houses in Georgetown I could find you three or four more who are moving out of the District.

Mr. WHEELER. Take Georgetown, Foggy Bottom, a city council who would restore and redevelop the city into the close-in living which are now in slum areas, not only in the Southwest, but in the Northwest. This city has a tremendous amount of property that can be redeveloped into row houses and made into fine, inexpensive developments. If that were so, we need that kind of initiative. We need that kind of ingenuity applied to our local government, but we are static. We haven't any responsibility. We cannot get the Commissioners the Commissioners themselves do not have the power. If we had an elective government who could take this housing and focus on this housing problem and could put some teeth into things that they say and get it done, what they want done, I am sure the District of Columbia would be no different than any other of these cities.

There is a movement all over the country to come into town rather than go out of town. We have passed the suburbia problem. We are getting away from it, too far, long and complicated.

The cost is too much. When you get down into town instead of being a two- or one-car family, you are a no-car family and you use public transportation. The bus companies would not be asking for subsidy if you could patronize them. The way to patronize them is to bring the people back to town.

Mr. MATTHEWS. You are making a wonderful statement, but I just do not believe the facts.

Mr. WHEELER. This is something I live in day in and day out, month in and month out.

Mr. MATTHEWS. My point is again, I do not believe, and the information I have is I do not believe you could prove there is this movement back into the District to the extent you think.

I do not doubt but what it may be true over in the Georgetown section--it is so beautiful, and I wish I had a home over there. Mr. WHEELER. You have Capitol Hill over here. There is a redevelopment here in the city begging to be helped by Congress. Mr. MATTHEWs. If you can get Federal funds?

Mr. WHEELER. We do not need Federal funds. I do not want a dime of it. I do not think that is needed. People I know in the real estate business want an opportunity to redevelop this city on the basis of free enterprise, something that we Americans and we in the District of Columbia know what it means. I tell you that will happen if the Congress would just let loose of the purse string, I mean the rope string they have-rope string they have around this neck. This purse string, we do not want any of it.

We have gotten less and less of it as the times goes bv.

You want to know why the people of the District of Columbia have to have a Federal payment? I will give you one of the reasons that they have to have a Federal payment. The Congress has designed this city to be a showcase. They do not want industry. It is not the people in the District of Columbia who do not pay sufficient taxes; it is the fact that the District does not have any industry and not only that, the zoning is so constructed that they cannot have sufficient industry. Mr. MATTHEWS. Mr. Wheeler, right there, do you think if Congress still maintains its veto power, as these bills provide, that they are

ever going to permit industry? Isn't that just another argument aud a reason that this is a different type of situation?

By the way, let me say this: I believe in giving the District government an adequate share of Federal revenues. I have always supported an adequate share. I will in the future. I think that is right.

Mr. WHEELER. I can see no reason why light industries should not be encouraged to come in the area of this city that has been devoted and zoned for light industry. We have done everything in our power in the District of Columbia to accept industry out of the District.

I think we are making a mistake. I think that one of the reasons why we are having a contribution and have to come before you for contributions is that we are not cultivating enough light industrynot heavy industry. Obviously the District is no place for it.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I think your frustration is not because you do not have home rule but again is because of the inevitable fact that this is a Federal city.

As I pointed out one time before, you tried to get a bridge across the Potomac. Oh, how desperately we need a bridge.

Mr. WHEELER. We do.

Mr. MATTHEWs. I want to say for both sides of the aisle, my Democratic and Republican colleagues, Mr. Broyhill and Mr. Foley have worked and their predecessors have, but all your officials and various Federal bodies have to agree.

Mr. WHEELER. We need a little organization in addition to home rule. That is a different problem.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I want to tell you again you are making a very fine argument and you are so convincing I may have to leave here in a minute or two and not listen to you.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Matthews, I am so convinced because as I said previously, I live with these problems and have been living with them for 15 years or more. I will tell you, if you were in the same position as I was, you would have the same feelings in this matter. I myself am a southerner. I am from Judge Davis' district originally. I have lived with these problems. I have studied them carefully and looked to see the merits of them. I am convinced myself, or I would not come before you and come before Judge Davis, that this is needed; that you will have a better city and I will live in a better city if we are able to get this home rule.

Mr. DAVIS. While, of course, we cannot come to any final conclusion on all the problems of the District here this morning, I have been very interested in your comments about the crime situation.

I presume you know that for quite a while after we increased the authorization of the police force up to 2,500-you know for a long time it was less than that-we finally, over the objection of the Commissioners, increased it up to an authorization of 2,500. Then it was a long, long time before the Chief and the Police Department were ever able to fill it up to the authorized strength. There were many difficulties involved in employing policemen even after they were authorized. We have constantly adopted legislation to increase the salaries, to increase their retirement, to make a better retirement system for them, and with all of those things we still have a great deal of trouble in getting the right kind of people to fill up the authorized strength.

There are many problems here that you cannot just settle with the snap of the finger, and nobody can do it.

Mr. WHEELER. That is right.

Mr. DAVIS. There is a move on foot now to increase the strength of the police force here. When that is done, there is still going to be a lot of difficulty in the way of getting additional personnel.

I

You cannot get those things on the spur of the moment. Mr. WHEELER. That is quite correct. I quite agree with you. did not mean to imply contrary to what you say. What I was saying, that if the police force was made responsive to the people through the mayor or through the council, that the impetus, the whole force would be to run an efficient local government, or else they will have to get out. They are responsive to the people. They will have to account to the people. Now we have no such accounting. I cannot go to the police force or I have no representative to go to the police force except this committee to get the police force to do anything. On the other hand, as chairman of the Democratic Party or any counterpart, chairman of the Republican Party, if he were to go to the Chief of Police and say, "I have a hundred people who have come to me and are demanding we do something about this police force" and get something done about it, then I think they would listen.

Mr. DAVIS. I think this: I think the Chief of Police and the police force are doing a tremendous job. I think they are doing a swell job under difficult circumstances.

Mr. WHEELER. I think so, too.

Mr. DAVIS. I do not think you could achieve very much by going to the Chief of Police because I think he is exerting his efforts to the utmost now to give the people of the District of Columbia good, substantial, adequate law enforcement.

Mr. WHEELER. I think they are all doing a good job, and I say this because when I was clerk of the Senate District Committee I had an opportunity to look into our police force matters here. I agree that we have an honest man as a Chief of Police. He is doing a good job for us.

Mr. DAVIS. We have a very fine police force, too.

Mr. WHEELER. Yes.

On the other hand, I say the emphasis which would spur this, to do the maximum job at all times, not only by the Chief of Police, but everyone down the line-if they knew they were responsive to the electorate and that their jobs and everything would be somewhat dependent upon them, not a spoils system, but

Mr. DAVIS. They are under the merit system now. They would remain under a merit system regardless of the type of government. Mr. WHEELER. Yes, but they know they are being watched not by Members of Congress, but by 850,000 people and that the people's voice in these matters meant something. Now it means nothing. I am crying in the wilderness when I talk to them. I am just another Joe Blow who has no interest in it or can do nothing about it.

Mr. DAVIS. I do not think you are quite in that low status. I am not saying these things to argue with you.

Mr. WHEELER. No. I appreciate that. I want to say that this home rule movement, Mr. Smith, is a bipartisan movement. I have not converted it into a partisan move. I talked last night with the

chairman of the Republican Party, Mr. Carl Shipley, and his views. are my views on these things. We agree. We are eye to eye on this thing. It is a bipartisan support. It is from the people themselves as close as you can get.

Mr. DAVIS. Before we get off of that part of your statement, I want to say I appreciate the observation of our colleague on the subcommittee, Mr. Smith. I thought until he spoke up that the Kansas Municipal League was a league of Kansas mayors.

Mr. SMITH. They are paid individuals.

Mr. WHEELER. I submit to you all of us are paid individuals in one way or another, Mr. Smith, and we all have views on these matters and it is their view that what I say is right and what I am urging you to do is right, as it is the Conference of Mayors themselves who are not paid individuals except in a general sense of the word.

Mr. DAVIS. Please proceed. We probably have interrupted you too long with your statement.

Mr. WHEELER. Thank you, sir.

In addition, there has been a ground swell of resolutions from city councils throughout the country demonstrating the widespread grassroots support for this fundamental cause. Among the 41 city councils that have adopted the resolution of the U.S. Mayors Conference are such public bodies as those of Augusta, Ga.; Charlotte, N.C.; San Angelo, Tex.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Dubuque, Iowa; county of Hawaii; Toledo, Ohio; Richmond, Calif.; Stanford, Conn.; Allentown, Pa.; Bloomington, Ill.; and Minneapolis, Minn. There are probably many others that have not come to our attention and who have sent their communications directly to the Congressmen.

It will be of interest to Congressman Thomas Morris that his city of Albuquerque, N. Mex., also passed a similar resolution on July 14, 1959. I mention this because Mr. Morris is a member of this House District Committee.

When it comes to appeals from Democratic organizations, all I can say is that we have a flood of them, from town, city, district, county, and State committees. In view of the fact that Congressman Smith is a member of this House District Committee, I should like to read the letter of July 20, 1959, from the chairman of the Kansas Democratic State Committee to Congressmen Denver Hargis, J. Floyd Breeding, and Newell George, all of Kansas. These are Democrats.

I have just received an appeal from the chairman and officers of the Democratic Central Committee of the District of Columbia requesting political help from the leadership in the several States through their Democratic Congressmen to secure enough signatures on a discharge petition to bring out of a House committee for a vote on the floor of the House the home rule bill for the District of Columbia.

It has always seemed ludicrous to me that the residents of the District of Columbia were denied the same privileges of citizenship that we enjoy in our State government. It is certainly undemocratic and un-American.

I understand that the question of home rule for the District of Columbia is not a partisan matter but has been supported unsuccessfully by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

In the spirit of comity and democratic action, I hope you can see fit as Democratic Congressman from Kansas to join in the discharge petition requiring an absolute majority of the membership of the House.

Typical of letters from Democratic town committees is that written to Congressman Frank Kowalski, of Connecticut, by the Stonington Democratic Town Committee date July 23, 1959:

I am writing at the request of the Democratic Town Committee for the town of Stonington (which is too poor to have any stationery at the moment). The town committee received a plea from the Democratic Central Committee for the District of Columbia, asking that we urge our representatives to sign a petition compelling the introduction on the House floor of a bill providing for home rule for the District of Columbia.

The members of the town committee discussed this, and then unanimously voted to urge you to sign such a petition. We are confident that you believe in home rule for the District of Columbia.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Will you yield for just a moment?

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir.

Mr. MATTHEWs. The gentleman is conscious of the fact that that discharge petition has been withdrawn and a new one has been substituted?

Mr. WHEELER. He was even in favor of the old one, sir.

Mr. MATTHEWS. That would indicate that I have no respect at all for his judgment because the author of it thought it was so abominable that he withdrew the petition.

I yield to my friend, Congressman Multer.

Mr. MULTER. I did not withdraw the petition. It has not been withdrawn. I did not think it abominable or a bad petition. It is still on the desk and I hope enough people will sign it, but if they won't sign that, I have given them the alternative to sign a more liberal petition to meet the objections that were urged by the opponents of the bill. I said then, and I repeat now, most respectfully, I do not think the opponents of home rule will sign my discharge petition, but to show our good faith, I put upon the desk of the Clerk a much more liberal petition.

I would like to hear what the objection is, if any, to the more liberal petition, which after 2 days of debate allows the chairman of this District Committee to offer his own substitute and allows 4 hours of debate on that, with a motion to recommit with or without instructions. What is wrong with that?

Mr. MATTHEWS. I would like to make this comment, if I may. [Applause.]

The difficulty we get into again, as I said a while ago, when these fine people from all over the country express their opinions that so often they do not know what they express their opinions about. They do not have both sides of the question. I noticed for example that the last statement you read, Mr. Wheeler, says that this little town committee that is so poor they do not have any stationery received a plea from your committee.

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, sir.

Mr. MATTHEWS. It shows they do not know. This is no disparaging remark. It shows they do not know what they are talking about. Our able colleague's first petition only granted an hour of debate. I still love him, but I am quite surprised that he is willing once again to emphasize that he believes in that gag rule. One of the most liberal Members of the House a gentleman who is always in the forefront of the fight, to give people the right to express their opinion, he was here this morning, Mr. Chairman, is saying, and he reiterates, that he thinks a thing so important as home rule should have only 1 hour of debate. I can only express my utter amazement, my disappointment at the attitude of my colleague.

Mr. MULTER. Will the gentleman yield?