Evening star., 1941-02-18
Member of the Associated Press.
A Suffrage Guin

The long-delayed cause OF District
suffrage made a decided gain last
night, when the new chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator
Van Nuys of Indiana, announced his
support of the general obiectives Of
the Sumners-Capper resolution for a
constitutional amendment.
Since all proposed changes in the
Constitution must first win the ap-
proval of the Judiciary Committees
of the House and Senate, those two
tribunals hold the power of deter
mining when Washington's plea for
political emancipation will be con-
sidered, first by Congress and then
by the State Legislatures.
In the last Congress voteless Wash
ingtonians gained powerful friend
when Chairman Summers of the
House Judiciary group took the lead
ership in drafting the pending reso-
luton and reporting it favorably to
the House They now welcome with
equal qualification the sympathetic
attitude of the Senate chairman.
Senator Capper of Kansas, long a
champion of national representation
and tried and true friend of Wash
ington, with characteristic unselfish-
ness simplifed the situation in this
Congress by offering the Summers
amendment in the Senate as substi-
tute for his own. The essential differ
ence between the two resolutions is
that while both concern themselves
with the extension to Congress OF the
power to grant national representa-
ton, the Summers amendment is
more broad, covering not only the
extension of power in this respect,
but the additional, specific power of
delegating authority to any form of
local government which might be
established.
The immediate and primary goal,
as the Summers resolution conceives
1t, is to submit to the States a Con-
stitutional amendment that would
extend to Congress the necessary
powers to confer voting representa-
tion on the people of the District,
leaving to subsequent Congresses the
determination of the exact methods
by which these powers shall be
exercised Senator Van Nuys is on
sound ground, therefore, in his state
ment that he is not so much con-
cerned now with the exact form o.
suffrage as with the preliminary task
of giving Congress the general power
to deal with the question.
Senator Van Nuys has been i'm
pressed by the fact that the average
member of Congress is too busy with
national needs and the problems of
his own State to give District affairs
the attention they deserve. Likewise,
he has made the very timely observa-
ton that Washington is growing rap
idly and should have its own spokes-
men in the halls of Congress.
The Senate chairman has an
nounced he will appoint a subcom-
mittee within a few days to go to
work on the question. This is the
latest in series of encouraging de-
velopmentS that began when the
Democratic National Convention
wrote a suffrage plank into its plat
form eight months ago.
The crisis in world affairs probably
will keep this Congress in session
throughout the year. With an early
start in committee there is no reason
why 1941 should not see the proposed
constitutional amendment acted on
by both houses and sent to the States
for ratification. The United States
is bending every effort to keep de-
mocracy alive in the world. Why not
rekindle it in this voteless commu-
nifty?