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toward self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement.

"(C) To encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion, and to encourage recognition of the interdependence of the peoples of the world."

FOR CONVENIENCE OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE THERE IS SUBMITTED LIST OF HEARINGS AND REPORTS ON PROPOSALS FOR NATIONAL REPRESENTATION FOR THE DISTRICT OF OF COLUMBIA THROUGH AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1916: Hearings before the subcommittee of the Committee on the District of Columbia, United States Senate, Sixty-fourth Congress, first session, on Senate Joint Resolution 32.

1921: Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Sixty-sixth Congress, third session, on House Joint Resolutions 11 and 32. 1921-22 Hearings before the Committee on the District of Columbia, United States Senate, Sixty-seventh Congress, first and second sessions, on S. 14, S. 417, and Senate Joint Resolution 133.

1922: Senate Calendar No. 504, Report No. 507, Sixty-seventh Congress, second session, report to accompany Senate Joint Resolution 133.

1926 Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Sixty-ninth Congress, first session, on House Joint Resolution 208.

1928: Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Seventieth Congress, first session, on House Joint Resolution 18.

1938: Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session, on House Joint Resolution 232 and House Joint Resolution 564.

1940: House of Representatives, Report No. 2828, Seventy-sixth Congress, third session, report to accompany House Joint Resolution 257.

1941: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Seventy-seventh Congress, first session, on Senate Joint Resolution 35.

1941: Senate Calendar No. 670, Report No. 646, Seventy-seventh Congress, first session, report to accompany Senate Joint Resolution 35.

1945: Hearings before Subcommittee No. 1 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Seventy-ninth Congress, first session, on House Joint Resolution 62.

Senator HATCH. Does that conclude your statement?

Mr. SUTER. That concludes my statement.

Senator HATCH. Any questions, Senators?

Senator WHERRY. Does that statement include a survey of the number of the people in the District who do not have the franchise? Mr. SUTER. As well as we were able to get it.

Senator WHERRY. It is in the statement there?

Mr. SUTER. It is in the supplemental statement by Mr. Noyes, which gives as full information as is available. That information is very difficult to get.

Senator WHERRY. I just wondered if that survey had been made. I know once before, in one of these hearings, that was one of the questions that was asked at that time, and as I recall it, they did not have a survey of the number who did not have the franchise.

Mr. SUTER. We only have the Census Bureau estimate. In the census of 1930 there was a special questionnaire used in the District of Columbia to find out the people who had a vote elsewhere that they. had, within a reasonable time, exercised, and that report showed that there were only 15,105 who had a vote here which they had exercised recently.

That was 1930.

Senator WHERRY. Which they exercised.

Mr. SUTER. Which they had voted. Some of them cannot afford to go back to vote.

Senator WHERRY. That is right.

Mr. SUTER. We find in a study of absentee voting laws that different States vary. In some States they have to register in person and they can vote by mail; where in other States it is just the reverse and people living at a distance frequently find that they are unable to vote and of course that statement was challenged by our fellow ciizens who were very active in the two political parties, but some of them had to admit that some of the claims they were making were rather untenable. Senator WHERRY. I was just interested to know if there had been any survey made.

Mr. SUTER. The best figures we are able to get are contained in Mr. Noyes' statement.

Senator WHERRY. In the same article?
Mr. SUTER. Yes.

Senator HATCH. Who is your next witness, Mr. Suter?

Mr. SUTER. Now, Mr. Chairman, we have a witness here that I would like to put on now so that he may get away, one of our District boys who has just gotten back from the Southwest Pacific. He is undergoing some treatment in the Navy Hospital. Now, he has a brief statement he would like to make.

Lt. (jg) James S. Beattie, United States Navy, who is a Washingtonian, and has been active in this movement for some time.

Senator HATCH. Lieutenant Beattie, you may remain seated, if you desire; if you will come up here and take this chair, and be a little closer it might be better.

STATEMENT OF LT. (JG) JAMES S. BEATTIE, USN, OF

WASHINGTON, D. C.

Lieutenant BEATTIE. Gentlemen, I appear as a citizen of the District of Columbia. I have been here 32 years, except for my departure during the war. I have a few more trappings on than I used to wear several years ago when I walked down F Street in plain clothes, but I am the same fellow. There are about 75,000 of us from the District in the armed services; we have been in the same places; we have fought the same battles; we have sweltered in the same ships; we have wallowed in the same mire, and we have died the same death as have the men from your cities around the country.

We have Congressional Medal of Honor winners, Distinguished Service Crosses, and we have our share of awards, so that we can say that we have done our part, as have the citizens of the other cities in the country.

There is one great difference, however, and one which in any part of the war that I have visited I have found active, and that is that we were not fighting for a system of democracy to which we belonged. I do not mean we do not participate in the same glories of democracy, from the standpoint of commercial privileges and opportunities; but we have no place, we have no representative in the Government. When the time came last year for the members of the armed services to send in their ballots for votes, to write their Senators and their Congressmen for their various things, we were unable to take part.

To a sensitive American, that is quite an oversight.

The members of the armed services from the other States kidded us about it, frequently they classed us with the idiots and others who have no right to vote. And while I know they were kidding, the stigma was still there.

I have run into officers from England, Australia, the Netherlands, and the South American countries. At every opportunity I have tried to discuss the matter with them and get their viewpoint, but I have found that these men did not believe that such a condition exists in the United States, and I would find it hard to believe-were I on the outside that a country that fights so hard for the minority, for the democracies of the other countries over the world, allows the people in their own Capital no representation in government.

I had hoped when I returned this time from the last trip I made that this thing would have been threshed out here, and those who participated in this war would have an opportunity to participate in the next election.

I am sorry that that is not so, but there is still an opportunity because next year will be the first election since the war, and I hope that the Congress will make it possible for those who participated in this war to participate in the national election for the first time.

That is all that I have to say.

Senator HATCH. Any questions?

Senator WHERRY. I would like to ask a question that is entirely beside the point

[Applause.]

Senator HATCH. I do not know whether that applause is because you are going to ask a question beside the point, but I think I will take it as being for the lieutenant.

Senator WHERRY. All right. We will give him that applause 100 percent.

Did many of the boys that you came in contact with take advantage of the ballot?

Lieutenant BEATTIE. Yes, they did. There was a considerable political discussion.

Senator WHERRY. But they did take advantage of the ballot?
Lieutenant BEATTIE. Yes, they did, particularly those overseas.
Senator WHERRY. That is what I am interested in.

Lieutenant BEATTIE. Yes, sir.

Senator HATCH. Senator Moore?

Senator MOORE. I do not believe I have any questions.

I am very much impressed by the officer's statement.

Lieutenant BEATTIE. Thank you, sir.

Senator HATCH. You have made a good statement, Lieutenant. Democracies, as you know, are proverbially slow, and it may be that since this amendment was first considered in 1801, we just have not had time.

Lieutenant BEATTIE. I hope we will not ever fight any more wars. Senator HATCH. I hope so.

Thank you, Lieutenant; we are very glad you came here and that we have heard you.

Mr. Suter, who would you next like to call?

Mr. SUTER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to call Mr. Benjamin M. McKelway, president of the Washington Board of Trade.

Mr. McKELWAY. Mr. Chairman, I have a relatively brief statement which, if you will bear with me, I would like to read.

Senator HATCH. Proceed in your own way, Mr. McKelway.

STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN M. McKELWAY, PRESIDENT OF THE WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: My name is Benjamin M. McKelway and I appear here today as president of the Washington Board of Trade, with a membership of about 6,000 professional and businessmen of this city.

Representation in Congress and the electoral college for the District of Columbia has been favored as a basic principle by the Board of Trade for many years. The most recent action taken on this amendment was the unanimous vote last February of the board of directors endorsing the amendment and authorizing the president to appear in favor of it.

I shall be brief and address my remarks to a few points which other witnesses may not touch upon.

First, are the people of Washington in favor of this amendment? I am as certain as I am of anything that, given the opportunity to express themselves, they would answer by overwhelming affirmation. In 1938 an unofficial referendum was conducted by civic organizations on the question of local suffrage and national representation. The response about 13 to 1 in favor of representation in Congress and the electoral college, and about 7 to 1 in favor of local suffragewas impressive, but not nearly so impressive, in my opinion, as the fact that some 93,000 Washingtonians, lacking the benefit of all the traditional machinery and organization to stimulate voting, went to the makeshift polling places set up in the schools and voted. Their earnest sincerity in participating in this playacting, a fleeting substitute for the genuine rights which should be guaranteed to every American citizen, should be convincing enough to anybody of the demand here for voting participation in our Government.

A Member of Congress not long ago told me that he was not sure the "substantial citizens" of the District were in favor of the vote. I have heard the same suggestion before. I do not believe it is true and I regard it as a libel on the substantial citizens of Washington.

It may be that some Washingtonians, feeling very content with themselves and their influence in the world, may express skepticism as to the wisdom of letting the people of Washington vote.

But is that attitude confined to some Washingtonians? I have no doubt that substantial citizens in all parts of this country occasionally express doubt as to the wisdom of letting people vote-more specifically, perhaps, the wisdom of letting people vote as they do. No one objects in the abstract to people voting. The objection is to what the people might vote for. But it was decided many years ago in this country that objections based on that point of view are untenable.

Another Member of Congress has asked me why we do not put on some demonstration-turn on the heat, as he put it-that would stir up the matter in Congress.

Perhaps we ought to do more along that line. I know, as a newspaperman, just as you know, as Senators, that such demonstrations

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are not difficult to organize, if you have the money to hire the right organizers.

But we have always thought that this is a question which so eloquently calls for decision on its merits alone, and which should be discussed in all the dignity of the high principle at stake, that artificial and colorful demonstrations are unnecessary.

Our mere presence here today, meeting with United States Senators to discuss whether an intelligent community of American citizens should have voting representation in the American Government, presents one of the striking anomalies of our times.

The basic question is whether it is right for the people of the District of Columbia, the seat of Government of the United States, to be represented in that Government. I have never heard anybody argue convincingly that it was wrong. In fact, there are only a few who will publicly repudiate American principles by attempting to argue that it is wrong.

Our greatest foe is the force of inertia. By and large, that constitutes our opposition. I agree with what Representative Jennings Randolph, of West Virginia, told a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee last winter that if this question could ever be brought to the floor of either House the victory would be won.

But how are we to get it there, in the absence of pressure ourselves? Our only spokesmen in the Congress are those who, directly responsible to voting constituencies in the States, volunteer to speak for us.

That is why we are forced to rely so heavily on you gentlemendenied as we are, the practical means of reliance on ourselves. Unless you are moved by the desire-not merely the willingness to right a fundamental wrong, our cause continues to go unheeded.

It is a fundamental wrong. It is wrong to leave uncorrected an error of omission by the founding fathers who failed to provide a method by which the future inhabitants of a future seat of government-not established until 17 years after the Constitution was written-should vote.

It is wrong to govern a community of some 800,000 Americans without representatives of their own choosing in the councils of government. It is wrong to tax them and to send them to war without their consent. It is wrong to deny our people here in Washington all responsibility to their own Government, save the responsibility which others assign.

Congress will always retain, I hope, the exclusive legislative control over the seat of government. That is a wise provision of the Constitution which remains unaffected by this amendment. But Congress should have the right to admit to its membership and to the electoral college voting representatives chosen by the people of the District of Columbia.

That step alone would remedy at its source the greatest single deficiency in the present system under which this District is governed. It is a step that must be taken some day, but we believe the time for it to be taken is now.

Senator HATCH. Thank you very much, Mr. McKelway.
Who will be your next witness, Mr. Suter?

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