Evening star., 1949-07-24
Two Views on Home Rule
Advocates Reply"to Board of Trades Opposition
and Invite Statement in Rebutta
Pro-


The case for home rule is very simple.
Almost million American citizens live in
the District of Columbia. They have no
voice in how the District is governed.
And yet the City of Washington is the
Capital of the United States of America, the
greatest democracy in the world.
Clearly, the burden is on those who op-
pose home rule to show why Washington
should be an exception to the most funda-
mental principle of democracy-selfgovern
ment at the local level.
No such case can be made. On the con-
trary. it was originally intended that the
people of Washington run their own mu-
nicipal affairs They want to govern them
selves, and the rest of the country agrees
that they should
/. The founding fathers specifically con-
templated that the District of Columbia
would have home rule. In the famous
"Federalist Papers," expounding the Con-
stitution James Madison was categorical on
this point.
2 According to two city-wide polls held
since the war. over tWo-thirds of the resi-
dents of Washington desire home rule. One
of these polls covered 80 per cent of the esti-
mated voting population of the city. The
votes against home rule in the Board Of
Trade poll amounted to less than one-fourth
of per cent of the estimated voting popu-
lation of the city. 1t was the vote of small
and select economic group.
g. The people of the country feel that
Washington should have home rule. The
1948 Democratic and Republican Party plat
forms promised home rule for the District
of Columbia. According to a 1948 Gallup
poll, over II per cent of the American public
favors home rule for Washington.
4. On May 81 the Senate voted over
whelmingly in favor of home rule, in the
form of the Kefauver bill now before the
House District Committee Last year there
were two record votes in the House in favor
of home rule.
The Judiciary Subcommittee of the House
District Committee is now considering the
Kefauver bill. Some committee members
have voiced doubts about home rule-doubts
which are apparently not shared by their
colleagues in the House as a whole. by the
Senate, by the people of the Nation or by
the people of the District.
Some of these doubts are listed below.
Many Of them are voiced by the Board of
Trade in the adjoining column. All of them
are without merit.
l. The talk about "real home rule"
This argument is very difficult to follow.
1t seems to be based on the theory that rep
resentation is desirable, and that home
rule without national representation must
be bad. National representation would be
fine, If We can get it, but it will require a
constitutional amendment which will take
many years. Meanwhile, we can have self
government now. Why not take it now?
The present Western States had to prove as
Territories that they could govern themselves
at the local level before they were given
voice in national affairs. There is no reason
why the District should not be treated in
the same way.
The real home rule" argument resembles
the case of beggar in rags who is offered
new suit and spurns it because 1t does not
|. have two pairs of pants.
2. Washington as the Federal City.
This argument runs that, since Washing
ton is the Capital of the Nation, Congress
cannot allew the people who live here to
kill their own starlings and control their
own weeds. If Little Rock can have it's own
municipal government and still be fit place
for the Legislature of Arkansas, so can
Washington have its own municipal govern
ment and still be fit place for the Congress
to meet. Nothing in the Kefauver bill or in
the basic idea of home rule would give
District residents any control over Federal
affairs
8. Is home rule constitutional?
On this question there is hardly any room
for argument. In the "FederaliSt Papers"
written for the specific purpose Of urging the
ratification of the Constitution James Madi-
son said. about the residents of the proposed
Federal District:
"A municipal legislature for local purposes.
derived from their own suffrages. will, OF
course, be allowed them"
"a Dual Voting
Under the Kefauver bill anyone residing
in the District for the past year can vote for
District officials. District residents who have
the right to vote in their home States will
not lose this right by voting in the District.
Critics of home rule have termed this
procedure dual voting" This term is mis-
nomer. Under the Kefauver bill no one can
vote in two places for the same official. The
vote in the District would be for District
officials only. The vote in the home State
would be for President Senators and Con-
gressmen, State officials and possibly minor
local officials Of political subdivisions of the
State.
Many people who vote in their "home
States" pay taxes here in the District. They
live here for periods of several years They
send their children to District schools. Clear
ly, they should be allowed to vote while they
are here, without losing their vote for other
officials in their home States.
90 Segregation.
Some people opposed to Home Rule have
voiced their concern, publicly or privately,
about the 28% Negro population of Wash
ington and the effect of home rule on segre-
cation policies in the District.
If segregation is regarded as national
problem for the Congress, the District should
be treated the same way as the whole coun-
try, by comprehensive national legislation,
not by withholding home rule. If it is re-
garded as a local problem, the District
should have the same right as any other
community to decide the issue at its own
polls and in its own way.
co. Home Rule and Efficient Government.
The final argument is that the present
District government is efficient (even though
it has more departments and bureaus than
the Federal GovernmenD and that most
popularity elected city governments are
not. Hitlers government was probably eff