good for the people 100 years ago would not necessarily be good today. cite the corporation law of the District of Columbia. I cite the law of distribution and descent. It was years and years before we could get unanimous agreement. And you know legislation by unanimous agreement is almost no legislation at all, and that is what we have here. We have legislation that is noncontroversial. How can you run a city like that? I submit to you that Washington cannot be run that way, Atlanta cannot be run that way, New York cannot be run that way, or any city, effectively and efficiently.

Mr. DAVIS. Some of the witnesses who have preceded you who favor this legislation have stated that ultimately they would like to see the District of Columbia assume the status of statehood, first territorial and then statehood. What is your view on that?

Mr. WHEELER. I do not agree with that statement. I think that there is a difference between the District of Columbia and a State. It is inherently so, as you have pointed out with respect to the Federal interest.

However, I do think that there are other forms of local self-government that can be enacted without in any way disparaging or affecting adversely the Federal interest.

I refer to the vote for President and Vice President. I see no reason why the people of the District of Columbia cannot exercise that franchise.

I also refer to representation in Congress both in the Senate and House.

I see no reason why proper safeguards could not be put on the voting so as to enable the people of the District of Columbia to elect their own Representatives in Congress.

Mr. DAVIS. You would have then a Delegate in both the House and the Senate?

Mr. WHEELER. I have no objection to the Delegate in the House and the Senate. I support both of them but I will go one step further. I would think they can have voting Delegates and voting Senators in the Senate and voting Members in the House based on the same rules that would be apropos to the States.

Mr. DAVIS. That is, two Members of the Senate and as many Members of the House as the population would justify on the basis that the States have representation?

Mr. WHEELER. On the basis of bona fide residence in the District of Columbia and not voting elsewhere.

Mr. SMITH. I would like to ask the gentleman a question.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH. I would like to make this comment, since Kansas seems to be getting a lot of publicity here this morning from this League of Municipalities and also further on in your statement you have something to say about the Democratic Young Republicans and the letters you have addressed to the Democratic Congressmen. I thought this was a nonpolitical issue-home rule but it seems to me you have made it so.

About this League of Municipalities, that is nothing but a bunch of hired men. They are not elected. They are hired men and they are always trying to find some way of keeping up their standing and get a lot of publicity. What they are talking about as home rule in Kansas

is a matter of taxation in the local cities. That is what they were talking about. I suppose you could ask almost any person in Kansas about home rule in the District of Columbia and they would say, "Yes, they ought to have a vote," but they do not know the facts. It would be the same thing, to go down in the lower echelons of the Department of Agriculture and find four or five people who would say we ought to do this or that in the Congress on certain legislation.

I was elected here to represent what I think is the best interests of my district and the citizenry as a whole. I do not like this idea of quoting hired men out there, when they have not any legislative function whatsoever. They are in your recommendations. Why do you not send a recommendation out to Muncie, Ind., or Jacksonville, Fla., and get their nose in those municipal problems? Everybody thinks people ought to have a right to vote. They don't know all the facts. Mr. WHEELER. That is the problem I cannot see. What is the overshadowing fact here in the District of Columbia?

Mr. SMITH. Because this is a Federal city and the Constitution says we shall have exclusive jurisdiction over this city.

Mr. WHEELER. But the Supreme Court does not say what you say it says.

Mr. SMITH. I do not care about the Supreme Court decisions. Mr. WHEELER. After all, the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it says. I will tell you, the constitutionality-I would like to allude to this fact. Your own Legislative Counsel in this House of Representatives has given an opinion that this legislation, or similar legislation, is constitutional. The Attorney General of the United States has given

Mr. SMITH. When I said I do not care what the Supreme Court says, they think that they have become another legislative body in this country.

Mr. WHEELER. Everybody knows they do have some legislative aspects to their functions, just as the Congress is primarily legislative. They are primarily judicial but their decisions ultimately, you know, affect the legislation.

Mr. DAVIS. Before we get off of that subject, and this is in a very kind spirit, too, I just want to register my disagreement with the statement you made to the effect that the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. I think maybe you were a little hasty in making that statement.

Of course, the Constitution is what the Constitution says it is. I thoroughly disagree with the statement that the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.

Mr. WHEELER. There was that man, Judge, who was asked a question, "The Supreme Court said this proposition was so. Do you disagree with it?" And he says, "Not anymore."

He apparently had some disagreement before the Supreme Court acted on it, but after the Supreme Court says it is ended and finally he was ready to accept it. I think most lawyers and most people feel that way about the proposition.

Mr. DAVIS. I do not think facts will bear that out. Even the American Bar Association, through its various committees and through its organization, has thoroughly disagreed with that attitude.

They pointed out the dangers which exist in the Supreme Court undertaking to make a legislative body out of itself. It certainly has generated a lot of concern.

Mr. WHEELER. I appreciate that it has. It has been discussed in the bar association over a number of years. However, I think that they cannot help but make legislation. Their decisions cannot help but affect the Congress and the legislation. Time and time again not only in this matter, yesterday or today, but it has done it over all these years. Justice Marshall, when he made certain decisions. affecting the balance of powers naturally affected legislation. You cannot operate. The Constitution, I believe, is set up where each one of the branches of the Government would have a checkrein on the other branches. As a result it cannot help but affect legislation.

Mr. DAVIS. Of course, it has some effect on legislation; where there is ambiguity in the constitutional provision or in the legislative act, it becomes the duty of the Court to construe it, but where there is no ambiguity, where the language is plain, then there is no necessity for any construction. It speaks for itself.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that possibly the rule is as to the Constitution, that the Constitution says what laymen and lawyers think it says until the Supreme Court has spoken. When the Supreme Court has said what it says, that is what it means and says until the Congress either by appropriate legislation, if it has the power to do so, or the States by amendment to the Constitution say that the Supreme Court did not properly interpret it and then that puts a different interpretation on the statute or the Constitution, as the case may be.

Under our Constitution, we give the Supreme Court of the United States the right to interpret and decide these questions. Once they have decided it by majority vote, that is the law of the land, until the Congress or the people, by either enactment of legislation or constitutional amendment say otherwise.

Mr. DAVIS. Of course, there are two schools of thought on that. You have stated the position of one of them. The other is that what the Supreme Court says is not the law of the land and, of course, each advocate of a position is very firmly convinced that his is the right position. Mr. MATTHEWS. Will you yield?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I would like to make an observation similar to the one that our colleague, Mr. Smith, has made. The gentleman is making a fine statement. I know he is just as sincere as he can be, and he has given us a tremendous amount of information from mayors, from people who are connected with municipal governments.

I subscribe to

We have a fundamental difference of opinion. the views of Mr. Smith. I believe the Federal City is different. I believe it was set aside as a Federal city. I know it was years and years ago. As far as I understand it is the only capital city in the world that was exclusively and specifically set aside as a Federal city. We have had home rule before. Before these hearings are over I would like for someone to go a little more into detail as to why Congress took away home rule from the District. I do not know whether you are prepared to tell us about that this morning but incidentally, I did not take it away from the District. Nobody on this committee took

it away from the District. Our predecessors took the home rule we had at one time away from the District.

My position is, again and again, that this is a Federal city. It is something different. It is something set apart. There will be certain tremendous advantages. There will be, perhaps, some disadvantages. I do not want to bore the committee with a repetition of things that I have said before, but the tremendous advantages, of course, are the tremendous Federal expenditures that go into this city-20 percent of all the money spent in America on national parks go into this city; right here, upon this Hill, about $100 million is being spent in the course of 7 years.

One time earlier in the year someone suggested maybe those people working on Hill projects did not live in the District of Columbia. Well, I did some research on that. I found that a considerable portion of them did live and did work here in the District of Columbia.

Please forgive me for rambling. We talk about feeling left out. I have tried for my little district to get just a little Federal building; to get just a little money to deepen a harbor. I knock at the door year after year. Over in the other body the other day I had a little bill that would help my farmers with their peanut production. A distinguished gentleman from the other body said he was going to attach the civil rights amendment to that particular bill.

I pled with him, "Please don't do it." In other words, we all have frustrating problems. We are, here in this beautiful Federal City, exclusively set apart. We have the tremendous building program, paid for, not by the people of the District of Columbia, but by my people. Some of it is paid by your people, but all of the people of the States participate in that.

I do want to emphasize that good men do disagree and you have the feeling that this, perhaps, is pretty well just like another city. I do not believe it. I will tell you this: If I could talk with the gentlemen in municipal government from other States for about an hour, I do not know whether they would send resolutions like they have or not.

I just do not know because once again I do not believe they have the whole picture. Sure, we want all of the rights and the privileges, but sometimes we have to give up some of them to accept others.

Forgive me for rambling so, but I did want to emphasize that particular point.

Mr. WHEELER. I am sure, Mr. Matthews, that they are aware of the Federal aspects of it because I myself tell them that. In my letters of transmittal to them, I ask them, and other people write them, and I am sure they present a fair presentation of the District of Columbia and its problems. I agree with you. They recognize them, but notwithstanding the Federal interests they realize, it seems to me, that the ancient heritage of the American people to vote, to vote on their own affairs, to say what they want, to have the people to control their destinies to be responsive to them.

I say to you I look at this crime rate in the District of Columbia. I read in the paper day in and day out, we have one of the highest crime rates in the whole United States. I say to you that a municipal government would not tolerate such things as that, that they could not tolerate it. If it was a Democrat or a Republican in office the

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opposite party would use that and would get that matter cleaned up promptly.

They come to Congress. Congress is very conscious of the appropriations. I myself am willing to be taxed more and I might say I am taxed fairly heavily in the District of Columbia, as many of the other business and professional men are, but I am willing to pay more to get (a) a better police force so that these thefts and these serious crimes in the District of Columbia will not go unapprehended and the people who commit them will be where they belong.

I will say to you it is not only the Police Department. I do not mean to put the blame on the Police Department because I know they are doing a fine job with what they have got, but I will tell you, I talked yesterday to a woman on the grand jury. She told me last night that the problem is they haven't sufficient district attorneys here to prosecute them. They have need for about three or four or five times as many district attorneys because they do not have enough time to study the evidence, there is so much of it and because they have not been able to get and make a clean case against these people that they cannot convict them.

I say to you that that is a typical example of one of the things that home rule will do for the District of Columbia. It will help you as Members of Congress and the citizens of the District of Columbia just as much as it will help me as a citizen of the District.

Mr. MATTHEWS. If you will yield, I certainly agree with much of what you have said. You probably are familiar with the arguments in Congress yesterday about the crime rate in the District of Columbia, but actually, I do not know whether home rule would help that or not. As you have indicated, the police matter is not the only matter. One matter is that the homes are broken, people do not accept the responsibilities they should in the home.

You have this problem in the District of Columbia. As you have said before, the Commissioners tell us that one reason they have financial problems is the people who make money, the greater majority of them, it looks like as soon as they make pretty good salaries they move out of the District of Columbia. Is there any reason that think if you have home rule you will have more and more people who stay in the District of Columbia who make the good salaries? Mr. WHEELER. I certainly can answer that one in the affirmative. Mr. MATTHEWs. You think you would?

you

Mr. WHEELER. I am convinced of it.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I am not convinced of it.

Mr. WHEELER. I am quite interested in the redevelopment program in the District of Columbia, particularly in Georgetown and Foggy Bottom. I myself have built 18 $70,000 homes in Georgetown and have sold them.

These people who buy these homes are people who are moving back to the District of Columbia. They are moving back to the District of Columbia because this problem of living in the suburbs does not have the glamour that it used to have. You have this acute transportation problem here. The move is not out to the suburbs, but the move is back into the city.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I declare if I had time to do a little research for every person you could find who moved into one of those $70,000