Evening star., 1915-11-26
Let Well Enough Alone.

II is true that the half and half
law, as practically applied, with the
tax levy preceding the appropriation,
has followed in some respects the
lines of Senator Morrill's indefinite
contribution plan of the seventies OF
the last century, at least to the ex-
tent of giving to the arbitrary direc-
tons of the organic act a certain fex-
ibility which until recently has SEEM
ed to work to the benefit of both
capital and nation.
Commissioner Brownlow sustains
the organic act as it is now inter-
preted and enforced in such thor
ough fashion that he says the only
thing needed after thirty-seven years
OF beneficent life to adapt the act of
1873 to modern conditions is for Con-
gress in District appropriation bills
to cease to say that one-half of the
amount appropriated is to come from
revenues of the District and to say
instead that all of the appropria-
ton is to come from moneys in the
Treasury not otherwise appropriated.
This change is proposed to avoid
friction on the Commissioners the
ory that the legislator who is furi-
ously indignant at the suggestion that
his constituents should pay one-half
the cost of some petty municipal
charge will be enthusiastically lib
eral if it is demanded that his con-
stituents pay the whole cost of the
Objectionable item
If the alleged psychological fric-
tion-producing quality of the half
and half is the only vital objection
to it, and if a mere change of few
words in the appropriation act can
cure the whole trouble, may not the
Joint committee take the view that
1t will be wiser and just as effective
TO preserve the organic act as it
stands and to get Commissioner
Brownlow to explain in his persua-
sive and hypnotic fashion to the con-
gressmen who are prejudiced against
the half and half plan, that the plan
is already dead; that the fiscal re-
lation now is exactly what the pro-
testing congressman would desire,
and that if he thinks otherwise he is
suffering from a psychological de1u-
sion?
Or if Washington has convinced the
Joint committee that these congress
sional prejudices are based on erro-
neous beliefs and are unreasonable !;
that the Washingtonian is not an un-
taxed mendicant, but is paying fair
taxes and is otherwise meeting very
we'll his capital obligation, will not
the committee SO report? And will
not such report do more to dissi-
pate unreasonable prejudice and dis
trust and to remove friction than
anything else that could possibly
happen?
In all seriousness Commissioner
Brownlow should transfer his hyp-
motto treatment from the people of
Washington to those congressman
who, influenced by error, threaten US
with injury. Instead of calling upon
us to deny the existence of the half
and half plan he should make this call
upon the congressman who are seek
ing to put it to death. If in practice
the half and half plan is already sub
stantially the indefinite plan, and if
the advocates of definite and safe
guarded contribution system are
happy Through delusion) in the be-
lief that they have this protection
and safeguard, why not leave things
as they are in this particular respect ?
Why alarm and injure the local COM
munity by making a change which
does not materially alter present
practice, which unsettles the whole
system OF statutes and judicial de-
cisions based upon the act of 1873
and which, reasonably Or unreason-
ably, IS dreaded as menace to their
welfare by most of the people of the
capital,