Evening star., 1951-07-27
Voting Is Not the Issue

Z
- are not being quite honest with themselves
or with anybody else when they identify the
right to vote as the cardinal issue at stake in
the current debate over home rule for the Dis
trict of Columbia.
Their reasons for attempting to do so, how
ever, are quite obvious If they can establish
the theory by reiteration, that opposition to
home rule is based on opposition to the right to
vote, they accomplish two things: They adorn
themselves as flaming angels, come to set the
people free they conSign those who disagree
with them to that opprobrium reserved for the
Tories of 1776 detractors of George Washington,
and traitors to the traditions of free people
But this does not mean that they are right.
The vote they are talking about is vote for the
members of city council and the members of
q board of education
The vote they are not talking about is the
vote for the President of the United States, who
would appoint mayor to- run the city council;
and the vote for representatives of our own
choosing in the Congress of the United States,
which exercises supreme legislative authority,
under the Constitution, over the District Of Co
lumbia-in other words, the vote enjoyed by
other American citizens in the Government Of
their country.
There are a good many people in Washington
who want the sort of vote that Senator Neely
is talking about and Congress may give it to
them-or, more accurately, give it back. For
we have had that. But if Senator Neely or any
body else believes that this would for one moment
satisfy the aspirations of WashingtonianS to the
only vote that counts-a vote in ones Govern
ment--they have forgotten the lessons of history
In Washington and everywhere else.
WE HAVE had various forms of home rule
w in Washington two of them not unlike the
version most recently cooked up for the Senate
District Committee. The Federal Government
has been here little over $50 years. For about
half that time there was home rule in the District
of Columbia During these years of home rule
the city went into virtual bankruptcy at least
twice After more than 10 years under home
rule the development of Washington as Cap
ital was so retarded that it became the laughing
stock of the civilized world. 1t was only when
Congress returned to the original concept Of
Washington as the Federal City that its real
development as the American Capital took place.
Why should anybody familiar with the history
of Washington want to embrace, with all the
enthusiasm of a convert to something new,
scheme that has been tried and which ended in
failure? Why are we being urged to turn back
the pages of history and begin another demon
stration of the futility of home rule?
The right to vote-even the play-acting sort
of voting promised under home rule-is not the
issue in this debate.
THE real issue involves a concept of WASH
l. ington as the Capital Of the United States,
q concept which has made Washington a symbol,
not vet complete or perfected but symbol of
America in which all citizens can take pride.
This was the concept which guided the founders
In the design of an American Capital that was
called, in that day, visionary and impossible Of
realization. For many years after the national
Government came to Washington that concept
was abandoned as pipedream, and the citizens
of Washington were left pretty much to their
own devices by an uninterested Congress, willing
enough to let them plug along under various
patterns of 'home rule"
BY 1885 the City of Washington was head
over heels in debt. The Senate District Com
mittee made an investigation which found "the
city is involved in recurring obligations, from
which it is utterly impossible that it can be re-
lieved by any means within its own control or
by any exertions which it may make, una1ded
by congressional legislation"
And then Senator Southland, chairman Of the
committee, got down to the issue:
In the investigation of the subject committed
to them, and of the relief to be proposed, the
committee has been unable to separate the
the United States. They regard it as the child
of the Union-aS the creation OF the Union for
its own purposes. The design of the ConSti-
tuition and its founders was to create resi-
dence for the Government, where they should
have absolute and unlimited control which
should be regulated and governed by them
without the interference of partial interests IN
the States, which should be built up and sus-
tanned by their authority and resources not
dependent upon the will or resources OF any
State or local interest II this had not been
the design temporary or permanent seat OF
Government would have been selected in some
populous city or some territory subject to State
Jurisdiction. And if this was the design, it is
not easy to comprehend either the principle
which would prevent the Government from
liberal appropriation of national resources to
accomplish the object or the policy which
would conf1ne the city to the means possessed
by its inhabitants for its Improvement
There was temporary, but only temporary
relief as a result Of the Southard report.
virginians enjoying the blessings of the
vote under "home rule" became so restive, so
vocal and so belligerent in demanding the right
to real vote that a vSionless Congress dis
posed of their protests by receding to them about
a third of the original area laid out as the
Capital, south of the Potomac. The Virginians
regained their vote-the only vote that counts
but Congress, losing sight Of the grand concept
of the Federal City of the future, made great
error in reduAng its area A
As the rES&t of continuing dissatisH Etion