have missed the $64 question.

Some very able people, in their burning enthusiasm for this will-o'-the-wisp of, so-called, home rule, have overlooked the real fundamentals of Americanship.

CONCRETE EXAMPLE OF UNDERVALUATION

"The question has been asked," said Mrs. Milton Dunn, in testifying at the hearing: "Can the District have real home rule without national representation?" She said that the District League of Women Voters had always vigorously supported national representation, but she added: "However desirable it is in itself, we would have little or no more home rule with national representation that without it."

Continuing, she said: "We would have in the Congress two or three Representatives elected on national issues. While that small representation would give us our fair share of voice in the National Government it certainly would not give the citizens of the District opportunity for local self-government."

But one very important thing was overlooked by this very estimable and able lady, that through voting representation of District people in the Congress, they would acquire participation in the exercise of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District of Columbia. The absence of such participation is a most serious handicap. It has always been the very heart of District disabilities on the local government level as well as on the national level.

We should pause, examine and contemplate just what is the real American birthright and what would be the value of its acquisition by citizens of the District.

THEODORE W. NOYES' VIEWS ON REAL AMERICAN BIRTHRIGHT

Were Theodore W. Noyes alive today he would surely have tried to clear up some of the existing confusion regarding the American birthright as well as the lack of a practical evaluation of national representation for the District. As he continues very much with us in spirit through the record of his many arguments, articles and editorials, his testimony should by all means be made available for needed light on questions pending at this time. There follows extracts from the argument he made before the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia in 1922 on Senate Joint Resolution 32:

"FULL REPRESENTATION IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT THE VITAL PRIVILEGE

"The genuine American political birthright is not municipal self-government but national representation through a Delegate in Congress when in the Territorial stage of development and through Senators and Representatives when the population, educational standards, and resources of a State have been attained.

"If Washingtonians are political slaves now they will still be political slaves after they have the power to elect a voteless Delegate, or even District Commissioners or any other municipal officials if the exclusive power of legislation under the constitutional provision still remains in a Congress not elected by them and in which they are not represented. Their chains may be made a little lighter and may not clank so loudly; they may be granted by kind masters a little greater freedom of movement, but they are not free. The power to take away their property, their freedom, and life itself is in others not chosen by them and to whose rule they have not assented. There is no self-government when the power to tax one, to imprison one, and to send one to war is not in one's self or in those to whom one has voluntarily confided it as one's representatives.

"Clearly the American birthright of which the Washingtonian has been deprived, or which, as alleged, he has sold for a mess of pottage, is not municipal self-government or participation in the municipal government. Such government existed with unsatisfactory results so far as capital upbuilding and popular contentment were concerned, during the first 70 vears of the city's life, in which period the community was bemoaning and Congressmen and Presidents were commenting upon the un-American conditions of Washington; and Georgetown, though enjoying municipal 'self-government,' sought, and Alexandria, though enjoying municipal 'self-government,' secured retrocession on account of their 'galling disfranchisement.'

"REAL AND BOGUS BIRTHRIGHTS.

"That the real American birthright is not municipal self-government but national representation through a Delegate in Congress when in the Territorial stage of development, and through Senators and Representatives when the population, educational standards, and resources of a State have been attained, is demonstrated by the facts and declarations that constitute Washington's political history.

"The right to vote in the municipal government was possessed by Washington until 1871, when a Territorial form of government was established with the voting privilege in respect to one branch of the local legislature, and for a voteless Delegate in Congress. Since 1874 no voting for any part of the local government and no representation in the National Government have been enjoyed.

"The limited privilege of voting for some or all the branches of a municipal government, operating by sufferance of Congress, though enjoyed from 1800 to 1874, was not viewed as constituting in the smallest degree the American political birthright.

"As we have seen, the un-American disfranchisement of the people of the Capital, meaning thereby their exclusion from national representation, was complained of as a grievance from 1800, and from the time of the occupation of the city by the Nation in that year. It was even then proposed that the Constitution should be amended to permit the District to have one Senator and one Representative.

"NEED OF NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP SEEN EARLY

"Washington was in existence only a few months when its residents began to bemoan their prospective disfranchisement, their exclusion from participation in national elections. In a pamphlet concerning the 'Government of the Territory of Columbia,' published in 1801 by A. B. Woodward, it is said:

"This body of people is as much entitled to the enjoyment of the rights of citizenship as any other part of the people of the United States. There can exist no necessity for their disfranchisement, no necessity for them to repose on the mere generosity of their countrymen to be protected from tvranny; to mere spontaneous attention for the regulation of their interests. They are entitled to a participation in the general councils on the principles of equity and reciprocity.' "And a constitutional amendment was urged giving the District one Senator as well as representation in the House. From the beginning of the century, too, Members of Congress who have viewed the condition of the Capital with other emotions than that of indifference have either 'felt their hearts bleed' over the enslaved condition of the prople or have denounced the disfranchised as selling their republican brithright for a mess of pottage.

“In a debate in the House December, 1800, Representative Smilie said: "Not a man in the District would be represented in the Government, whereas every man who contributed to the support of a government ought to be represented in it; otherwise his natural rights were subverted and he was left not a citi

zen but a slave. It was a right which this country, when under subjection to Great Britain, thought worth making a resolute struggle for and evinced a determination to perish rather than not enjoy.'

"In 1803 the 'unrepublican' condition of the District was again a matter of comment, and it was proposed to recede to Maryland and Virginia jurisdiction over the parts of the District originally ceded by them. John Randolph, Jr., in February of that year, said in the House:

"I could wish, indeed, to see the people within this District restored to their rights. This species of government is an experiment how far freeman can be reconciled to live without rights; an experiment dangerous to the liberties of these States. But inasmuch as it had been already made, inasmuch as I was not accessory to it, and as at some future time its deleterious effects may be arrested, I am disposed to vote against the resolution.'

A proposition to recede the Territory of Columbia outside of the limits of Washington caused Representative Clark to say, in 1805, that he spoke of the inhabitants whenever he had occasion to allude to them with pity and compassion, and he most devoutly wished to see them placed in a condition more congenial to his own feelings and the feelings of every true lover of civil and political freedom. Alexandria was retroceded in 1846, her 'galling disfranchisement' being referred to in debate. Georgetown had sought retrocession in 1838, but unsuccessfully.

"During all these years Washington as well as Georgetown and Alexandria, had been voting in their respective municipal governments."

STATEMENT OF MRS. HARVEY W. WILEY, CHAIRMAN, LEGISLATION COMMITTEE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

Mrs. WILEY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I am Mrs. Harvey A. Wiley. I would like to identify my organization. We are an organization of 30 clubs and our meetings are every month, of the entire body, according to the members in the clubs, so that the vote that is taken at a meeting is a representative vote of the clubs.

I have a committee on legislation that meets at my house always before the meeting and we discuss whatever is coming up at the meeting and recommend our findings to the entire body.

I might say I am a Republican and I was born in the district of Mr. Allen of California, and Mr. O'Hara and I worked together on daylight saving, so I suppose I have those points in common with the committee.

I might say I have lived in Washington for 62 years, and I have worked for the city all my life and that is a long period. I have lived in the same house for 36 years.

Mr. ABERNETHY. I recall you appeared before the Committee on Agriculture but you were not with Mr. O'Hara on that.

Mrs. WILEY. That is true. We did disagree on oleomargarine. Mr. HARRIS. Would you like to include your statement in the record?

Mrs. WILEY. No; I want to read it.

Mr. HARRIS. Very well.

Mrs. WILEY. I want to say, in the first place, I am a very seriousminded person. I worked for woman suffrage in 1917 and I have been in every good movement in the city, Red Cross, Community Chest, and president of my citizens' group and a delegate to the citizens association, and I have given a great deal of time to public work.

Mr. HARRIS. That is very commendable of you, Mrs. Wiley. Mrs. WILEY. Yes; and now all I want to say is that we want to vote. We, the members of the District of Columbia Federation of Women's Clubs, most of whom have lived in this city for most of our

lives, have long stood for the principle of national representation in the District of Columbia. We have worked for that principle year after year. In the Seventy-ninth Congress the bill to give the District of Columbia national representation, by means of a constitutional amendment, reached its highest point. At that time we were gratefully hopeful that our long pent-up desire would be gratified, and that the amendment would be submitted to the States for ratification.

However, when that did not happen, when the Eightieth Congress came along and Representative James C. Auchincloss, of New Jersey, worked for months perfecting his bill for home rule, H. R. 6227, which of course could be passed by a majority vote in each House, our organization, after careful study, went on record on February 23, 1948, for the Auchincloss bill. At a subsequent meeting of the federation on November 23, 1948, I was entrusted to send a letter expressing our approval of home rule for the District of Columbia to all new Members of the Eighty-first Congress, in the House and Senate, advising them of our stand in this matter. This [indicating] is a copy of that letter.

By way of explanation of our stand in this matter, I would like to say that primarily we believe that it is right that the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Capital City of this great democracy, should have the opportunity to express our wishes at the polls in matters concerning the District of Columbia. We would have preferred, as expressed above, to have had representation in the Congress; but that being impossible, we believe since our taxes furnish the bulk of the money which runs the city-I think we got $13,000,000 and supplied the $93,000,000 through taxes-and as we send our sons-I sent two of my sons to war to defend the Nation, we are entitled to the fundamental privilege in a democracy to express our wishes at the polls to choose the officials who settle District matters.

Throughout the country few people seem to know that we, the people of Washington, D. C., bear all the burdens of the community but have none of the privileges. Also, comparatively few people know that the District had home rule from 1800 to 1871.

The untruth that the founding fathers intended that the residents of "the seat of Government of the United States" should be denied the basic right of local self-government has been exposed many times in the daily newspapers, which inform the public that "A municipal legislation for local purposes (District of Columbia) derived from their suffrage will, of course, be allowed them," was uttered by James Madison. Washington is the only national capital in the whole world whose people cannot vote. Referendums taken in 1938 and again in 1946 expressed an overwhelming opinion in favor of both national representation and of home rule.

The Kefauver bill, S. 1527, which passed the Senate, is somewhat different from the Auchincloss bills (H. R. 6227 and H. R. 28). The principle is the same, however, as small points of difference must be settled by the committees of Congress.

We hope that the House will pass this bill this session and allow the people here to vote on it next November 15, 1949.

Mr. HARRIS. Thank you very much for your very fine statement. Mr. ALLEN of California. Mrs. Wiley, does your organization have a preference between the Kefauver bill and the Auchincloss bill No. 28 of the Eighty-first Congress?