STATEMENT OF FRANK E. MONDAY OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. MONDAY. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee:

I would like to say in these comments that I am just a plain citizen. I have resided in the District since January 9, 1942. I make the comment and derive this letter of opinion from principally my reading the newspapers. I could probably have gotten ideas from Socrates or Plato, but I am not a reader in that scope. The point is that I have made an observation and I would like to talk as a citizen. I have changed my mind from being for home rule to now against home rule. The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to read your statement or place it in the record and talk off the cuff? How do you want to proceed?

Mr. MONDAY. I would like to read the statement, Mr. Chairman, and if you want to ask me questions afterwards I will be glad to respond. It is not intended to be derogatory in any way.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

My name is Frank E. Monday, a resident of the District of Columbia since January 1942. I live at 1447 Ridge Place, Southeast, Washington, D.C. I have worked 16 years for the Federal Government, several businesses and for a component of the poverty program of the District of Columbia. At the present time, I approve of the Mayor-Commissioner and City Council type of government in general.

Whereas at a previous period, I felt that the citizens of the District of Columbia should be granted home rule, now my opinions have changed. In 1966 it was my privilege to solicit several hundred dollars for the cause of home rule. In 1961 to 1963, I served as a precinct chairman for area, later to be known as precinct 114, later as chairman and elected War Chairman by the Democratic Central Committee over the Anacostia area covering nine political precincts.

In 1967, it was my pleasure to testify before Senator Tydings on Consumer legislation, especially on uniform interest charges on November 13, 1971, the Nelsen Committee on Efficiency of the District of Columbia Government allowed me to testify on Human Rights Commission, Corporation Counsel and so-called Neighborhood School

Plans.

REASONS FOR OPPOSING HOME RULE

I am opposed to home rule for the following reasons:

There has been a change of type for many of the residents now living in the District of Columbia. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, 67 percent are Negro principally, 29 percent are caucasian and about 4 percent are of other racial backgrounds. I doubt if the racial descent is of any significant effect on the need or needlessness for home rule. The principal change that has been brought about seems to relate to the increase in restlessness of youth and this effect on a growing elderly population. Under date of April 12, 1972, an article in the Washington Post purported to show that youth between the ages of 10 years to 17 years in the Nation had committed over 1,000,000 crimes in 1970, or a 10 percent increase since the year of 1969. The cities and adjacent suburban areas having the bulk of the population represented the locale where most of the crime was committed. This young segment of our population has a definite effect on the lives of the rest of the people, especially from the new born to age 9 years as well

as those between the ages of 18 years to the elderly. In other words, these youth from 10 to 17 years play a most vital part in our total society. Crime through drugs and lack of parental control especially effect all metropolitan areas, specially, Washington, D.C. This report was specifically shocking in that girls engaging in crime and being arrested for crime was 13 percent, and the boys represented a 7 percent increase between the year of 1969 and that of 1970. True, these youngsters under 18 years do not vote, but with their backgrounds-will they ever complete their schooling, will many of them be rehabilitated and what kind of government will they support when they reach the age of 18 years? Many or at least 14th of these youngsters have already reached voting age. The writer of the Washington Post article hoped that the average rate of increase in criminal arrest had reached its peak.

Whatever system is adopted, if any, should be made to conform to the wishes of the Congress and resort to being one of the departments of the City Government. This might also apply to the Corporation Counsel and to some extent the Recreation Department and a few more or less independent Commissions or Agencies.

The vast majority of the populace are opposed to such elements as communism, White or Black Pantherism, free love and lawlessness. A brilliant mind has or may conceive of a Utopia statehood between the Federal buildings: but I conceive of only gangland wars that would make Al Caponism or mafiaism come to being as the end result, or at least until that day when every person can be educated or trained to the height of his ability and capacity with careful screening so none would succumb or be indoctrinated by megalomaniacs or their ilk. But under present conditions, such a leadership under a State constitution would if approved by the Congress and the required 38 State legislatures cause a great deal of havoc and make it, the District of Columbia, dangerous for Americans as tourists to visit our great Capital City.

It would seem to me that the present alienation of the education system could be corrected by consolidation by the Mayor-Commissioner and the City Council under the direct legislative mandate of the United States Congress. The fact that there is some question about fiscal responsibility has put a heavy damper on all old line would-be home rulers. When it appears that the District of Columbia's favorite son can, taking this from newspapers, command nursery demonstrations, not knowing-the whys and the wherefors of their errand, to rudely castigate the establishment-something must be wrong with the home rule theme at this time, in this place, either in the field or at the bench, at the monuments surrounding the United States Capitol. As a convert to the Mayor-Commissioner-City Council-nonvoting delegate-Congress concept, I must say that in these trying times, we must work harder to build democracy with the machinery we now have—until such time we can know love and can trust all of our neighbors.

Concluding, in an all-in-the-family conception, please allow me to say, let us forget such entities as Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown or George Wallace and build or spread cement on the firm foundation. We now have a sensible start in Capital-area government as conceived by our forefathers and mothers. The avoidance of military allegiance

selfish separation identities that would slowly destroy our freedom and the democracy we have gained.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions?

Mrs. GREEN. I just have one.

VOTER PARTICIPATION

As a former precinct worker-how do you account for the fact that less than 10 percent of the voters turned out for the recent school board election, in the run-off election?

Mr. MONDAY. I think they were quite puzzled as to what they should do. It seemed like they were opposed to this bickering in the school board, and as such they didn't want to have anything to say about it. They avoided the issue rather, which means that they didn't want to engage in politics. The school board did not know whether they were opposed to anybody. My wife and I voted, but I know many people didn't vote on my street who ordinarily do vote. They said they weren't interested in the school board election. Yet they were the ones with school children. We don't have children right now. They are grown up. I would say maybe they thought there were too many different elements in the school board. Some weren't educationally prepared to be school board members. I don't know if that was the concept of very many or not. I would not say that, because I don't want to judge anybody else, but it was very obvious that they weren't interested in the school board election.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think those people have any right to criticize anyone, if they don't have courage to go out and vote to get rid of people who are not qualified? If I had children I would go and vote for somebody.

Mr. MONDAY. I think they should have expressed themselves, especially if they are looking forward to having home rule or self-government which I originally conceived of and went about personally soliciting. The home rule committee can testify that I gave between two and three hundred to the cause of solicitation, but since 1968 there seems to have been a change as I have expressed it here among youth, and yet I believe youth should have a say in the government. At least they should be heard. They were not allowed to vote in their younger days, but I think they should be given recognition, and have parental control which I sometimes doubt. When I walk my dogs I carry by police permission a little gas gun, and I guess almost everybody else can who wants to, but I have gained a lot of respect and I am known for many blocks around, perhaps because I was with the political organization previously, but I think mainly because I walk the dogs in quite a variety of areas, and originally was assaulted by stones and knocked down with a club once, and I decided to do something about it, as well as having a bullet pierce the top of the roof of my house which I discovered about a year later when I wondered where it was leaking. Also a BB gun penetrated a storm window. However, I think it is only a small group. It isn't a large group, but they have such control over the others at the school that it makes it impossible, so the teachers tell me, to maintain order.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. We appreciate your statement. The Committee stands adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 12 noon, the committee adjourned.)

HOME RULE BILLS

MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1972

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

Washington, D.C.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:40 a.m., in Room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Thomas G. Abernethy presiding.

Present: Representatives Abernethy (presiding), Jacobs, Cabell, Nelsen, Springer, Broyhill, Gude, and Delegate Fauntroy.

Also present: James T. Clark, Clerk; Hayden S. Garber, Counsel; Patrick E. Kelly, Assistant Counsel; Leonard O. Hilder, Legislative Assistant; and John Hogan, Minority Clerk.

Mr. ABERNETHY. The meeting will come to order.

Our first witness this morning is Mr. Fred Schwengel, a Member of Congress from Iowa.

STATEMENT OF HON. FRED SCHWENGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

Mr. SCHWENGEL. Mr. Chairman, because I have a very deep conviction about freedom and responsibilities for civil rights, and all these things, and because I think what we have in America is the greatest system ever seen, grown up around a thing called representative government, and because there seems a great like in the area for freedom in the area that is literally in the shadow of the freedom of the world, that the world knows.

During my years in Congress, I have introduced numerous bills providing for some measure of home rule in the District of Columbia and for some form of limited representation in Congress for the District. Basically, those bills would have given the District an elected government similar in form to that of a State, with Congress retaining most of its constitutionally designed legislative responsibilities over the District.

However, such bills would only expand, and not fully grant, the rights of citizenship to those so entitled in the District. The tempering influence of time, however, has moved me and others in Congress to consider a complete solution to the issue of how the constitutional relationship of Congress and the District should be altered.

STATEHOOD

Therefore, I have introduced a bill (H.R. 9197) to initiate the legislative mechanisms necessary to grant the District of Columbia Statehood. The establishment of this new "State of Columbia would mean that the citizens of the District would finally enjoy the full constitutional rights and responsibilities enjoyed by the citizens of the present 50 States of the Union. In addition, Statehood for the District would relieve Congress of the burdens of directly administering a city of nearly 800,000 inhabitants, thus enabling Congress to more fully concentrate its energies on the Nation's business.

This bill contains three major features which I will now briefly describe. First, it provides for a referendum in the District of Columbia on the following question:

"Shall the District of Columbia immediately be admitted to the Union as a State to be known as the State of Columbia?"

Secondly, another proposition to be judged in this referendum would mandate the calling of a special election for the purpose of electing delegates to a constitutional convention. This convention would devise a form of state government for the District and submit its proposed constitution to the Congress and the voters of the District for approval.

Thirdly, the referendum would contain a proposition mandating the establishment of a special commission whose duties are established as follows: "to conduct a full and complete study of the necessary and appropriate legislation or administrative actions that must be taken in order to facilitate the transfer of authority over the District of Columbia from the Federal government to the government of the State of Columbia."

The commission would probably recommend to the Congress that an amendment to the Constitution permitting statehood for the Dis trict be passed and submitted to the States for approval or, possibly. that Congress pass legislation that would redefine the boundaries of the District to include only a small federally enclave and admit the rest of the District as the "State of Columbia.”

Additional questions to be considered by this commission could involve such issues as the desirability of a flexible, but permanent, Federal revenue contribution to the District, in view of the vast amount of property owned therein by the Federal government and the significant numbers of international civil servants and diplomatic personnel who enjoy the services of the District but do not pay many of the taxes needed to support said services.

FEDERAL PAYMENT

The Senate District Committee has proposed two different plans for replacing the Federal payment. The Eagleton plan would have Congress pay the equivalent of local taxes on all federally owned property. The Mathias plan would have payment to 35 percent of the District budget in five years. Both of these plans would yield about the same amount of revenue; however, the Mathias plan would probably be more flexible over time.

Now, let's take a look at the practical benefits of statehood, first of all, to the District itself.