Evening star., 1931-12-16
Why Ignore the Facts?


report bills imposing new forms of
higher taxation for the District of
Columbia without contemplating their
reference in due form to study and re-
port by the standing legislative COM
mittee or committees Of the House is
a remarkable proceeding in itself.
It's twin, no less remarkable, is the
plan of drastically and permanently
reducing the lump sum, perhaps of do
ing away with it altogether, without SO
much as alluding in the voluminous re-
port backing up the plan to the very
important fact that an unrepealed law,
passed in due form by the Congress and
signed by the President Of the United
States, provides that in appropriating
for the District of Columbia the major
expenses shall be divided in the pro-
portion Of sixty per cent and forty per
cent, respectively, between the District
Of Columbia and the Federal Govern
ment.
How is one to account for this amsz-
ing omission? Nowhere in the report
Of the Mapes Committee is found men
ton of the manner in which Congress
has been able thus far to substitute the
existing lump sum principle of appro-
priation for the fixed ratio principle.
The committee rests on the brief and
elusive statement that this sixty-forty
plan continued until July /, 1925, when
Congress changed from the proportion
ate contribution to an annual contribu-
ton Of s9,o0o,oO0. The Seventy first
Congress provided a lump sum con-
tribution Of $4,000. ooo."
What are the facts? They are well
known to Washington. They are well
known to the men bers of the Mapes
Committee. Why were they ignored?
The facts are that substantive law
has been evaded since July, 1925, by
annual exceptions on appropriation bills
after attempt to amend by regular pro-
cedure the provisions Of that substantive
law had been beaten in the Senate. Alittle
group Of men in the House Appropria-
tions Committee has been able to escape
the provisions Of law, to force their
legislative riders" through the House,
and by reason of circumstance alone
through the Senate.
And, presumably by the same process,
the Mapes Committee inten5s to have
the lump sum reduced and possibly
done away with altogether, ignoring in
the meantime a law that is yet unre-
pealed.
Disregarding for the moment the
relative merits of the lump-sum method
Of appropriation and of the fixed ratio
principle of appropriations, which the
committee report claims to have
weighed, which cne Of these sys-
tens is provided by law? And, if
the Mapes Committee, after it's study
of the two methots, favored the lump
sum, what would one reasonably con-
clude to be the proper method of rec
ommending change?
The proper method, of course, would
be the preparation of an amendment
to substantive law, removing or chang
ing its mandatory provisions relating
to the financing of the Capital City.
Such an amendment would be referred
to tie Legislative Committee of the
House, considered on its merits, and
reported. The House wouli approve
or disapprove it, and the amendment
would go to the Senate, where similar
course would be followed.
If that is the proper method-and no
one can say it is not the proper method
why was it not adopted by the Mapes
Committee? Why does the committee
so completely ignore the traditional
method of repeating or amenting exist
ing statute and prepare indefinitely to
continue its circumlocution by ma
neuvering through loopholes in par
liamentary rules and practice? After
having biased report delivered to the
Congress, indicting them as dodgers,
are the people of the District, unrepre-
sented in either House, further to be
Inundated by a denial of the few safe
guards that lie in the orderly and ira
ditional processes provided for the con-
sheraton of new legislation?