Evening star., 1951-07-25
Nicely Hits Plea
For Hearings on
Home Rule Plan
Sees Trade Board
Request as Move
To Delay Action
By Don S. Warren


Chairman Neely of the Senate
District Committee today fatty
rejected the request of the Board
of Trade for hearings on the
newly revised Washington home
rule plan.
The request, said the fiery legis-
lator, is "just plain nonsense and
hooey."
"The Board of Trade" he de-
clared, was given every oppor-
tunity last year and again this
year to testify at our hearings,
and their spokesmen did testify
"The sole purpose of this re-
quest for more hearings is to de-
lay action. So far as I am
concerned. the answer is emphat-
Iically no."
Suffrage advocates on the COM
mittee al, going ahead with plans
for action next Wednesday. The
so-called compromise measure al
ready has been approved by the
Home Rule Subcommittee, con-
sisting of Democratic Senator
Kefauver of Tennessee, Republi-
can Senator Case of South Da-
kota and Mr., Neely.
CO-SpOnSOr List Grows.
Meanwhile, the number of SEN
ators asking to be co-sponsors of
the new city suffrage plan con-
tinued TO grow slowly. New addi-
+tions were Republican Senator
Duff of Pennsylvania and Demo-
cratic Senators O'Conor of Mary
land and Humphrey of Minnesota.
All OF these previously had sup
ported the Kefauver- Taft bill, re-
Gently blocked by a tie vote in the
District Committee.
Four other Senators earlier had
indorsed the new Kefauver-N -Neely-
Case plan bringing the total to 10.
The new plan, not yet intro
duced as bill and still in the
form of committee print, calls
for an lall-elected council of is,
along with an elected five-mem-
Der school board. 1t also would
provide for a President-appointed
mayor, instead of a council
named city manager, suggested
in the earlier Kefauyer bill.
One of the chief changes, how
ever. would be that the council
could adopt both taxing and
spending acts without reference
to Congress.
Congress. of course, could step
in to override any council act.
The directors of the trade body
yesterday voted unanimously
against the new plan, saying it
would create 'intolerable con-
flicts" between the District and
the Government. There can be
no real self-government here,
they declared, without voting rep
resentation in Congress-, lacking
in both the present plan and the
Kefauver bill.
This statement drew a philippe
last night from poetry quoting
Senator Nicely.
Judging from the boards ac-
tion," he said, "if it's members
had been here during the Revolu-
tionary War. they would have
fought with CORVALLIS and against
the immortal Washington.
Predicts Eventual Victory.
1T is too bad that, so far as the
democratic rights of suffrage and
self government are concerned
the Bourbons of the Board OF
Trade, like the reactionary cour-
tiers who surrounded Louis XVIII
Iof France, have forgotten nothing
and learned nothing"
He softened this only by say
ing that the trade body usually
was an "estimable and useful
body.
Mr.. Nicely predicted the District
eventually will win "home rule. u
He advised the trade body di-
rectors. after saying their nightly
prayers, to consider these poetic
words of Edwin Markham:
Why build thee cities glorious II
man nnbuilded goes?
In pain De build the iUorld unless
the bnilder also grotDs.