Evening star., 1947-01-02
Welcome to Washington!

Welcome to Washington!
Many new members of Congress
are arriving in Washington today.
For many of them the welcome they
fail to receive will be disillusion-
ing experience. Most of them left
their home towns as the leading
citizens. Here they are merely
among the freshmen members Of
Congress. No bands met them at
the station. They had to share their
taxi rides with others going in the
same general direction. Those who
have hotel reservations made in ad-
vance are luckier than those who
do not. But the hotel reservation,
in most cases. represents mere
temporary shelter during the painful
search for place to live. Washing
ton. to a newly arriving Congress
man on day like this, may appear
bleak and uninviting.
Some of the senior members OF
Congress whose years of service have
given opportunity for reflection
sometimes trace a colleagues hos
tility toward Washington to the day
of his arrival here. He feels lonely
and perhaps confused and associates
his irritation with the people who
live here. If he has to pay more
than he thinks he should for place
to rest his weary head: If his chill
dren do not like their new school
or If his wife is snubbed by female
resident, all such things pile up in
his mind and when he has the op-
portunity he retaliates by taking
crack at the District of Columbia.
No real attempt has ever been
made on any organized scale to do
anything about this sad situation.
AS the new members will learn,
there are hazards in attempting to
be kind to Congressman on any
wholesale scale. For as soon as an
organization of citizens attempts
something of the sort. the attempt
is apt to be suspected as some form
of lobbying. Lobbying, this year
especially, is frowned on in public.
And while there are exceptions to
the rule, the members. as a rule,
are skeptical about placing them
selves under obligations to anybody.
In spite of such handicaps the
Washington Board of Trade is going
as far as it safely can go this year
in trying to make the new members
of Congress feel at home in their
new surroundings. Letters have gone
out to them inclosing the sort of
information about the city that new
confers like. to have. Without assum-
ing responsibility. efforts are being
made to assist the members In their
search for housing A. welcoming
dinner is being planned for the
members, a reception for their wives.
Board of Trade members will make
calls on the new arrivals at the
Capitol and welcome them to town.
It is an experiment in hospitality
that will work If 1t is accepted by
the new members in the same spirit
with which 1t is offered.
The new members will learn that
the major difference between this
city and their home towns is that
they, the members, are exclusively
responsible for the way it is run.
At home the member is merely
another voter who shares RESPONSE
bility of government with all his
fellow voters Here the member is
one of the few people living in
Washington who has the right to
vote. In the members home town,
government is placed in the hands
of those who live there. Here the
government is placed only in the
hands of those who do not live here.
At home, the members neighbors
decide how much they will tax them
selves and how their taxes will be
spent. Here only the members of
Congress can decide how the people
who live here are to be taxed and
how their taxes are to be spent.
Washingtonians have learned that
as a general rule the longer men,
ber lives here, the better friend of
Washington he becomes. Most of
the differences of opinion between
the resident community and Con-
gress spring from mutual miscon-
ceptions and misunderstanding. To
the new members, therefore, Wash
ingtonians plead not to be judged
on first impressions alone. To them,
a warm welcome and successful
term.