March 17, 1952, was the last opportunity given us to express our support for local suffrage before a committee of the House of Representatives, when we testified before the House District Judiciary Subcommittee. Although the Senate has passed four home-rule bills since that time, we have been unable to achieve consideration of such bills on the floor of the House. For this reason, our organization is in support of the forthcoming discharge petition on H.R. 4630. We would wish, of course, that this discharge petition be made unnecessary through the prompt action of Subcommittee No. 3, in reporting out H.R. 4630 favorably. We endorse this bill as a great step forward in giving residents of this city equal status with all other citizens of the United States. Like them we pay Federal and local taxes, serve in the Armed Forces, and share their concern over domestic and international problems. Unlike them, we cannot participate in the election of our own representatives to whom we can express our wishes concerning matters of purely local interest. We must rely instead on men, who, though interested, were not sent to Congress to act as a local city council. The preamble to H.R. 4630 states in part: "It is the intent of Congress to restore to the inhabitants of the District of Columbia the powers of local self-government which are a basic privilege of all American citizens; to reaffirm through such action the confidence of the American people in the strengthened validity of principles of local self-government by the elective process; to promote among the inhabitants of the District the sense of responsibility for the development and well-being of their community which will result from the enjoyment of such powers of self-government; to provide for the more effective participation in the development of the District and in the solution of its local problems by those persons who are most closely concerned and to relieve the National Legislature of the burden of legislating upon purely local District matters." We fail to see how any member of this committee can disagree with the abovestated principles. STATEMENT OF MRS. MARGARET P. MCCANE, CHAIRMAN, THE CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ACTION COMMITTEE OF PEOPLE'S CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH The Christian Social Action Committee of People's Congregational Church represents a church membership of more than 950 people. As a Christian organization it has a deep interest in all things which have to do with the welfare of our community. We are heartened that your committee is giving us an opportunity to express our views on home rule for the District of Columbia. We wish to make the following statement: 1. We endorse home rule for the District of Columbia. We feel that the District of Columbia should enjoy the right of every other community of our democratic country—the right to run its own local affairs. We feel that, fundamentally, it is a matter of justice that we, too, share in the democratic process of self-government. Each major party has pledged itself to give the District of Columbia a voice in its own affairs. We call upon you to redeem that pledge. 2. While we would prefer a form of self-government which would enable us to elect our city head, our city council, the local school board, and a voting congressional representative, we would support the administration bill. However, we would urge that it be guaranteed that the school board be popularly elected. We feel it extremely important that the citizens of the community be able to select the officials who bear the responsibility for the education of its youth. 3. We reserve the right to support a discharge petition. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN, WASHINGTON BRANCH, Washington, D.C., July 25, 1959. Hon. JAMES C. DAVIS, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: For 12 years the American Association of University Women has actively supported home rule for the District of Columbia under its national legislative program. This support was reaffirmed by the AAUW national convention in Kansas City on June 25, 1959. The association, with 145,000 members in the 50 States, Guam, and the District of Columbia, favors not only home rule but also national suffrage for the District. At present we are concentrating on home rule. The Washington branch of the AAUW is pleased that the subcommittee has scheduled hearings on a home rule bill. We hope that the hearings will culminate in prompt passage of home rule by the House. We realize that time is short this session and therefore we are not requesting an opportunity to give oral testimony before the subcommittee. Instead, we are presenting this written statement, thus hoping to shorten the time required for hearings and to aid in expediting the subcommittee's action on the bill. At the same time we are supporting a petition to discharge H.R. 4630 from the committee and to bring it to the House for a vote. We believe that the time is ripe now for all Congressmen to come to the aid of home rule. We also believe that a majority of the House of Representatives, along with the Senate, wants to take action this session to make us first-class citizens of our country. Surely the eyes of the world must be upon the Congress to see whether we practice what we preach about democracy. Sincerely yours, Hon. JAMES C. DAVIS, ALICE C. COLE, President. WASHINGTON, D.C., July 23, 1959. Chairman, Subcommittee, District of Columbia Committee, DEAR CONGRESSMAN DAVIS: The enclosed appeared in the Washington Post and Times Herald this morning, July 23, 1959. As a resident and property owner in the District it was very disturbing to know that a newspaper such as the Washington Post would encourage mass demonstration before your committee. The subject under discussion, that of home rule, is not one to be treated lightly and if a change in the present system is made we might come to regret it in the very near future. I am sure your committee will not be influenced by any such rabble-rousing articles or personal demonstrations such as the Post suggests. Sincerely, WELLWOOD H. MAXWELL. P.S.-If agreeable to your committee I would like to have this included in the record. [From the Washington Post and Times Herald, July 23, 1959] THIS IS THE HOUR Washington ought to give the House of Representatives a never-to-be-forgotten demonstration of its interest in home rule. Now that the District subcommittee headed by Representative Davis has fixed Tuesday of next week for the beginning of hearings on the home rule bills, the community can afford to pull out all the stops. We suggest that witnesses for home rule be lined up for a city block or more and that the hearing room be packed by interested citizens. Why should there not be also a home rule parade and rallies by every organization in the city that is interested in the restoration of suffrage? The civilian members of the Board of Commissioners could well lead off with some special event in addition to testifying before the Davis subcommittee. This could be followed by dinners, rallies or other means of arousing enthusiasm by the Washington Home Rule Committee, the Federation of Citizens Association, the political committees and all other organizations that are interested in restoring democratic procedures to this voteless Capital. The winning of political rights has been traditionally associated with mass demonstrations and protests. Washington needs to draw upon this experience. If the people rise up and demand home rule with a fairly united voice, a little clique in the House will not be able long to resist it. We do not think any argument is needed to establish the justice of self-government for any American city, but the conscience of the House and that of the country need to be aroused. And this is the strategic moment. Let the community and all its civic agencies begin today a clamor that will drown out any petty objections that the Davis subcommittee may raise and that will overcome the past apathy of the House leadership. If a discharge petition is necessary to dislodge the bill from the District Committee, the best possible preliminary would be a great outpouring of indignation over the shameful disfranchisement of the Capital City for more than three-quarters of a century. We know that many local citizens are indignant over their status as political eunuchs. What they ought to realize is that the coming week will give them a unique opportunity to vent their wrath in a most productive fashion. STATEMENT OF JAMES A. GANNON, JR., PRESIDENT, CLEVELAND PARK-CATHEDRAL HEIGHTS ASSOCIATION The above association is opposed to any of the so-called home rule bills for the District of Columbia. It would favor effective (i.e., voting) congressional representation, and an opportunity to vote for President and Vice President. STATEMENT PRESENTED BY MISS ANNA E. VALENTINE-BROWN, WASHINGTON, D.C. HOME RULE-NO Let us not fall from grace again by the allurement of the apple-an apple that can only be an apple of Sodom. We all know what an apple of Sodom is, do we not? It is an apple beautiful and luscious looking on the outside and filled with dust and mildew on the inside. When it is opened the foul dust flies out into the air and infects one's eyes and nostrils and causes disease and sickness. Such is home rule. If we had citizens real and true instead of so many "denizens" home rule might be efficacious. Our Founding Fathers instituted the Capital City as it is for certain reasons that still obtain. It, the arrangement, has profited us for all these years. Let us be wise enough to leave it as it is; especially under present conditions, when men are not thinking too clearly. Let us fall prey to no allurement on the basis that it is modern. Remember that there is an element of society that ever seeks to be obtrusive on us and to overcome our way of life. He works by deceit. Now he is courting another element of our society that is gullible and easily swayed to evil, and he hopes to pamper that element to the end that he will ride into power on the back of its foolishness. Once in, over and aboveboard-for that first element is already powerful under cover-that pampering will cease. It will proceed to impose its will on all and sundry and the fine and good will suffer first and worse. First we will have a continuation and broadening of certain undesirable conditions and practices which are covered up now. Then occasion will be taken to institute them aboveboard, which will settle the governing element more deeply in the favor of the worse elements. Then when they feel certain that their power is firmly entrenched, Siberia-like conditions will set in, liberty will be receded, and enslavement for all will ensue. All pampering will end and a grinding down process be set in motion until all is destroyed. Those, who in the past have been worthy, will be ground down with great bitterness. Moreover the destructiveness started here in Washington will serve as a pattern for the rest of the Nation. Soon freedom will be a thing of the past in the United States. Do not let it get a head start aboveboard and let us seek to crush it down at all levels. Before we think about changing plans that have served our city and Nation well, let us think about improving our citizenry from "denizens" to citizens—real American citizens, with clean constitutional laws, administered by clean able men and women-men and women who know and respect American ideals and are anxious to see them in full control of our cities and country. Men and women who are able to foster the rearing of strong, stalwart, moral boys and girls, intelligent, and every bit capable of administering and holding the fine jobs and opportunities that America can afford them. We want no snide smearings of culture and learning and refinements for our boys and girls that are merely skin deep and will not hold up under the storms of life. We want our boys and girls, and all of our girls and boys, fine and true indeed. This was a beautiful, clean, and well beloved city until about 10 years ago. Let us not change our city except to clear it up morally, officially as well as by way of a better citizenry. We do not want that which we have now; a well hidden rottenness, with some of our neighborhoods filled with obscenity. infilthment, murder, lawlessness of every kind, and crime coddling. We wish to offend no one, but this is no time for throwing roses. Our city is not what we want it to be. Our lives, our homes, our generations, and our American way of life is at stake, whether or not it is realized by most of us. Home rule now will mean that very soon we will have no homes to rule. and if we had them, it would be rule of something other than Americanism. Persons are being "thought checked," radio waved; head and heart mauled; head burnt, foot burnt, gased; infilthed with urine and offal; and sound burdened 24 hours a day. No relief is gained by asking for a police investigation and one is placed in an asylum for the insane with the abuse continuing as he can prove nothing because no one will help him. However, if adequate radio, or necessary equipment, would be used, the impetus could be detected. Radiation is physical and can be detected by some physical means. These people who have these things down are working every minute of the day to make these abuses less detestable and are the ones who are most anxious to have home rule, which will in reality be their rule. They are flooding the city with the kind of people who will work for them and are willing to practice any lawbreaking just so they are paid; and they hope to get into the government as many of their predecessors have done. In essence of the words of the immortal Lincoln, "God give us to know the right and to do the right." A citizen for more than 50 years, |