The Washington times., 1937-11-24
An Appeal to Congress
BY ARTHUR CAPPER
United States Senator from Kansas

United States Senator from Kansas
This is an appeal to my fellow Senators and to my
colleagues in the House of Representatives to give the
people of the District of Columbia the vote to which
they are entitled American citizens.
For 60 years Congress has treated them aliens and
outcasts
We have treated them unfairly.
We have denied them their constitutional rights.
We have accepted their hospitality while refusing
them common justice.
We all know this is not right We all know that Con-
gress alone responsible for perpeuatng this injustice
1 asking my colleagues now, in this manner, to
act affirmatively and without further delay to
that this condition is corrected.
If we fall we fail to do our plain duty, and we vio
late the oath we all take to uphold the Constitution of
the United States.
Why should the people who live in Washington have
the vote?
u l. 1 Because they are Americans. Be-
o. C:t;~',o it is right that they should
Because it is wrong to refuse it.
Talk about taxation without representation!
sometimes wonder why the people who live here do
not march on Congress in body and demand their con-
stitutional rights.
We even talk about giving the vote to Hawaii, while
refusing it to the people who live in the shadow of the
Capitol
1t is so fundamentally right that they should have
the vote that it seems superfuous to argue the point
Yet wonder if my colleagues realize the extent of the
injustice we have done them. Let me list few of the
inequalities visited upon the people who live in the
District of Columbia:
l. They have voice in their municipal affairs no
control municipal policies voice in matters of taxa
ton voice in the regulation of public utilities They
"pay and pay and pay" at the whm of Congress.
2 They have voice in Congress- Surely the half mil
lion people who live in Washington much entitled
send representatives Congress the States of
which have smaller populations They just honest
just patriotic, just intelligent and just much in
eresd in national affairs Why then the discrimination
g. They have voice in the selection of the who
govern them Other cities elect their mayors and their
counclmen their commissioners and city managers The
District of Columbia takes what handed to it, and at the
same time is governed by who have little knowl-
edge of its needs and very little interest in its problems
Surely the people of the District competent to
run their own household. If we going to have rep
resentave government elsewhere in the United Sates
let's have it in Washington also.
There is further for giving Washington
<r L.. D-.o,. the vote. 1t lies in the pressures
Nv g. under which Congress works.
We, as Members of Congress- do
PANNASAAS
the District of Columbia the attention they should have
And why should we bother ourselves about the
Der of taxicabs in Washington anyway? Or the paving
of back alley the railroad yards? Is that
what we were sent here to do?
So far have been able to discover, Congress has
withheld the vote from the people who live in Wash
ngton for of two reasons They either indffer
ent n.ey fear that the Negroes in Washington,
stituting something like quarter of the population,
would dominate its affairs if they given the vote.
happen to have my home in city with large Negro
population. That has not been experience
We have just election also in New York city,
where progressive, energetic honest, reform mayor
was reelected for the first time in the citys history
Mayor LaGuardia. New York has an enormous Negro
population, and most of them to have voted for
LaGuardia Is good government to be feared in Wash
ngton any more than in New York?