Evening star., 1937-09-30
FavOrs Extension of
District Boundaries
To the Editor of The Star:

To the Editor Of The Star:
AS home owner and business investor
in Greater Washington the writer has
lived in Montgomery County for over
eighteen years, and as civil service
employe resided in the area for ten years
previous to that time. During the later
period the operation of the county gov
ernment has naturally been a matter Of
considerable interest and partly through
membership in the National Municipal
League, has been the object of some
study. AS result it seems to me that
there is more to be said for the report
OF the National Resources Committee
advocating enlargement of the unit of
municipal government than is being
said.
There are reasons for being glad that
some OF the idiosyncrases of the Dis
trict government do not extend to us in
Maryland. But there would seem to be
some opportunity for getting rid of those
things and also of certain difficulties in
local county politics by an extension of
the District of Columbia area which car
ried with it the extension of local. non
partisan franchise and congressional
representation.
In the Virginia area President Hoover
extended to civil service employees the
privilege of local political activity, but
IN Maryland this privilege is restricted
to a few small incorporated villages"
and does not extend to the really impor-
tant county government This so re-
strlcts the highly intelligent civil service
element that 1t might almost as we'll not
nave any local franchise at all. Those
lew who do vote necessarily take de-
sultory interest in local politics which is
easily influenced by misleading propa-
ganda.
Moreover despite the otherwise unde-
sirable declaration of intentions" law.
1t is difficult to keep machine politics
from voting residents of the District
who have no real interest in the county.
The political atmosphere is thus sur
charged with an unhealthy civil service
dlsdain for local politics that extends
largely throughout the better class of
potential voters and the declaration of
intentions" requirement promotes this
attitude OF indifference. Indeed. munic-
lpal utilities are already largely con-
trolled, as in the District, by appointive
State commissions and not by the
elected county commissioners. This is
not true of any other community in
Maryland.
The result of this state of affairs is
that the membership of such a civic
organization as the Civic Federation has
a large element of non-voters who can
not deliver at the polls in favoring such
worthy projects or restrictions as they
may desire: and it is tribute to the
character of the back-country rural resi-
dents that the county government is not
worse than 1t is. Certainly the practica-
oiIlty OF continuation of this situation
Is open to serious question, and there
doesn't seem to be much to be said from
a common-sense point of view for the
existence of the District of Columbia
State line in the very midst of what is
essentially one community. 1t is an
expensive political luxury, to say the
least, and constitutes large factor in
making Maryland State politics the too
rigid, partisan-machine affair that it is
because OF the development of a munic-
1pality which has one political leg in the
Districts political grave.
ALDEN A. POTTER.