Evening star., 1939-09-07
Letters to the Editor
Believes District Suffrage
Is Inevitable.

is lnevltaDlc.
To the Editor of The Star:
1t was to be hoped that District suf-
frage would become reality as the re-
suit of action by the Congress which
recently adjourned, but the matter has
again been passed on to another session.
Temporary disappointment should not,
however, obscure from us the fact that
District suffrage is inevitable eventually
that it will probably be impossible
for political straddlers and opportunists
to delay favorable action longer than
another year or less. The movement
has more volume and momentum than
it ever had before. The justice of the
demand is more generally recognized
than at any previous time.
What has not been stressed enough is
the plain, unmitigated fairness Of and
essential need for District suffrage. Too
much emphasis has been placed on the
intentions of the founding fathers, i'm
portant as they may be. 1t is undoubt-
edly true that "Washington's imagina-
ton covered a people not aliens
politically and less than aliens judicially,
but clothed with all American rights not
absolutely inconsistent with the foster
ing control, by the Nation, of the Ma
tion's Capital" Yet what is of even
more relevancy is that Washington citi-
zens need and are entitled to the vote
all the way from local officials up to
President in order that they may regu-
late their own affairs and have a voice
in national matters.
This present need of and right to
suffrage outweighs all the historical
and didactic reasons put together.
OF course, it is well to point out that
the authors of the Constitution and
doubtedly anticipated that the National
Capital would sooner or later have q
considerable degree of self-rule-perhaps
as much as other political units of the
United States. But let us not make that
the major premise in our argument, for
modern conditions have increased the
need for giving Washingtonians the
ballot many fold. The reasons for Dis
trict suffrage have become more and
more urgent with the passing of the
years.
Without any ifs or butts, the people
of the District want to govern them
selves, have right to, and need to
more than they ever did before. In an
age of streamlining and steel, of radio
and aviation, of unparalleled scientific
efficiency and complicated machinery, Of
taxes and budgets and civic problems
that are more distinctly local even than
formerly, they find it more unjust, stupid,
clumsy and absurd than ever to function
as wards in a political orphan asylum
with some 500 tutors and guardians. Be-
fore Washington became 50 distinctly
and definitely metropolitan, it mattered
less If the Congress exercised over Dis
trict inhabitants supposedly benevo-
lent despotism. But new problems have
arisen that Wasfingtonians want to
handle for neutrality-suspicious. that
by every canon Of logic and common
sense should not be; turned over to legis-
lators who vote elsewhere and whose
permanent homes are elsewhere.
In some respects the year-'round occu-
pants of the District would undoubtedly
inaugurate changes in policies of ad-
ministration. It cannot be expected that
they would, If self-governing, leave
everything precisely as it is now. This
is no criticism of the good intentions Of
the congressional governors. It is SIM
ply recognition Of the point that, as
mature, thinking, sef-respecting indi-
viduals, the Americans who live in the
10-mile- square area have their own