Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-11-06

the ha1-and-naIf Is that they do look
upon the present federal contribution
as a subsidy. / deny 1t. say that
every cent that the federal govern.
mem. has ever spent upon its capital
has been well spent. The American
people are a rich people; they are
pie and they demand that their capital
shall be the equal of any capital on
earth. -.-.
ress of the capital has been due to the
ha1f-and- forgetting the fact that
1t has been due solely to exclusive con-
gressional control, 1t has been said and
said many times in the District of Co
lumb1a by the supporters Of the half
and-ha1f that any abandonment Of the
half-and- half principle means the de-
struction by taxation of the local COM
munity.
In No Danger Of Destruction.
so far as can read In history there
never has been a government possessed
OF the taxing power, be that govern
ment autocratic, aristocratic, oligarchfc,
republican or democratic, that has ever
exercised the taxing power to the point
where it has destroyed any community.
There is limit beyond which even the
power of tax, although it is the power
to destroy, may not go. The Congress
may by taxation of particular thing.
destroy it. You may pass a tax law
with respect to notes issued by state
banks that will stop the issue Of state
bank notes. You may pass tax law
which will put an end to the sale of
lottery tickets, or which will greatly
limit the sale of oleomargarine. but you
cannot and you know you cannot pass
any tax law that will destroy Wash
ington any more than you can by any
tax law destroy New York or San
Francisco.
sHTNI,
legislative fiction. But. like many other
legislative fictions, it has a certain
powerful influence. In the first place.
l want to concede to the proponents Of
| truthfully can be said in it's behalf In
1873 Congress had been for three
quarters of a century in the habit of
looking upon the municipal activities
inside the District of Columbia as func-
tons of the local municipal govern
ment. Congress had not determined
what ought to be done. Aside from
adopting the plan made by l. Enfant.
Congress had had nothing to do with
it's development. The mayor and coun-
Gil of Georgetown. the levy court of the
county, had made such improvements
as had been made down to 1871, and in
| the stormy times from 1871 to 1878,
| while the Congress did indeed set up
the machinery under which the capital
was transformed, Congress had no re-
sponsibility. Congress did not take
any action.
ut was the legislature, or the board
of public works. or temporary COM
mission in the last four years of that
period. 1t was not Congress.
But since 1873 not street has been
wi eueo. not an avenue has been paved,
not a schoolhouse has been built, not
policeman has been added to the po-
lice force. not sewer has been laid,
not fire engine has been bought for
the fire department, not single NUM-
cipal thing has been done that has not
been done on the fat of Congress Now
this means that the act of 1873 was or
dained by Congress as compromise
between a municipal function and a ma
tional function. And I have no doubt
that the men who produced that act
and the local people who assented to it's
enactment, and a considerable number
of them did assent, believed that it was
fair division between national and
municipal functions but the hollowness
and mockery of that division lay in the
fact that all the essential power, the
power of taxation and power of appro-
priation, was left with Congress.
THE municipal government was
shell and had no power except what
was delegated to it by Congress. Now,
herein lay the benefit of the half-and-
half. While it was a fiction then as it is
now, yet it was fiction that left the
people here thinking they still had a
separate government and yet accus-
toned Congress who also still thought
| the people had a separate corporation.
to provide annually for the needs OF
the District. Before 1878, before the
| passage of the organic act and the ordi-
| nation of the half-and-half system all
provision anywhere for improvements
of permanent character or for current
expenses were made in a hap hazard
| fashion. One year the appropriations
were large and another year they were
small There was no regular budget.
Half and Half Great Benefit.
81 can freely say with the people who
still support the half-and-haf that it
| was great benefit to the National Cap
| ital in that it induced Congress to get
| into the annual habit of taking into
consideration all the projected require
ments of the District of Columbia and
to make this annual appropriation
based upon the needs of the District of
Columbia. That was its chief function
and that function it has performed. We
now have an orderly budget. We now
have an annual scheme of appropria-
tions. So l can see that the half-and-
| half has been beneficial. but its benefits
| have been benefits resulting solely from
| the psychological influence of a legis-
lative fiction upon a legislative mind.
Now, a psychological fact is just as
| stubborn a fact as physical fact, but
you cannot expect other than psyche
logical result from a pSycnOlOSlcaI I'M
| pulse. Everything that the half-and-
| half can do in the way of influencing
Congress to take into consideration the
needs of the District of Columbia has
been done Indeed, Congress has be-
come so accustomed to the annual
routine of approving the budget of the
District of Columbia that it now ac-
cepts that as just as much part of
it's duty it does to pass the annual
| appropriation bill for the Post Office,
| or for the Navy. or for the Army. or
| for any other branch of the federal
government, and. having accepted that
| fact it has forgotten the chaos that ex-
| listed here prior to 1878, and it is ask
| ing Why this limitation? Why this
| half and half So that now in the
year 1915 the half-and-half. instead of
! being psychologically advantageous to
| the National Capital. has become psy-
| choIogically Instantaneous The only
question, in view of the fctional char
acter of the half-and-half plan. to be
determined is whether or not these ad-
| vantages are outweished and outnum-
bered by the disadvantages.
1.-The very words half and-half, as
| applied to the District of Columbia, in
dictate that there is 4 division of duties.
responsibilities and obligations and
! that this division is equal as between
the federal government on the one hand
and the people of the District on the
other There never has been a time
since the first apple was cut in half
that a half-and-half division has not
brought into the equation the question
of fairness
Here in Washington things have