Evening star., 1923-02-02
Spare the Districts Eve Lamb.

ing myth, a fgment OF the lmdglna-
tion. 1t has been demonstrated to
exist as a concrete fact, a legal credit
on the books of the Treasury. 1t has
been identified as District taxpayers
money, collected from them under the
organic act of 1878 for a specific pur-
pose, and held by the United States in
trust to be expended at some time.
legally and equitably, solely for that
specific purpose.
The District has been and Is denied
the immediate use OF its accumulated
tax surplus at a time when the money
IS sorely needed in order to give official
and other expert accountants the op-
portunity to report to the joint select
committee and to Congress whether
any neglected equitable credits of the
United States may be discovered in
fiscal records of the past which as a
net result will reduce or eliminate the
Districts existing legal credit in the
shape of its accumulated tax surplus.
The joint select committee has care
fully considered the labors OF the ac-
gested offsetting equitable credits of
the United States and those who have
urged the existence of District equita
bic credits exceeding in amount those
claimed for the United States.
1t is believed that no court of equity
sn the world, acting upon the evidence
before the joint select committee, could
declare a specific net equitable credit
in favor of the United States to dis
turb the demonstrated legal credit of
the Districts surplus. and to deny
longer to the District the use of its
own accumulated tax money. It is not
believed for an instant that the joint
select committee would be disposed on
the evidence before it to make such a
finding.
1t is now urged. however, by some
hostile critics Of the surplus that use
money shall be indefinitely postponed
while purely national expenditures at
the capital since 1874 are ransacked in
order to ascertain whether the District
people may not have enjoyed some in
cidental benefit or pleasure from these
purely national expenditures which
may be today expressed in dollars and
used to confiscate the Districts ac-
cumulated tax money. These national
expenditures to be analyZed include
such national appropriations as those
for the Washington Monument, the
Grant Memorial and the Lincoln
Memorial.
l. The Districts surplus is tax
money collected by the Commissioners
under the law solely to pay the Districts S
share of MUNICIPAL expenditures,
proposed in the Commissioners esti-
mates and appropriated in the District
appropriations bill. Its diversion from
the specific municipal use for which
only the law authorized the Commits.
sioners to collect it would violate the
law, and would under the conditions Of
District helpIessness and national
omnipotence be shamefully inequita.
BILE.
2. The money for purely NATIONAL
expenditures, whether for the upbuild-
ing of the National Capital or the pay
ing of the salaries of representatives
and senators, or for educational bOun-
ties to be distributed among the states,
can be raised under the Constitution
only from all the people under the ap-
piication of the principle of uniformity.
The municipal tax money of the capi-
tai cannot constitutionally be con-
4lscated for national expenditures, even
If certain of these national expendi-
lures incidentally benefit the people
Of the District.
The people of the capital pay their
full share of the NATIONAL taxes
from which alone NATIONAL expendi.
lures can constitutiOnally be made. In
recent years they have paid in one
year over twelve million dollars, and
in another year over eighteen millions
of national taxes. In the latter year
they paid moro of such taxes than any
states combined.
The expenditure of national money
for the development Of the National
Capital is recognized as a proper ma
tional outlay everywhere in the world
There has been controversy over the
appropriations, as for instance those
for internal improvements, roads
canals, etc. but no one has ever con
tended that the capital Of a nation is
not q proper object Of the nations fos
tering care. And all the great nations
Of the world have made such nationa,
expenditures upon their capitals, in
some cases far more literally than the
United States.
3. II this Congress dissects some
Appropriation of national funds fol-
national purposes by a predecessor
which acted es national (and not nu
ndoipaD legislature, and decides thai
this preceding Congress erred in ap
propEiating in this case solely from
national revenue, and reverses the de
cikiou Of the preceding Congress ant
entrees retroactively by collection
from the District its own substituted
form o6 appropriation, then the Con
xress oS today will indict the slurret
ana 1sversed preceding Congress eithel
q deliberate unfairness toward the na
tieo q q tnabeeilIty In failing to per
ssevo a1d 10 svoid this unfairuess
Thfs ssesen would sst q precedent un
,Hsx EaiohaaxG GangxAaa aazAk ke hG0k
!