The daily times., 1922-01-31
(By David Lawrence.)
Copyright 1922 by the Daily

/ I1n1SS.
! Washington, Jan. 3O.-This is a
city of dreadful mourning. 1t reaches
into every home-frOm the White
House to the dwellings of the lowly.
Everyone is griefstricken. The gov
ernment is virtually paralyzed. Off
cials and the people generally tackled
their work today with heavy hearts.
| Investigations galore will follow
| the disaster at the Knickerbocker
moving picture theatre but out of
the emotional expressions Of a city
| OF nearly half million persons there
crystallizes one view, one thought
which may be the lesson of the dis
aster. 1t is criticism of form of gov
ernment of the District of Columbia,
! the parsimony of a Congress which
is after all the board of aldermen or
common council of this city. For
Washington residents cannot vote.
They have no mayor of their own
ichoosing. They have no voice in what
shall be done with the taxes they
pay. They have scant means of per-
suading or reaching congress of
ii531 individuals whose main object is
to satisfy the peoples of other consti-
tuencies who after all have their own
municipal government, their own
basic services.
! better police protection, if the fire.
men need more pay, the district COM
imissioners who are appointed by the
President of the United States must
camp on the doorstep of Congress
and plead for attention. The bureau
of building inspection, the fire, po-
lice and street cleaning departments
lare efficient or inefficient according
Jas Congress appropriates funds for
their employees and management.
i Is a congress of such varied make
lup and of such diversified interests a
lgood body to which to entrust the
affairs of a city? Would a city gov
jernment responsible to the people
ldirectly dare to leave Washington
without a single penny to clean the
|streets after a snowstorm?
AS much of the paralysis of this
city is due to the snowstorm as any
other factor. The street car com
panies have plows to clean the tracks
but nothing that will clean the broad
avenues too. Consequently automo'
biles clog the tracks and get stalled
and traffic is tied up while few
hundred workmen hardly scratch the
, surface of a snow-covered city.
The Knickerbocker theatre disas
ter is all the more horrible to the
people who survive it because the
fate that befell the scores entombeG
in the crash might have overwhelm
ed anybody-the theatre was one o1
the most popular in the city. Presi
dents of the United States attend it
diplomats, members of congress
army and navy officers, officials gen
Ierally and their families all have
been there since the peculiar shaped
edifice was erected. Naturally this il
an hour of resentfulfess when the in
Icriticism is all the more pronounced
because the people in the nationa
capital have been pointing to thu
8 plight of their civic affairs with evel
more insistence in the last two O.
three years than ever before.
The people do not even have repre-
sntation in Congrss. The theory bacl
IS of this has always been that thu
IS interests of the government were 81
= manifold that the federal government
" should run the national capital. Mucl
g of the wisdom of this is admitted bu
t. it is fact that the federal govern
l. ment is so top heavy with its owl
l. responsibilities that it could well af
II ford to permit the population of thf
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