Evening star., 1924-05-10
Congress as Local Legislature.

hia. Here everything is upside down
Here in practical application Ameri-
can principles, supposed to be as firm
as Gibraltar, are exactly reversed. In
this most American of American com
munities. in that it owes no divided
allegiance to state, the permanent
residents are not, politically, Ameri-
cans at all. but aliens. At the heart
of the great republic founded on the
principle of no taxation without rep
resentation is discovered community
of taxpayers who are not only denied
representation in their taxing body,
but in respect to whom it is suggested
that to he d taxpayer renders one by
that fact alone ineligible to act in
the taxing body.
Elsewhere. nobody but the tax
payers or their chosen representatives
are eligible on American principles
for membership in the taxing body.
Here, everybody is eligible except, it
is suggested, the taxpayers.
Senator Phipps has taken seriously,
and met faithfully, his constitutional
obligation as legislator for the scat
of government; he has worked Wig
orously and helpfuIly to give the
Capital the benefit of sound, progress
sivc legislation; he has played the
part of good citizen in liberal sup
port of local charities or community
institutions; and, finally. instead of
+Y-on he hOttc~hf
and pays taxes upon a home here.
From this discriminating transac-
tion arises the paradoSical suggestion
that in this kingdom of un-American
teseyturvydom Senator Phipps, as a
ta-Scss%er, is ineligible to act in the
tsSing eody.
OF course, if American principles
were applied here with strictness, the
only eligibles to our taxing body, GER
tainly in dealing with our 50 per cent
tax contribution, would be local tax
payers like Senator Phipps.
Thus the congressman whose eligi-
bility is questioned are on American
principles as to 60 per cent of the
appropriation the only eIigibles. And
in dealing with the 40 per cent of
national tax contribution the Ameri-
cans resident in the District pay into
this fund on exactly the same basis
as Americans of the states and are
entitled to the same representation or
voice in the body which spends this
fund.
Discussion of eligibility to our local
national legislature and of the rela
ton of that legislature to its National
Capital constituency raises a broader,
more momentous question.
Applying the doctrine of an exact
ing and far-reaching national respon
sibility toward the Capital, what is
the obligation resting upon Congress
when it acts as local legislature?
Clearly, it denies the justice when
aegislating for the District of disre
garding entirely local needs, condi-
tions and prejudices and using the
Capital as a national experiment sta
ton, where dubious legislative prof.
ectS may be tested as an example
OT d Wal " IllC hdllOtly Will IlO
one injured but the District (as apoth-
ocary's caD if the experiment is un-
successful.
1t forbids such legislation solely or
primarily from the point of view of
the legislators home constituency,
with the congressman posing as the
srudging dispenser of aims alleged to
DO contributed by his district or state
to the greedy mendicants of the
Capital.
It exacts from the nationallocal
legislator that in fair play he shall
appear to the Capital as a friendly
lawgiver, wise and just, and not as
a hostile tproconsul'' contemptuously
and despotically lording it over the
barbarians, or as the "Scourge of
God" to punish for its imaginary sins
an alleged base and degenerate COM
munity.
It makes of the congressman as
local legislator a representative under
the Constitution of his Capital con-
stituents as distinctly as if elected by
tuC OpLSdIlOIS,
as il thus elected, to consider patiently
and sympathetically their point of
view, to crystalline into legislation as
far as practicable and reasonable
their opinions and wishes and to pro-
tect faithfully their interests and well
fare.
AS local legislator under the Consti.
tuition the congressman represents
not the nation, not the state, not the
congressional district. but the Dis
trict of Columbia and it's 100000
Americans.
The extensive powers in respect to
The Capital conferred upon Congress
involve equally far-reaohing RESPONSE
biIities and obligs+ions, and sacrifices
in the nations interest are required
on both sides of the partnership. A
great power is to be greatly, nobly
exercised, controlled by no motive or
impulse that is small or mean or base.
The greatest legislative body in the
world, representing the worlds fore
most nation, is to build up, typifying
that nation, the worlds grandest Cap
ital. The nations city which the fore
fathers nobly planned is by us to be
rmx6ected on lines no less noble.
Ahs Capital which wisdom and pa,